Yet, as you dive deeper into its dark caverns and sprawling alien cities, the game reveals a duality: it’s a technical marvel at first glance but begins to stumble as you push toward its conclusion.

Exploring the Abyss

You step into the shoes of Ben Mitchell, a deep-space scavenger who, alongside his AI sidekick Jonathan, finds himself on an alien world after being sucked through a wormhole. The central hook of Into Black is simple: explore, gather resources, upgrade your equipment, fight alien creatures, and try to repair your ship to escape. But this isn’t just a solo experience; you can bring along up to three friends to take on the campaign in co-op, adding a social dynamic to the core gameplay.

The game also offers several different modes. The main campaign propels you through caverns, magma chambers, sunken cities, and more, with Jonathan providing some humor and light commentary throughout the journey. Outside of the campaign, you’ve got resource-gathering missions, perfect for players who want to grind without focusing on the story. There’s also a PvPvE mode, “Singularity,” where 12 players battle it out in an ever-shrinking map, hunting for resources while fighting both aliens and each other. On paper, this package is immensely appealing—offering variety, action, and a healthy dose of replayability.

Mining for Gameplay Gold

The first thing that stands out in Into Black is the fluidity of movement. The Binary Mill’s VR pedigree is on full display as you run, jump, and shoot your way through a vast and dangerous landscape. The mechanics feel polished—there’s no jitter or clunkiness in how you interact with the world. The controls are intuitive and smooth, making even the most mundane actions, like mining for resources, feel satisfying.

Shooting in Into Black is a real treat. You get an array of weapons—pistol, shotgun, SMG, and even a returning axe that gives off major God of War vibes. The game also doesn’t shy away from borrowing mechanics from other iconic games. You’ve got Gears of War’s quick reload system, Super Mario-esque mushroom bouncing, and some clever nods to other classics scattered throughout.

That said, the gameplay does start to show cracks. While the shooting feels good, the combat loop does wear thin after prolonged play. Boss fights, in particular, are disappointingly lackluster—these bullet-sponge encounters drag on and don’t offer much in the way of tactical depth. You’re left dodging projectiles and pumping rounds into alien statues that hardly animate. It’s a shame because the game’s combat has such potential, but these moments feel undercooked.

Cavernous Eye Candy

Graphically, Into Black is an absolute stunner. The stylized visuals work wonders in VR, especially when combined with the game’s fantastic lighting effects. One of the most memorable moments comes early on, when you fire a flare into a cavern and watch it illuminate the alien landscape in real time. It’s breathtaking. The game’s biomes are varied—magma chambers, ancient alien ruins, and underwater caverns all offer a sense of discovery that keeps things feeling fresh, at least for a while.

However, the longer you play, the more technical issues you encounter. There are bugs—literal and figurative—clipping through walls, getting stuck in the environment, or not reacting properly to the game’s physics. I’ve had moments where a teammate in co-op would suddenly start levitating, or plants would hover slightly above the ground, which chips away at the game’s initial immersion. These bugs are jarring, especially when you’re playing a game that feels so polished at the start.

Stand Up Jonathan

Audio in Into Black has its highs and lows. The standout here is Jonathan, your trusty AI companion. His witty banter and occasional comic relief do wonders to break up the sometimes bleak atmosphere of the game. Some players have even confused his voice for that of our very own Pete Austin from 6DOF Reviews! The weapon sound design is punchy and satisfying—guns sound like they have weight, and the feedback you get when firing is palpable.

But the game stumbles when it comes to music. The soundtrack is repetitive, especially during combat encounters where you’re fed the same adrenaline-pumping track over and over again. This repetitive score feels like a missed opportunity to enhance the emotional beats or dramatic moments in the game.

Bugged Out, Blacked Out

The deeper you get into Into Black, the more it feels like the game is held together by duct tape. Small issues accumulate: creatures glitch out, environmental elements don’t react as they should, and some aspects of the game design feel underdeveloped. The puzzles, for example, could have been a great way to break up the action, but they remain simplistic throughout the entire game. There’s no ramp in difficulty, and they often feel more like time fillers than real brain teasers.

Fabricating resources, a crucial aspect of upgrading your gear, becomes an absolute chore as well. The interface doesn’t allow for batch crafting, forcing you to sit through long animations for each individual item. It’s an incredibly tedious process that really grinds down the pace【31†source】.

Long Play, Short Patience

On the plus side, Into Black offers a lot of content. Between the main campaign, the co-op options, and the PvPvE mode, there’s plenty to keep you engaged for dozens of hours. But as mentioned, the longer you play, the more the game’s flaws start to reveal themselves. There’s a real sense that the scaffolding holding this experience together could use some more structural support.

Into the Light, but Not Quite

Into Black starts out like a dream—fantastic mechanics, gorgeous environments, and charming voice work. The experience is immersive and addictive, sucking you into its alien world with blistering confidence. However, the deeper you go, the more the game starts to feel like it’s losing its grip. Bugs, repetitive music, and lackluster boss fights prevent it from achieving greatness.

Still, all these issues, apart from maybe the dull boss battles, are fixable, and if The Binary Mill supports the game with patches, Into Black could easily rise to become a standout in the VR world. If you’re seeing this review after those updates, consider it an 8.5/10, but for now, it’s not quite there.

As a genre, the roguelike is not well known for its narrative delivery. Most iterations offer flimsy reasoning as to why the player keeps regenerating, traditionally trading storytelling for action. Ghost Signal, however, does an excellent job of creating a compelling reason to keep playing from a narrative standpoint. Story components are nudged along in a way that both justifies the gameplay repetition and dangles the carrot of an evolving mystery, keeping the player engaged as details of the cosmic anomaly are discovered.

In addition to thematic evolutions, there are gameplay variations on the basic theme waiting for those skillful enough to complete a run. Ghost Signal has a clever hook to keep players coming back for more and although it took me hours to complete my first run, it became clear after that initial success that I was far from completing the game.

It is difficult to say more here without risking spoilers, but suffice it to say that Ghost Signal is far from a “one-and-done” experience.

The Far Side

The core gameplay that makes up the bulk of the time spent in Ghost Signal is centred around the player navigating the Aurora through a series of pitched battles across the solar system. Each new sector will provide a specific encounter, from standard battles against hostile intergalactic forces to trading ships and even facing off against planet-sized space beasties.

The roguelike elements of Ghost Signal are a relative masterclass. The progression system is well-developed and accessible, allowing players to take control over the way they wish to enhance future sessions without getting bogged down in “the grind”. Currency earned in each run allows for upgrades to be purchased which will remain persistent across each attempt. These points are well balanced, coming easily enough that rewards can be accessed frequently but not so cheaply as to become irrelevant.

As a counterpoint, there is a noteworthy perk system that ensures players will treat each run as unique. Within each attempt, a different array of perks (and detriments) will be available depending on the creatures and carnage that the player encounters. These can stack up to give players a devastating advantage or combine in unique ways which may prescribe a completely different play style from the last. It is as engaging and well-conceived as any other system in the genre and a real highlight of the game.

Look At All The Stars

Ghost Signal has an intuitive control system and within a fairly small learning curve players will expertly trace flight paths through the stars. The Aurora is armed with shields, boost thrusters and three weapon types each with specific strengths and weaknesses. In the sectors that involve combat, balancing these elements against increasingly difficult waves of foes provides an addictive dance in tactical destruction. Up to a point that is…

The basic gameplay in Ghost Signal is very good. So good in fact that I happily put over four hours into the game before the initial allure began to wear off and I began to focus on what was missing more than what was on offer. While the roguelike elements of the game are truly excellent and the action is initially exciting, eventually the combat begins to feel a little repetitive and unfortunately shallow as a result.

The moments that prove most satisfying are those where you are switching deftly between the weapons and manoeuvring through the chaos of the fight. In the heat of battle, balancing all the interactive components requires concentration and agile use of the controls and in these moments Ghost Signal is fantastic. However, there is not actually a lot that you and your ship can actually do, and after several hours in the game, the combat devolves into a reproduction of the same tactics things over and over again. Sadly there just aren’t enough “moves” to keep your strategies fresh and well before the game is fully complete the initial shine wears off.

With just a few more interactive components, Ghost Signal could have been absolutely amazing. All the bones of something outstanding are there, but it feels as though the main combat is just slightly underbaked. The addition of a few more evasive manoeuvres or the ability to direct shields towards certain quadrants of your ship and the cognitive balance would have tipped towards a more engaging long-term experience.

Similarly, the giant planet-sized beasties that inhabit the universe represent another missed opportunity. While they (generally) look great, they are largely decorative and with a few rare exceptions these enormous creatures offer nothing in terms of interactive gameplay. It seems such a waste to encounter so many giant creatures but have almost none of them present much more than an obtuse environmental threat.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

Like so many games set in the void of space, Ghost Signal struggles to create a visual environment of meaningful interactions. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good-looking game that does admirably to hide its playable area within a well-wrought skybox, but trying to make the vast vacuum of space feel grounded and immersive is challenging, to say the least.

The planet-sized creatures and space stations that make up the background elements look appropriately grand, but they highlight how little environmental interaction has been fused into the gameplay. The immediate environments that the combat inhabits are strewn with asteroids which can be used tactically and create a usable sense of physicality, but as the only visual offering in the actual game space, they feel far too sparse.

Ghost Signal could be greatly improved with sectors that incorporate more direct environmental challenges. Battles which rage around or inside the carcass of a deceased monster or the decrepit remains of a once-thriving space station would have been a vast improvement. Sadly this lack of visual panache translates directly to a lack of gameplay options and Ghost Signal suffers both visually and fundamentally because of it.

Depicting the empty void of space may work from an atmospheric point of view but immersive gameplay demands a more creative approach to the way that deep space can be interacted with.

The Final Frontier

Ghost Signal is a thoroughly enjoyable space roguelike that excels in a lot of areas, but ultimately falls short of excellence. Delivering an outstanding story for the roguelike action to exist in, with truly excellent progression and perk systems in play, it is easy to recommend as being well worth the humble price of admission. However, with combat mechanics that a slightly too shallow to fully capitalise on the otherwise exceptional elements on offer, Ghost Signal drifts into the inky void long before it has the chance to live up to its considerable potential.

Having grown up loving games like StarStrike II on the ZX Spectrum and Star Voyager on the NES, I’ve sorely missed the genre. Therefore I was pretty excited to see if Anshar 2: Hyperdrive could rekindle my love affair with the space combat genre.

Vomit Comet

Everything in Anshar 2: Hyperdrive will, on the surface, be familiar to anyone who has played Anshar Wars 2. The story appears unchanged, and the visuals, while undoubtedly a little shinier in terms of texture resolution and lighting effects, are similar. You may be wondering what there is to get excited about in this ‘Hyperdrive’ edition of a 4-year-old game. The answer is simple: Anshar Wars 2 was a three-degrees-of-freedom experience, whereas Hyperdrive uses all six.

The difference this makes is revolutionary. Bringing current-gen 6DoF to Hyperdrive makes this the first time Anshar, an IP born and raised in the medium, has actually been a ‘proper’ VR experience.

The game begins with a potted history of the Anshar/Nergal war in which you, an unnamed pilot, are a new recruit. A brief tutorial level then introduces you to the fundamentals before it’s straight into the action.

The control options in Hyperdrive are vast. Each axis can be mapped to either stick or full accelerometer controls with either controller. Various degrees of snap-turning are available. Aiming for both your primary and secondary weapons can be similarly configured or linked to your head movement. Triggers for these weapons can also be assigned independently.

The individual elements may not sound much in isolation, but together they offer the ability to combine buttons, sticks, head tracking, and accelerometer controls in ways that will enable any player to find a set-up that suits them perfectly – and that’s before we’ve even gone into the choice of third or first-person view.

Which of these two perspectives you chose will be down to personal preference. The third-person view appears to be the more popular option, but I found the craft’s position on screen both distracting and awkward to manoeuvre when navigating insta-death asteroid fields. The first-person option offers a lot more immersion at the possible price of what is politely called ‘comfort’ and less politely called ‘vomiting on your shoes.’

Despite the science of ‘VR Discomfort’ being relatively well understood, my experience was somewhat less predictable. I once deposited my lunch into a bin while 10 pin bowling in Rec Room. Yet, somehow, skimming the hull of an enemy mothership, gunning down highly manoeuvrable fighters, spinning around to defend myself from artillery, and then pulling a loop back to finish off a turret whilst playing Hyperdrive inflicted upon me no ill effects whatsoever. You may not be so lucky, and that would be a shame because as good as the third-person mode is, playing this game in first-person using motion-controls as the flight stick is some of the best fun I’ve had in VR yet. 

Starry-eyed surprise

Fun, I think, is the perfect yardstick by which to measure Hyperdrive.

Star Wars Squadrons is clearly the big show in VR when it comes to Space Combat Simulators, and there’s little doubt that the EA & Lucasarts’ product has bigger, more realistic visuals and benefits from a vast fanbase and an equally vast budget. But OZWE, a Swiss developer consisting of 12 people and a dog called Basil, have produced a game that is simply more fun to play.

The visuals may render everything in a slightly chunky toy box style that threatens to expose the series origins in mobile VR, but the levels bring creativity and a consistent style that can’t be ignored. Even with the ostensibly low polygon count on offer, these developers often pull together scenes and vistas that are much more than the sum of their parts, and the multiple spacecraft you have to control throughout the game are unique and very well designed. Especially in first-person, the interstellar dogfights and large scale battles are vividly brought into (virtual) reality in a way that I could only imagine as a child.

Audio too is delivered with no small amount of class. 

Music is as bombastic as it needs to be given the dramatic context, and the spatial audio used for the sound effects is a real treat. It serves as a great assist in the heat of battle and plays no small part in the immersion of the first-person mode.

Urgent, in-game radio chatter is supplemented by further exposition between levels. While the comic book style is simple, and quite a few phrases are repeated, it serves its purpose well. The voice acting is exactly the kind of slightly melodramatic nonsense I want in a game about gunning down alien baddies from inside my brightly coloured space jet. 

Why so Sirius?

All this fun makes it difficult to be objective about the game’s flaws because it feels a bit like kicking an excitable puppy. Still, you will encounter a few issues that impact the experience.

The biggest of these is the game’s inconsistent checkpoint system. Sometimes there are plentiful waypoints in a mission, and other times there are none at all. As early as the third mission, you’re tasked with taking down an enormous enemy command ship. This task is quite clearly delineated into 4 sections – and yet offers not a single checkpoint.

When you’ve figured out how to beat them, most of the game’s missions are fairly short and can be beaten in around 5 minutes. But it’s very rare to achieve this on the first try. Usually, it’ll take quite a few attempts to work out the correct approach to a level. 

Another issue is that there are occasions when progression objectives aren’t entirely clear. You quickly learn to pay close attention to the instructions imparted over the radio. The instructions aren’t usually repeated, and there isn’t a log to refer to if you miss something.

Bang for your Star-buck

The single-player story mode is divided into thirteen levels. There’s no escaping that this alone doesn’t offer space opera longevity, but each mission has an optional time goal and sub-objective that, together, provide a good amount of replayability. A lot of the missions you’ll want to enjoy again anyway, so having these extra targets to aim for while you do is very welcome. I think that a short game you’ll play many times is better than a long one you’ll play once, and Anshar 2: Hyperdrive falls very much into the former category.

There are also three multiplayer modes to explore. Somewhat predictably for a less than high profile game on the Quest, each of the Battle Royale, Death Match and Co-op modes are pretty sparsely populated. Matchmaking is either non-existent or rendered useless by the low player counts on the servers. When I have found games to join, it’s been a fun time, and the atmosphere has been notably good-humoured. 

There’s a small dedicated community attached to Anshar Wars that is very welcoming but, through no fault of their own, its members are very good at the game. This can prove intimidating for newcomers in the competitive modes. Death Match plays out as you would imagine, as does the Battle Royale mode. Still, the issue of low player numbers (at least in my experience) is a bigger problem here than elsewhere. 

Co-op is currently a single one-off mission where those highly skilled players are very welcome, but as much as the addition of some new features such as special icons to collect and explosive enemy defence tactics are great in theory, they’re never really explained and in some cases their effect isn’t apparent. New maps and other updates are planned for all multiplayer modes, but I think uptake will need to increase by a fair amount if they are ever to see the light of day.

My god, it’s full of stars!

There’s no hiding from the fact that Anshar 2: Hyperdrive is definitely not a mega-budget Space Combat game pushing the limits of VR. However, it’s ridiculous to judge things based on what they’re not instead of what they are – and what this game is, is terrific fun.

Each potential technical negative is mitigated through personality and character: The graphics are simple, but the art direction is elegant. The story is mired in tropes, but the delivery is endearing. The number of levels is small, but they offer enormous variety. The duration of the missions may be short, but the urge to replay them is strong and well rewarded.

Because of the sparsely populated multiplayer servers, I would broach caution if random multiplayer is a priority for you, but the single-player campaign alone is worth every penny of the fifteen quid asking price.

Eternal Starlight of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Starlight is a space-themed strategy game that sees the player attempt to defend mankind’s claim to Proxima, a planet representing our last hope of survival. The story details humanity’s inevitable destruction of Earth and our equally inevitable pilgrimage into the stars to find a new home. Enter Proxima. Of course, we are not alone in our desire for this life-sustaining planet, and the warlike Kraya are hell-bent on clearing the “Terran scum” out of the region. 

The crux of the campaign essentially sees the player embarking on a series of micro missions, attempting to build resources and alliances that will help in the next looming confrontation with the Kraya. The player is free to choose which of the randomly generated missions to pursue based on the resources, items, and potential alliances to be earned. Thus, these missions are more like combat vignettes than actual missions. Most of them are over in an anti-climactically short time. Once complete, resources can then be spent on upgrading your flagship vessel or purchasing auxiliary vessels to bolster your armada.

But be careful – because defeat comes at a high cost.

Fire Photon torpedoes when ready!

The gameplay in Eternal Starlight sees the player take control of an initially tiny fleet consisting of your main flagship vessel and a small fighter. You control these ships by grabbing them and tracing the path you would like them to fly or highlighting the enemy craft you want them to attack. It’s reasonably intuitive, and for anyone who has played the outstanding Final Assault will come very naturally. 

Both the pace and the game’s scale can be manipulated to suit the players’ needs throughout the battle. At any given point, you can slow the action down to strategise and then put some manoeuvres into action. Also, using simple gestures, you can expand and contract the scale of the battle to allow you a tactile degree of control over your vantage point throughout the combat. While this sounds great in theory, the implementation is sadly lacking in Eternal Starlight. 

The speed with which crafts traverse the expanse of space during combat is far too quick to allow for any effective use of the zoomed-in viewpoint. The exception to this is when you’re targeting specific enemy systems. Although cool in theory, this feature can only be manipulated through a cumbersome process; slowing time, zooming in and selecting the target ship, then targeting the desired system, then expanding back out to a scale that allows some level of tactical control. Unfortunately, this process is required every time you want to target specific systems. On paper, the system seems great, but in practice, it just adds a tedious stop/start component that makes combat feels stilted and swiftly becomes a chore.

Similarly, the controls for this world-shifting are missing one of the most obviously necessary functions. That is, to be able to rotate the world around you. Unlike the excellent control system employed by Demeo, which allows the camera to effortlessly and intuitively be turned around the horizontal plane, Eternal Starlight offers no such mechanism. To shift your view along this axis, you need to physically move in virtual space or use the thumbsticks to spin the world in a broad and disorienting arc. 

Given that the perfect model for this system exists elsewhere in numerous incarnations, it is frustrating, bordering on unforgivable, to have it so poorly implemented here.

Death By Alien

Like all good roguelikes, Eternal Starlight builds tension by employing the ever-present threat of permadeath. That’s right, fail the mission, and you can lick your wounds and try again, but lose your flagship, and it’s “game over man!”. Now I’m generally I pretty big fan of roguelikes, but there’s something about it that just doesn’t work in Eternal Starlight.

But I’ll get to that later…

Eternal Starlight also has a Skirmish mode available, which allows the player to create custom battles from all the unlocked craft available. Utilising a point system, the player can face off against a fleet of up to six ships. This is, quite frankly, the most enjoyable part of the game. Once some of the more interesting ships have been unlocked, this mode provides a proving ground for your tactical proficiency and offers some higher intensity action. Had the rest of the missions felt a bit more like Skirmish, then this review may well have gone a little differently.

Deep Space

Eternal Starlight has a deep and varied progression system that could have made it a real star had a few alternative design choices been made. There are multiple branching tech upgrades, allowing you to either enhance a single vessel or purchase an armada of smaller vessels. The options are wide-ranging and interesting and, when deployed correctly, add a decent amount of tactical depth to the gameplay. In addition, there is a range of specialisations within each tech branch, each randomly generated for the current playthrough. This variety ensures that no two runs are the same and forces you to adopt a somewhat different strategy every time you play.

Each of your main ships can be upgraded with specific modifiers, additional weapons and weapons slots, as well as fantastic new special abilities. The combination of these elements will change the way you approach missions significantly. This means that each run can be played repeatedly thanks to the procedural generation of missions, rewards, and perks. Again, this sounds great in theory; however…

The rewards gained throughout each run are so miserly that it becomes either tedious or impossible to draw out the best elements of the game. Additionally, given that there is little lasting benefit carried over into future rounds, you have a recipe for disappointment and frustration.

You find yourself studying the various branching technology trees available, wish-listing a path and a strategy that you might like to employ. Then you’ll realise, after a few missions, that to earn enough currency to implement your strategy, you would need to complete the whole game three times over. The difficulty curve also escalates disproportionately with your access to enhanced gear. This means that after being frustrated that you can’t afford to buy anything good, you’ll just get blasted into space dust all over again. Another chance to wallow in the knowledge that you’ll have to start the whole bloody thing again. It’s maddening!

Good roguelikes (In Death: Unchained, I’m looking at you) reward each playthrough with a little something to take into the next run. This builds the gameplay loop’s depth and the difficulty over time and gives the player a reason to keep coming back. Eternal Starlight, however, does none of that and consequently would actually have been better served as a standard campaign-style RTS. As it is, Eternal Starlight artfully dodges the best elements of the roguelike genre and manages to catch only its most frustrating traits. As a result, Eternal Starlight feels like the Star Shaman of the RTS world in many ways, as it suffers from almost the exact same raft of problems.

Star Shrek

Eternal Starlight is an ugly looking game, but it has layers. 

The overall visual presentation of Eternal Starlight is regrettably lacking in polish and depth. The world away from the core gameplay sees the player on the ship’s bridge or in their living quarters. Unfortunately, these environments just seem flat and unrefined. The characters that appear on your comms screen are also delivered with a retro-style aesthetic that doesn’t land as stylised but instead comes across as poorly executed.

The actual gameplay is obviously set in the expanse of deep space, so backgrounds are understandably barren. However, this isn’t compensated for by detailed, textured models for the various crafts, nor were the graphical resources spent on lighting and effects for the weapons.

Graphically, Eternal Starlight is serviceable at best. The visuals don’t hurt the gameplay, but they also don’t give the player the sense of awe one might have hoped for from a game set in the vast, inky void of the cosmos.

The sound in Eternal Starlight is the weakest component of the game and really let the game down. The sound effects are perfectly acceptable, with a decent array of zaps and pews and kabooms that sell in a decently convincing sense of futuristic space combat, but sadly that’s where the praise for the audio ends. 

The ambient music is rather monotonous and does little to convey a sense of urgency or tension throughout the brief combat encounters. It’s not distracting, but it adds so little to the game that, to a degree, it may as well not even be there. 

The voice-over, or rather the abject lack of it, is where the biggest problems occur. There is some dialogue between the player and the various other characters in between every cut scene, all delivered via text. While the text plays out, the character offers a sound bite, like “We don’t have much time”, but there is only one such recording per character, and it plays every time they are on screen. This happens regardless of the context of the dialogue. It is distractingly lacking to the point of being immersion-breaking and, unfortunately, screams of a production that lacked the experience and budget to deliver this element to a benchmark standard. 

CONCLUSION

Eternal Starlight is an ambitious attempt at combining the RTS and Roguelike genres that sadly fails to deliver on the enormous potential of the concept. The game offers a profound system of branching tech upgrades that could have been amazing if coupled with more extended missions and more accessible resource management. As it stands, the vignette style 3-minute mini-missions create a disjointed experience that prevents the player from immersing themselves in action.

The Quest library desperately needs something to fill its gaping RTS shaped void, but sadly Eternal Starlight just isn’t it. That said, it’s not entirely devoid of positive elements, so genre enthusiasts may still find some fun to be had. For everyone else, I suggest that we all keep praying to the Oculus Gods for a port of the amazing Brass Tactics.

A: Let’s do a platformer in VR
B: Platformers are dumb.
A: Ok, let’s do a puzzle game where the puzzles are based on the physical environment.
B: Puzzle games are boring.
A: Ok, let’s do a Spider-Man clone but set in space and with funny Russian accents?
B: Russian accents are stupid.
A: Dude, I hate you. You’re fired. Also, I’m going to do all of those things at the same time. Later, dweeb. 

And thus, Yupitergrad was (possibly) born. After a successful launch on PCVR, indie developers Gamedust have been given the green light to port their swinging space puzzler over to the Quest. Will this quirky platform puzzler swing its way into your game rotation, or will it fly face-first into the giant spinning fans of obscurity? Come Komrade, let us go to mighty Soviet space station and find out…

Solo Swingers Party

I should begin with a revelation. I am a swinger. 

Now, before shock overwhelms you and you reach for the ornate paper hand fan kept in your drawer for just such an occasion, let me clarify. No, I am not somewhere in suburban middle England, putting my keys in a bowl and going home with your neighbour’s wife (lovely though she may be). However, I am exceptionally excited by any game that makes me feel even a little like Spider-Man. So, given the opportunity to play “Komrade Spidey and the Imploding Space Station of Doom” (aka Yupitergrad) I was enthusiastic, to say the least.

Yupitergrad is a charming tongue in cheek game that puts the player in the role of a lone Russian cosmonaut tasked with maintaining a Cold War-era space station whilst the entire crew is on holiday. Seems reasonable, right? Armed with a set of “high tech” retractable plungers, you must swing your way around the station, avoiding a multitude of deadly obstacles and solving puzzles as you go.

In terms of story, there really isn’t much more than that. To be honest, neither is there a great deal more in the gameplay department. What Yupitergrad does have, though, is a well-realised set of mechanics that are intuitively enjoyable and a premise that doesn’t take itself seriously. Sitting somewhere between a platformer, a puzzle game, and a shameless Spider-Man clone, Yupitergrad is simple, swinging fun. It is uncomplicated in its intent and allows the player to enjoy the game for what it is, and in that context, it works.

The Amazing Plunger-Man

Apparently, when you build a space station, one of the first things you need to consider is the placement of an elaborate series of deadly traps. Never having built a space station myself, I did not know this. I look forward to my new career in internal torture design.

The core conceit at the heart of Yupitergrad is that to get from one area to the next, you must swing past a series of deadly obstacles that revolve, swing, crush, and immolate with wild abandon. Each section of the corridors has its own set of traps, which get quicker or more numerous as you progress. Although some traps require relatively simple movements to overcome, others call on feats of near Jedi-like instincts and timing if you’re to survive. 

In addition to your trusty plungers, you also have a set of wrist-mounted jets. These jets help you steer, but can also keep you in the air just long enough to make some last-ditch plunger shots, possibly saving you from certain doom. All in all, the two locomotion methods work well together and once you get the hang of it, can be used in conjunction to great effect.

The difficulty curve is fair and rewarding. There is immense satisfaction to be had as you begin to master the mechanics of the game. Combining the jets and grapple mechanics seamlessly feels great. Once you get a rhythm going, there is a fluidity in the gameplay that few other games can offer. I was often put in mind of the best elements of To the Top.

Several times, trying to slowly navigate the intricate series of traps resulted in constant death. In these instances, swinging forward at top speed and trusting instinct above intent made all the difference. These were the most joyful moments of the game.

From Russia with Plunge

It would seem that many developers have realised that cell-shaded art is a fairly safe bet for the Quest, and Yupitergrad takes advantage of this. Visually, Yupitergrad uses this popular style to good effect, with a mix of gloomy atmospherics interspersed with vibrant pops of colour that weave a simple but effective visual landscape. It all just works, and the art style is well suited to the game’s tone and pace. Unfortunately, despite smart art direction and a mass of whirly death machines, the space station’s interior isn’t going to be featured on Grand Designs. The corridors and antechambers are all a bit samey, and although it works in context, it can get a bit monotonous after a while.

The soundscape provided by Yupitergrad is quite deliberately underwhelming, which isn’t exactly the criticism that it may sound like. The often sparse audio backdrop really sells the sense of being the only person left swinging around the empty, cavernous halls of the station. While this is well delivered and atmospheric, unfortunately, it gets a little dull after a while. A few upbeat moments in the campaign feature some well-mixed soviet influences weaved throughout the music. However, I did feel that the sound design could have been a little more playful for a game with such a glib narrative. But this is a very minor complaint.

Where the sound really shines though, is in the excellent time attack mode. Each of the levels you face in this mode has its own darkly electronic beats, subconsciously moving you faster and faster through the twisting, trap-laden halls. It really is well done, with each track capturing the frenzied essence of what this game mode is about, a fact made even more enjoyable as a counterpoint to the predominantly atmospheric audio of the campaign.

Quit Stalin, Go Faster, Komrade!

Had Gamedust left Yupitergrad after completing the campaign mode and headed down the pub for a self-congratulatory pint, this review would have ended with a much lower score. At around two to two and a half hours to complete, this is a game that will undoubtedly spark another Reddit tirade about the length of titles on the Quest. Thankfully, they didn’t, and for my money, the Time-Attack mode is where the game really shines. 

Once you finish the fun (but short) campaign, there really isn’t much reason to go back in and play through it again. However, the Time Attack mode has loads of replayability for those who find a flow state with the game’s swinging mechanics. In Time Attack mode, Yupitergrad can be annoyingly addictive, and you’ll find yourself looping back for “just one more run” to try and beat your best time. At the time of reviewing, there were no leaderboards available on the Quest version, but the addition of this feature will give score chasers all the reasons that they need to keep jumping back in time and time again. 

Swinging Without a Safety Njet

Yupitergrad is an enjoyable puzzle swinger that offers an accessible mix of skill-based action and spatial puzzling. The game is well-conceived, and the movement mechanics lay at its heart, and it’s supported by some fairly light puzzles. What it does, it does very well, but it doesn’t offer too much in the way of variety, and some may find it gets stale quickly.

Players who enjoy unique movement systems, quick play sessions, and score-chasing, will probably love Yupitergrad. However, if you’re looking for a meaty story and a variety of play mechanics, you may find it a little too shallow.

Space Invaders

Titans of Space PLUS is an elegant guided tour of our solar system, stopping at planets, moons, and a few major asteroids. You are placed in a miniature spacecraft, with large windows that let you take in some epic views, accompanied by a dramatic orchestral score. At each stop, you can view some key facts, apply map layovers showing the terrain, and spin the globes or hold them in your hand for a closer look.

A shortened, 20-minute tour focuses mainly on planets, while the longer 35-minute tour hits all the stops. After viewing the solar system, you’ll visit a few giant stars that are thousands of times larger than our Sun. Or more precisely, those giant stars will come to you, and you can get a glimpse of what our solar system would look like with a blue supergiant like Rigel at the center.

Keep Your Hands Inside The Tour Bus

Some of the stops on this tour are more impressive than others. When you reach Saturn, for example, you can actually exit the craft and jet around the rings in zero-G, which is a truly inspiring feeling. Often, though, you’ll be patiently reading scientific bullet points, like you’re stuck inside an epic, immersive PowerPoint presentation.

Titans of Space PLUS is a lot like an enjoyable IMAX movie at a museum. It’s educational, a bit jaw-dropping at times, and worth the price of admission. Once you’re done with the tour, though, there’s nothing else to do except take the ride again.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy

If you’re looking for a little more range in your space apps, consider purchasing Star Chart as well, which also shows you constellations and some VR scenes set on Mars and the Moon. Like Titans of Space PLUS, Star Chart has a guided tour of the solar system called the Orrey, but it’s not as majestic or insightful as Titans’ experience.

The two apps together, though, are a decent first attempt at a comprehensive, interactive space tour that both educates and enthralls. Neither app has it all on its own, so any potential armchair astronomer might consider purchasing both.

 USE THE FORCE, AND THE SPOILER TAG

We’re going to try and avoid spoilers for a game which is both story-based and very, very short – so forgive me if this sounds vague, but we don’t want to mar your enjoyment should you choose to buy the game. Episode 2 immediately takes up the story where Episode I left off, and it doesn’t hang about. It’s a minute or so into the game before Darth Vader is teaching you to harness the Force, mainly for moving and throwing things. Initially, this felt like it could have been the extra hook that the first game lacked. The format remains mostly unchanged from the first title – mostly some basic interactions and combat while moving through a series of rooms. If you’ve played Episode 1, you’ll know the drill. There’s perhaps a little more excitement and spectacle in this instalment, given the threats you face and the inclusion of fledgeling Force powers. It’s undeniably fun lobbing rocks about and throwing droids down holes… While it lasts. 

I FIND YOUR LACK OF CONTENT DISTURBING

I know that this is, in the scheme of things, at the cheaper end of content in the Oculus Store, coming in at £7.99/$10. I know that it’s meant to be played as an episode of an ongoing narrative and is intended to be more of an experience than a full-fat game. Even so, the story in this episode is very, very slight, and some of the beats miss entirely. 

In a very short running time, the title manages to contain both action scenes which are over too fast, and longeurs where you’re just staring at the (admittedly impressive) scenery whilst not doing anything except listening to people talk. The pacing is rubbish, and the joyfully great bits are over far too quickly and also plagued with technical issues and design problems which threaten to ruin the experience.

RISE OF THE ROOMWALKER

We’ll talk about the technical issues shortly. Some of those can be patched out, I’m sure, but the identity crisis at the heart of the game is a fundamental design problem. In short, it doesn’t know whether it’s offering the player a game or a vaguely interactive experience. The first episode could be forgiven for this, as it may have been many people’s first experience of VR. So the gameplay is not too challenging, and the interactions show off the magic of VR whilst not being too taxing. However, in this title, there are clear signs that they want to give the player more agency this time around. 

There are free locomotion options, but you still have to stand on certain marks to trigger the next (half-interactive) bit of story. You’ll hardly be roaming far. Also, the option for smooth turning is still incremental, moving the player in snap rotation but with a smoother transition. 

The game does everything it can to frustrate the sense of freedom that VR should bring. Stand there, do that. Ridiculous ‘return to the game area’ messages still appear should you stray from the very narrow path the game dictates, which is nonsensical for untethered, room-scale VR. At times, and this is most aggravating of all, the game will even turn you around or put you in a different spot by fading out to black briefly, so it can place you where it wants you to be. It’s really jarring and far more egregious than in the first game. 

The inclusion of Force powers really makes the design of the format strain. At times it’s incredibly empowering. It’s hard not to giggle with delight as you pick up a battle droid and hurl it down a fissure to be consumed with lava, or throw it at another droid and watch them both crumple. Then it’s over in a blink, and you’re back to trudging to the next marker on the floor. It promises freedom and creativity, like you’re going to be in a Jedi remix of Robo Recall, and then takes it all away. 

Also, it’s a lovely novelty that all the touch controller buttons make the fingers of your virtual hands clench, but it makes you feel like a right Jar-Jar when you’re force-grabbing a droid out of thin air and find yourself inadvertently doing a double thumbs-up.

All of this wouldn’t be so galling if the story were interesting. It just feels like a loose filler for a couple of set pieces, and then a set up for the next episode. A short story needn’t be a slight one. While we’re there, I have to say that I found Scott Lawrence’s performance as Vader a little bland and underwhelming. I can’t help but think that Matt Sloan (another Vader voice veteran) would have been a stronger choice.

WHO’S SCRUFFY LOOKING?

This is the continuation of what is clearly a flagship Quest title – so I’m still bemused by its technical shortcomings. Early adopters may be reminded of the bad old days before the patches that made some things a lot better. In my time with the game, I experienced frame-rate drops and stutters, audio glitches, and a couple of crashes, one of which was so severe that I thought I was going to have to factory reset my Quest [I had fewer issues, but it still crashed out at some point, my Oculus Home got weird, and I had to restart a section from the beginning – Ed]. There are strange vertical lines towards the edges of the view which seem to be present in a lot of scenes, striations which tear the image slightly. 

In many ways, this is a beautiful game with amazing scenery, but the engine feels like it’s almost literally coming apart at the seams sometimes. The very first thing you see when you load the game, as with the original, is a flat postcard of Darth Vader that glitches and jerks its way around the view in a nauseating manner. Why is it still there? A black void with the loading pips would be better than this.

L33T SABER

It isn’t all bad, by any means. The main saving grace, apart from ‘Hey it’s Star Wars pew pew bzzzzzzt!’ is the lightsaber dojo mode. With a different setting to the original episode, an unconventional lightsaber, and the addition of the Force, it presents a cool little way to honour the inner Jedi in most of us. Rounds of increasing difficulty, as in the original, mean unlockables like different crystals and such are fun to get. The later levels present a decent challenge. Throwing a lightsaber at enemies and then using the Force to bring it back like a laser boomerang of death will never not be entertaining. It’s not Space Pirate Trainer, but all things considered, it’s probably worth the asking price for the title alone.

Elsewhere, the spectacle of some of the scenery can be breathtaking, and one of the enemy threats presents a jaw-dropping, if heavily scripted, fight. I’m sure the spectacle of it all will be more than enough for most people to enjoy the hell out of. For some, however, I think that it will be played through in 20 minutes and refunded pretty swiftly. 

Sky High

Star Chart contains four main sections, each with varying degrees of interactivity. The first, Sky View, is a 360-degree, planetarium-like view of the night sky. As you gaze around and point to stars, constellations are overlaid with 17th-century illustrations by Johannes Hevelius of mythic creatures and heroes.

At first glance, it’s pretty neat, but for those who want to linger and learn more, there’s a surprising lack of depth. Which classical myths inspired these constellations? Which features stand out to the untrained observer? Even the most basic lessons about the Big Dipper or North Star aren’t imparted here. If you’re an amateur stargazer, there’s only so much you can learn. A guided tour of the night sky like you might experience in any planetarium show, would be a great addition. Maybe the developers can hire Patrick Stewart for voice-over narration since he’s already been featured in Shadow Point.

Sky View does let you select a planet or star and get a readout of some basic facts, like its size, classification, position in the sky, and distance from Earth. But really, this is far less information than you’d get from Wikipedia, and Star Chart doesn’t bother to translate any scientific abbreviations. Assuming those who download Star Chart are already curious, wouldn’t it be beneficial to educate us a little more explicitly?

Set A Course

Explore mode is a bit more free-form since you can zip around the solar system for a close-up view of distant planets, moons, and other objects. But that also means you won’t be able to visit far-off features like the Horsehead Nebula or dive into the Milky Way. I don’t expect every star, or even a significant percentage of them, to be available for tours. That’s a scope far beyond what Star Chart promises. However, a best-of celestial experience, just to open peoples’ minds to the wonders of the universe, would go a long way.

The Eagle Has Landed

The third mode, Moments In Time, is another example of a great concept with lackluster execution. Here, you can stand next to the Apollo moon lander, the Mars Curiosity rover, the New Horizons probe above Pluto, or take a window seat on the International Space Station. It is undoubtedly a thrill to put yourself in these virtual locations. You can pretend to be one of the few people who have walked on the moon or inhabited the ISS. In the Mars and Pluto scenes, it’s even more breathtaking to go where no person has gone before.

Graphically, these diorama views are quite lovely, but they lack a lot of motion or interaction. If you’re going to stand next to a replica of the Mars Curiosity rover, why not also be able to watch it roll, drill, and take samples? Why create a static model of the Apollo lander, without also recreating Neil Armstrong’s iconic first steps on the moon? Couldn’t we watch the Earth spin beneath the ISS, instead of being stuck on one view of the Sahara desert? These scenes, which could be hugely dramatic in VR, become strangely static instead, like vivid textbook photos without a sustained sense of presence or purpose.

Billions And Billions

Lastly, Star Chart offers an Orrey, a not-to-scale replica of the Solar System, like the one you might have made out of ping-pong balls in school. In this version, you can ‘walk around’ and feel quite omnipotent with your God’ s-eye view of the Earth, Sun, and nearby planets. The main draw of the Orrey is the tour, a guided flight over the planets complete with voice-over narration and fun facts. These additions are precisely what the other modes lack.

If you were hoping that Star Chart would serve as a VR version of Cosmos – both highly educational and entertaining – then it lacks far too many features to even come close. You’d have to come to Star Chart pre-equipped with a degree in astronomy to make use of a lot of the more detailed information. At the very least, you’d need a willingness to do your own research outside of the app. For casual users, Star Chart should add more narration, interactivity, and storytelling. With a universe of infinite potential, Star Chart feels disappointingly stuck on the ground.

ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

End Space was initially released on Google Cardboard, Gear VR, and then Oculus Go; its mobile origins are pretty apparent from the off. Sadly, the game opens with a 360-degree video sequence which is so compressed that it’s reminiscent of an early YouTube VR video. The voice-over sounds a bit like it’s coming from one of those talking birthday cards. Not really a grand way to show off your crazily impressive new VR headset. Thankfully, the rest of the game is a tad more upmarket, even if it never really frees itself from its modest roots.

TO BOLDLY COME FROM GO

The main menu screen sees the player on a gantry in a spaceport. He’s a slightly pudgy, space-suited feller standing to the left. He’s presumably a commanding officer, replete with a typically gruff voice. There’s a modest map of available missions, and options to upgrade your ship and so on displayed beneath. Only the tutorial is initially open, and levels open up linearly but can be replayed for extra credits.

The presentation is distinctly average, and in the case of the upgrade screens, downright disappointing. The upgrades aren’t illustrated, just wordy text descriptions. You also have to shift your view round to check what you can afford. You might be forgiven for thinking the game had started life as a flat mobile game rather than having been built for VR. 

DON’T GET COCKY

The missions are straightforward affairs which involve what you might expect– a mix of go-there, scan-or-explode-that, then a dogfight with some space fools, and variations of such. There are lasers to fire and missiles to launch, all of which operate on strict cooldowns. Just holding down the fire buttons until things burst is not going to cut it.

There’s a pace to the dogfighting and to each mission which might be familiar (and a little easy) to space combat veterans who’ve cut their teeth on other titles. If this is your first space combat game, particularly in VR, then it will provide a nice frisson as you delight in tracking your guns and/or missiles with your head, see your virtual hands moving on the controls, and generally experience the X-wing vibe.

The cockpit graphics are well-wrought and crisp, and the ship has an unexpectedly cool, Mad Max-ish, distressed-metal appearance which looks great. 

Be aware that End Space may not be a pleasant experience for those new to VR. The combination of authentic 360-degree movement, independent head tracking for weapons, and a slightly inconsistent framerate may lead to some motion sickness or headaches. I have pretty stout VR legs and haven’t suffered at all with VR sickness since playing Scavenger’s Odyssey on PSVR two years ago. Despite that, I still felt a little nauseous after my prolonged sessions with End Space.

DISENGAGE

What you probably won’t find anywhere in the experience is much of a thrill. It should be unthinkable that dogfighting in space could be bland, but that’s the overriding feeling I have from End Space. There’s just not a lot of excitement here. Nothing feels particularly satisfying to accomplish. For instance, the explosions and collisions are weedy, and lack weight and import. This makes combat just a matter of carefully watching icons and timing button presses rather than it being a visceral, pulse-pounding affair.

The story is little more than a placeholder. To this reviewer, it’s a bit distasteful being cast as a hired gun for an empire, shooting rebels as they try to overthrow what seems like a brutal regime. It certainly doesn’t feel as cool as being Boba Fett, either. It would have felt so much more edifying if the game had centred around the plucky efforts of rag-tag rebels to overthrow their big bad overlords. Or perhaps that’s starting to sound too familiar. 

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYING

The audio is at best bland. At its worst, it’s compressed and crackly. There are two voices in the game, Gruff McSpaceman as mentioned previously, and the female ship’s computer voice. Both get drowned out by the action and general disinterest; it’s all too easy to zone out from the utterly mediocre story beats. The music is just there. It should be exciting and an essential accompaniment to the action, but it just isn’t a noticeable presence in the game. 

It’s easy to miss the feedback telling you about incoming missiles while in the heat of battle. The warning text is both squashed and hard to read. It’s also positioned on the window display facing forwards, rather than on the HUD following the player’s head, which is usually looking elsewhere to track enemy ships. The warning bleeps happen too late to really make any kind of difference other than to annoy you just before you blow up. 

It should be noted that the game has exhaustive options to customise the controls, and this is laudable. I found the default setup a bit poor, and despite a lot of fiddling, there just wasn’t one particular setup that really clicked for me. I’m sure that grizzled space pilots might get a kick from tinkering with the control methods but will be disappointed by the underlying simplicity of the game itself. Similarly, those wanting a quick shootyzap in space aren’t going to want to mess about for ages getting a more satisfying experience.

Length

The game features a dozen missions, and decent pilots will burn through it in a couple of hours. Some replayability is offered by the fact that you can replay missions for more credits to upgrade the ship and score better mission times. However, without any kind of leaderboard or multiplayer, it’s not something you’ll want to come back to again and again. There’s certainly no reason to revisit the story, which isn’t any kind of hook at all. 

SUMMARY 

End Space is the first of its kind on the Quest, and it’s at a sensible price. This will earn it some sales and generate some smiles, but I suspect it won’t really be remembered. Nearly everything about it is just OK, and no one particular thing stands out as impressive. For £10.99/$14.99 you could do a lot worse, and of course, if you’re desperate for some space combat on the Quest, then it will be perfectly serviceable. 

As the blurb goes –

Jump in your Minos Starfighter and blast your enemies into space dust in virtual reality. Maintain law and order at the mysterious and beautiful edge of inhabited space as you complete increasingly difficult contracts for the United Trade Consortium.

End Space Promo Copy

According to developer Justin Wasilenko, the Quest version offers the best visuals over previous mobile releases and offers cross-buy with the Oculus Rift. Release price $14.99.

While the game didn’t get the greatest reviews on other platforms, it was received well enough, and it might help scratch that space fighter itch that many Quest owners have had. After all, we still don’t have any space fighters on the Quest, and until some other anticipated titles come along, End Space might do nicely for a relatively modest price point. We’re hoping to have a review for you soon, but until then, here’s a trailer to get you thirsty! Please note, this is a general trailer and does not represent how the game might look like on the Quest.

In all cases, we’re excited to see what End Space brings to the Quest, and we’ll update you as soon as we have some more information!

Remember, if you want to check out the full list of upcoming releases for the Quest, check out our Upcoming Quest Releases page, and if you’re on a desktop browser click the little bell in the bottom right corner to get a notification when we publish news or reviews!