The game, initially priced at $24.99, is now available for $9.99 on the Official Meta Quest Store. This price adjustment coincides with the launch of the Quest 3 headset, aiming to make Rogue Ascent more accessible to a wider audience.

In addition to the price reduction, Rogue Ascent VR will feature a new game mode called “Boss Rush.” This mode challenges players to endure a series of boss battles, testing their skills and endurance.

Andrew Anderson liked Rogue Ascent VR quite a bit when he reviewed it for 6DOF Reviews a while back, so we can’t think of a better time to try it out if you haven’t already. It’s one of the few games out there that we really feel makes great use of hand-tracking to provide a unique high-octane gaming experience.

These assassins were the original John Wicks, born long before Keanu ever had his puppy killed by some idiot, and went on to lead a massive franchise. 

As a result, Assassin’s Creed was born, and Ubisoft gave us all the beginning of an enduring franchise that’s still going strong. 

With its conceit of using the now famous Animus Device to put users into the first-person memories of historical assassins, the meta of the franchise is practically built around VR, so in some sense, we can say that Assassin’s Creed: Nexus was born all the way back in 2007. It was, in a very real sense, inevitable. 

And now, long-awaited and eagerly anticipated, it’s finally here for Meta Quest headsets. We were hoping to have a review ready for you right when the game released, but alas, our stealth got the better of us, and we only got it on release, then, after I’d finished eight levels, I managed to run out of battery while it was saving, corrupting my save file and forcing me to start from scratch. 

So excuse our delays, and put on your wrist daggers, my friend, we’re going on a grand adventure. 

Where Eagles Soar

Assassin’s Creed Nexus puts you in the role of a hacker who’s been recruited by a rogue Abstergo agent who wants to assemble blueprints for a supercomputer of unknown, and possibly alien origin. You do so by, you guessed it, inhabiting the memories of Assassins throughout history and finding artifacts that hide the blueprints to this miraculous device. 

Rather than introduce new characters, Ubisoft allows VR gamers to play as some of our favorite characters from the franchise; Ezio Auditore in Renaissance Italy, Kassandra in Ancient Greece, and Connor Kenway in Colonial America. It’s a great mix, and I don’t think there’s an AC fan on the planet who doesn’t love Ezio, even though I can’t help but wish they’d let me also play as Altaïr from the very first game. 

The game is spread out over 16 missions and jumps back and forth between these characters and locations to keep things fresh and engaging. It even lets you play in different cities within each period, so there’s quite a lot to see here. It doesn’t skimp.

Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, to use its full title accomplished something I did not expect; it largely fulfills the promises that Mirage made, returning the franchise to its roots, with pick-pocketing, social stealth, and almost none of the RPG clutter that the more recent console releases have suffered from – or enjoyed – if you feel that way. Nexus takes AC back to its basics and is all the better for it. 

Another thing that AC does well is that it understands – to its core, that we want to feel powerful in VR, but it might have erred a bit too far in that direction, with auto aim practically making it impossible to miss knife throws or archery shots. The parkour is automatic as long as you keep the A button pressed down when you sprint, with you choosing the path, and the game handling all your jumping for you. Climbing however is a manual exercise, unlike the console versions. Ubisoft have clearly tried to marry comfort and accessibility with immersion, and I think that, on the whole, they’ve made some pretty good choices. They may not please everybody, but with so many iterations of the franchise’s mechanics, it’s anybody’s guess as to what people might consider perfect. 

So let me destroy the suspense; Assassin’s Creed Nexus isn’t perfect, sometimes it won’t jump when you thought it might, bringing a halt to your parkour flow, sometimes the auto-aim feels cheap, sometimes the melee combat feels a little clumsy, and sometimes you’ll grab a table instead of the object on it..but who cares?

It brings much more to the table, generally fluid gameplay, fantastic environments, more characters on screen (even if many are clones) than I’ve ever seen or thought I’d see on the Meta Quest, real motion captured and nicely expressive character animations, a variety of skills and weapons, an interesting story with you as a hacker caught between Abtergo and the Assassin’s trying to sabotage their efforts.

It also brings a slimmer version of what people have come to dread from Ubisoft titles, an open-world game with maps full of to-do’s. In this case, the maps are open but smaller. Still larger and more detailed than almost anything else we’ve seen on Quest, but thankfully, smaller than those to have to deal with on consoles. There are enough challenges to keep you entertained if you don’t want to just follow the story sequences, but not enough to feel like they just want to stay it takes a few dozen hours to complete. It doesn’t. 

It also does something very few games, let alone in VR, manage to achieve; it has moments. I’m a sucker for moments and will forgive a second-rate movie if it pulls off even ONE good solid moment. Nexus accomplished that in one of the first few missions when you find the fabled Bow of Odysseus and bring it to one of your allies. She holds it gently, amazed that it’s real, in awe at its craftsmanship. The soundtrack punctuates this moment wonderfully, and for a few seconds, it feels like something magical has happened.

This is why we like story-driven games, and it reminded me of that one moment in Half-Life: Alyx when the Vortigaunt says “Our paths diverge. But remember: There is no distance between us. We are coterminous.”

Goosebumps. 

Ancient Splendor

The graphics in Assassin’s Creed, which I played on Quest 3, but are not enhanced for Quest 3, are some of the most impressive I’ve seen from Quest, perhaps not in terms of fidelity, as you’d see in Red Matter 2, for example, but certainly in terms of scope and size. The UI/UX is excellent, and the general polish of the game shines through all the design elements. The cities are large, the draw distances are impressive, and they all feature realistic crowds even if you see the same faces way too often. Despite the scale, the baked-in lighting effects and some reflections all work together to create an impressive environment. The only janky thing you’ll really notice is that the legs the game provides you with are sometimes..a bit more contortionist than they should be. The frame rate is generally good, very occasionally stuttering a little, but considering the scale of things, I wouldn’t complain. 

Auditore Delights

As briefly touched upon before, the music in Nexus is fantastic, and changes in style and theme depending on your local, and on events taking place. The sound design is equally satisfying, with everything making appropriate sounds, from the bows you shoot to the steps you take, to the locks you pick. The voice acting ranges from the good to the excellent, all complimented by facial motion captures. The one issue I have is that the lip-syncing is often broken, which can, at times, break immersion. 

But the overall package is great.

Animus Glitches

My general feeling about Assassin’s Creed Nexus is that it does a lot of things very well, and provides an authentic Assassin’s Creed VR experience, something that I’d been very careful not to fully expect because I feared I’d be disappointed once I got my hands on the game. Instead, I’m pleasantly surprised and quite impressed. There are some issues with the game; I once had to restart a level because at some checkpoint the game decided I no longer possessed a sword, and another one because at some point the game lost track of what I was supposed to do next, but those are minor things to complain about, and the scale of what’s been accomplished far overshadows such issues. The occasional frame rate dips are slightly annoying, and I fear that perhaps they might be worse when running the game on a Quest 2, but they were occasional and usually disappeared quickly or were gone on a restart.

And remember the corrupt save file I mentioned earlier? It happened again on my second playthrough after reaching level 12 when I put aside the Quest with the game still running one evening. It seems like going into standby with the game on somehow corrupted my save file. I don’t know if this is a Nexus problem or a Meta Firmware problem, but it’s annoying as hell. It’s taking some willpower for me to ignore this issue, but I don’t want it to impact the score since I’m not sure who’s to blame. 

Overall, though – Nexus isn’t absolutely perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s mostly what we wanted, a real Assassin’s Creed game on standalone VR. If you’re a fan of the series, moments like visiting the Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni will make you grin from ear to ear.

Hashashin Bliss

Assassin’s Creed Nexus is a fantastic game that, against all odds, succeeds where many others have stumbled. It brings the gameplay of the older titles to the Quest without all the RPG baggage that had left fans clamoring for something like AC Mirage. It gives you air assassinations, leaps of faith, smoke bombs, social stealth, motion-captured acting, an interesting story, great environments at various times and locales, and ample fan service to round it off. If you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan, you will find a lot to enjoy here, and if you’re not, well, it might just make you one. Overall, this is easily one of the best games you can play on Quest, and very easy to recommend as long as you’re a fan of story-based action adventures.

Following the soaring success of Pixel Ripped 1978, the Emmy Award-winning Brazilian XR studio, ARVORE, has announced its plan to bring an enhanced port of Pixel Ripped 1995 to PSVR2. The upgrade promises not just better graphics and performance but will also introduce unique features like head rumble and adaptive triggers.

The story of our virtual hero, Dot, continues as she embarks on a mission to restore balance across various game dimensions. Partnering with the best gamer of 1995, 11-year-old David, the pair journey through nostalgic video game realms, evoking memories of 16-bit and 32-bit classics.

Moreover, ARVORE has taken a significant leap in terms of graphics and performance. Players can now relish gameplay with fluidity and sharpness that wasn’t possible in previous versions. Each level of Pixel Ripped 1995 pays a grand homage to the iconic moments of gaming history, serving as a beautiful bridge connecting both VR and retro gaming aficionados.

In a statement from the game developer Yuri Arce, he mentioned, “95 was one of the first games I played in VR and really showcased the transformative power of VR gaming. With PSVR2, we’ve strived to present the definitive edition of this Pixel Ripped entry. The 120fps gameplay, combined with new haptic feedback, offers the most optimal experience.”

If you already own Pixel Ripped 1995 on the original PlayStation VR, ARVORE will allow you to upgrade to the enhanced PSVR2 version at absolutely no extra cost. That’s great, and we wish more developers would do the same! The game will be available on the PlayStation Store priced at 19,99 USD|EUR.

For those keen to dive deeper into the world of Pixel Ripped, ARVORE remains open to interviews. And for our readers and VR fans, keep a close watch on our site and 6DOF Reviews YouTube channel for our latest reviews!

Gameplay Features:

• Action-adventure sequel with a Metroidvania-style environment.
• Unique VR movement mechanics: swing on ropes or navigate using jet nozzles.
• Combat opportunities against hostile drones.
• Engaging puzzle-solving elements.

Cosmic Clarity Update: On August 17th, Gamedust, the developer, released a major update for the game called “Cosmic Clarity”. This update, which will be included in the Steam version, features:

• Enhanced map navigation and improved player guidance.
• Revamped visual elements including a totally revised skybox.
• Improved in-game lighting and aesthetics.
• Miscellaneous gameplay optimizations and bug fixes

Media Resources: An official launch trailer for the game has been released. You can watch it right here:

Did you like the first Yupitergrad? Excited about the sequel?

I haven’t played their earlier titles, but a little research has shown that they are almost universally well-regarded, albeit in what are perhaps niche markets.

But regardless of the quality of Akash or 2MD, it’s hard to deny that it’s a bit of a leap from visual novel to American Football to arcade driving action – so let’s get stuck in and see if Truant Pixel can pull it off.

On your bike

You start Runner in the alleyway of a neon daubed future cityscape with a tarp-covered motorbike in front of you and a computer terminal to your right. On the terminal, your contact/handler “Vice” tells you that you need to escape the city, and the only way of doing so is by taking on the attack drones of the sinister Caldera Corporation head-on through the city’s main motorway network.

It’s worth noting here that there is a prologue of sorts called <PREAMBLE> available for Runner. This free interactive story is available to download on iOS, Android, and PC and although it’s not necessary to have experienced it before playing Runner, it does set up the world and characters rather well. There is some rather heavy-handed noir-ish writing, but nevertheless, I would definitely recommend giving it a look.

However much (or little) lore you choose to consume beforehand, the game proper starts when you grab a couple of guns, hop onto your motorcycle, and tear off into the perpetual night.

You travel along the 4-lane road automatically, with the game taking care of corners for you, but you do need to use either thumbstick to move left or right across the tarmac, and to accelerate and slow down.

In an early prelude to the deceptive complexity on offer, your weapons are docked into the console of the bike when not in use and serve as steering controls. In the opening levels, dual wield is not possible so when one hand is taking care of the shooting, the other is controlling the bike. Every time you expend a charge of ammo you have to switch hands. It takes some getting used to but is very satisfying when it clicks.

Layered onto this is a slew of other combat options. There’s a front-mounted cannon on your bike for which power-ups are available in the time-honoured collect-an-icon fashion. Upgrades are also available for your sidearms and can be equipped individually. There’s a laser-sabre for deflecting incoming enemy fire, missiles with lock-on capabilities, magnetic grenades, and a chargeable special attack called Flux… and this is just the level one basics.

Upgrades to all these, and to your bike itself, are also provided between each of the game’s 7 levels and help to provide a sense of progression.

The levels are distinguished by small changes to the palette, roadside architecture, evolution of the in-game enemies and, at the end of each, increasingly spectacular boss battles.

With drones high above you, and enemies constantly dropping behind or streaming ahead, Runner does an excellent job of wrapping its world around you in the VR space.

With this in mind Truant Pixel have wisely included some very effective comfort options for Bike Lean and VR Vignette, each with an assignable value from 1 to 10 so you can find your own sweet spot.

Under the influence

It doesn’t take an anime or sci-fi aficionado to pick up the various inspirations for Runner’s visual design and tone. In the depiction of the city and all of the various motorbikes you ride in the game, the influence of Katsuhiro Otomo’s masterpiece ‘Akira’ are front and centre. A broader aesthetic of nineties anime is used for cutscenes and story sections, with the character art, in particular, being a beautiful recreation of Japanese animation from that era, while the fully voiced dialogue echoes the gloomy future-noir of Blade Runner.

As you might expect, the art style leans towards the popular cell-shaded low polygon end of things and carries it off with no little panache. There’s a dash of Atari’s S.T.U.N. Runner in some of the vehicle designs and I was often put in mind of Playstation cult classic horizontal shooter Einhander, particularly in the audio design, where police sirens constantly blare and a voice over a loudhailer occasionally breaks through the explosions and gunfire to become almost lyrical alongside a soundtrack that touches on the genres of electro, synth wave, and Industrial dance at various points during the action. 

Police procedural

As much as Runner is a very tight and linear experience, procedural generation has been used to add variety along the way – but it’s not entirely successful.

These random systems are often applied to a type of obstruction that crosses the whole road at various places. The exact style of these changes for different stages, but each is basically a barrier in the road with a switch above it that must be shot to allow safe passage.

Problems occur when the procedural generation places the switch section inside a bridge, wall or tunnel artefact, making the target impossible to hit and the obstacle impossible to pass without damage. This isn’t a common occurrence, it happened only a handful of times in my many, many, game runs, but it is doubtless an area that could use a little polish.

Another niggle that may be more down to personal taste was the death sequence. Whenever your run is unceremoniously ended – and that will happen a lot – the same sequence plays: Everything stops, and a whiteout anime-style explosion envelops the screen.

It’s definitely in keeping with the rest of the game, but I would have preferred something a little more dynamic, or at least relative to the cause 

of death.

Re-run for your life

If I were to tell you that Runner could be finished in 90 minutes you might raise a justifiable eyebrow. But, while it’s true that this is possible, the amount of practice and play time required to do so makes a mockery of any lack of content fears.

Runner is designed to be played multiple times, and its difficulty level is such that after my first 90 minutes of play I’d only just encountered the opening level’s boss.

There are also unlockables and achievements to discover, with nuances of the story that are unlikely to be seen in a single play. All these factors combine to easily over 10 hours of content for players who want to see it all – and that’s a very decent quantity of bang for your fifteen bucks.

Arcade Perfect?

What Runner does brilliantly is take all the elements of classic arcade games and bring them to VR in a way that many others have failed to achieve.

Whether it’s old-fashioned power-up icons, screen-clearing special weapons, giant enemies with glowing weak spots, or riotous sound design; it’s all brought thumping and wailing up to date in a game that oozes style and energy, and is delivered with an extremely challenging, but hugely addictive gameplay loop.

The feeling you get from taking on the constant barrage of enemies with the huge and varied arsenal at hand while weaving through traffic and dodging incoming fire is up there with the most visceral experiences I’ve had in VR.

Runner is a cacophony of high-octane entertainment from the very first moment to the very last. If the straightforward thrills of arcade-style experiences aren’t your thing, then I doubt this will be the game to win you over. But for everyone else, this is a good old-fashioned, all-out, gun-toting, anime-action movie of a game that shouldn’t be missed.

No one will be calling Runner ‘the future of VR’ any time soon, but it’s definitely the future of my Quest 2 for a good while yet.

Does this plucky, ragtag band of space rogues have what it takes to blast their way into your game rotation, or will their heist run afoul and leave them down and out, drowning their sorrows in some futuristic cantina? 

Grab your guns and buckle your bandolier because it’s time to find out.

We can be heroes

Larcenauts is the Quest’s first foray into the hero shooter genre and is a welcome addition to the library if for that reason alone. This sub-genre has become popular in recent years with the rise of flat games like Overwatch. Much like Population: One has been called the Fortnite of VR, many will make the same comparison here with Overwatch. 

For the uninitiated, hero shooters favour a character class system, with each character coming equipped with unique weapons and abilities. Larcenauts offers eight unique characters or “specialists” to choose from. The characters all have abilities that are varied enough to give an entirely different spin on the gameplay. 

Larcenauts offers traditional character classes with a futuristic slant that makes the game sparkle while providing an eccentric and compelling cast of characters. Evander, for example, is an elite sniper whose high-powered rifle and cloaking ability make him deadly at long range, while the vaguely creepy Chi is a masked medic who seems to take just a little too much pleasure in reviving his teammates. There are also more unusual characters, such as the mighty Vod, an alien brawler who uses Dhalsim like extending arms to batter his opponents into submission.

This eclectic menagerie of misfits is elegantly balanced, allowing for a tactical depth to the game that begins right from the moment you select your character. Unlike non-hero shooters, choosing your character is about what role you want to fill within your team just as much as it is about which weapons you want to use. 

Specialists come equipped with their own unique weapons and possess several abilities that encourage a particular style of play. Broadly speaking, each specialist has deployable gear, which allows the player to drop an item into the world and a quick ability, which is often based around movement. In addition, the ability to “overcharge” weapons provides a powerful variant accessible to either of the characters’ weapons and personalised grenades that suit their specific playstyle. 

In addition to all this, each character has two Power Slates, allowing the player to add additional perks to enhance specific aspects of their play style. These could be as simple as a damage or ammo count modifier or as pivotal as extra usage of a vital ability. The choices are wide-ranging and add a thoughtful, balanced amount of customisation within each class.

This is all really rather nice and offers something that was sorely lacking on Quest until now. Finding the characters you favour takes time, and getting good at them takes more time, even before you start to tweak their load-outs and power slates. A lot is going on in Larcenauts, but everything makes sense and contributes to the game’s overall enjoyment without feeling cluttered.

The Dirty Dozen

Primarily multiplayer, with bots bolstering the roster when needed, Larcenauts is a 6v6 team-based shooter at its core. At launch, the fast-paced action takes place over four beautifully designed maps and features three game modes. Additionally, Impulse Gear have already shared a roadmap promising even more content before the end of the year.

On release, the game modes on offer include classic FPS staples like Team Death Match, a Capture the Flag style mode called Refuel, and the somewhat more innovative ‘Dronehack’ mode. In Dronehack, players carry a ball-shaped drone from one side of the map to the other to connect to an uplink before the drone explodes. The drone can be passed between players or thrown “downfield” to cover more ground and make it to the uplink, all while your enemies attempt to shoot you and/or steal the drone from you. It adds an original and often chaotic element to the mix and is a thrill to play.

Larcenauts‘ pacing is deliberately frantic, with each game mode encouraging you to cover as much of the diverse maps as you can. This is helped along by movement powers that push you at breakneck speed, as well as handy grapple points which allow you to traverse the vertical elements of the map swiftly and efficiently.

At times it can become almost overwhelming trying to balance all the elements of the gameplay. Maximising the utility of your abilities and timing the usage of your character-specific grenades or your overcharge mode can be a lot to process, especially while trying to remain mindful of where your enemy is attacking from and how best to support your team. However, once you get the hang of it, Larcenauts provides the sort of delightful madness that can eat your hours away.

Why do we fall, Master Bruce?

All that said, Larcenauts is not perfect. 

In fact, a few critical design choices have been made, which could sadly ruin the game for some and would have been fatal for a lesser game. 

To begin with, Impulse Gear have committed one of the cardinal sins in VR insofar as there are times when the players’ in-game hands stop tracking to their physical ones, and a canned animation takes over. 

This happens during reloading and sprinting, two actions that you repeatedly perform as you play, so if this kind of thing bothers you, it’s REALLY going to bother you. Additionally, your off-hand is not used for two-handed aiming but instead just steadies your weapon against recoil. This means that once your off-hand engages with your primary one, it is no longer being tracked so long as the grip is pressed. If this sounds like a deal-breaker for you, I would recommend waiting to try Larcenauts until after the first few updates have gone live.

Despite understanding that at this stage in VR development, having an animation take over your hands is borderline criminal, I got past it. In fact, it was relatively easy for me to ignore these issues because of how brilliant literally everything else in the game is. 

That is an important point to note here, as my Solaris review pointed out similar issues, and I scored that game poorly. The difference here is that, unlike Solaris, once you get the canned animations out of your mind and just play, Larcenauts offers a level of depth and polish that will see you joyfully rushing back into the fray time and time again.

The good news is that during our recent DevTalk with Impulse Gear, they confirmed that Immersive Sprint, Two-Handed aiming, and Manual Reload are all on track to release shortly after launch. One can only hope that the lack of these features doesn’t hurt the initial player base.

The Spandex Looks Good On You

For this review, I played Larcenauts on the original Quest. I must commend the team at Impulse Gear for how much they managed to squeeze out of the older headset. For those of you with a Quest 2, however, Larcenauts provides better textures and increased levels of detail. So yes, it’s prettier on your new gear. Lucky you! 

Whichever Quest you’re playing on, Larcenauts is a thoroughly good-looking game, with varied environments and excellent character design throughout. Despite the intense action, frame rates seldom drop, and assets don’t pop into existence as complex scenes render. It’s bright, vibrant and smooth and is a testament to what a talented team can achieve on the Quest.

The levels are thoughtfully designed in terms of gameplay and provide excellent graphical variety, with each level having different zones and unique visual motifs. My own favourite level is definitely Hazard Pay, where the action takes place under an ominously purple-clouded sky, lit up by an electrical storm and an impressively exploded planet in the skyline. Somehow Larcenauts manages to do more with the ambient backgrounds than many other games have, all while providing impressive gameplay action.

The character design is also excellent, with each specialist looking unique, interesting, and appropriate for their role in the game. This really makes the process of trying them all and picking your favourites very satisfying. The UI is also elegantly designed to be clean, effective and user friendly. I did notice a slight graphical glitch on the character select screen, but that’s a minor issue, and it didn’t lower my opinion of the production values. 

Overall, I would say that Larcenauts has achieved a visual standard that few other titles on Quest have.

I’m holding out for a hero

The audio design in Larcenauts is equally top-notch. The voice acting is excellently performed and used to significant effect, treading that fine line between filling the void and becoming obtrusive, and it does so with finesse. In addition, each character has a distinct personality that is rendered admirably through their limited dialogue. It all meshes perfectly with the tone, pacing and aesthetic of the game and is an excellent example of the power of clever sound design.

The music is pretty good as well, with lively hooks that will have you unconsciously nodding your head in between matches. It’s juxtaposed to the background music with increasing intensity as matches wind towards their climaxes. It’s catchy, distinctive, and most importantly, totally harmonious with everything else that the game has to offer.

Spatially, Larcenauts succeeds but does not excel. Compared to Population: One and Crashland (I know, different genre), Larcenauts doesn’t stack up as the pinnacle of directional audio. Perhaps I had the music up too loud, but I found it difficult to pick out directional cues amid even mild action, most noticeably with approaching footfall. It would appear that all our delightful space rogues (even the heavy metal ones) are remarkably light on their feet or wearing very soft bunny slippers…

Live, Die, Repeat

The biggest question with an online multiplayer game tends to centre around longevity. How long will the game be able to keep you coming back, and more importantly, how long will it be able to sustain its player base? Sadly, I dropped my crystal ball recently, so your guess is as good as mine.

I will say this; I have already put as much time into Larcenauts as I have in Contractors, and I like Contractors well enough. However, I have little interest in going back into Contractors again, whereas I can’t wait to get back into Larcenauts.

I played for a few hours, just experimenting with all the specialists, trying to decide who I wanted to master. I then spent another few hours focusing on two of them, only to change their load-outs and power slates and have them feel like entirely new characters. I have a ranked list of the specialists in the order I want to practise playing them, and I expect to be playing Larcenauts long after learning to use them all proficiently. 

If you find that the basic mechanics, diversity of customisation, depth of tactical team play and overall flow of the gameplay appeal to you, and if the game draws and maintains a decent player base, then you will probably find that there is more to keep you coming back here than in pretty much any other shooter on Quest.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Larcenauts is an incredibly polished and well-delivered hero shooter that manages to offer something new and exhilarating within a fairly crowded market. At launch, Larcenauts is marred by some questionable design decisions that would have felled a lesser title. However, the game has made up for these shortfalls by focusing on the core elements of gameplay that make it so satisfying to play.

Larcenauts excels thanks to its range of customisations that allow for varied play styles and add magnificent depth to the outstanding team play. All in all, Larcenauts is a unique and downright engaging multiplayer shooter that is as addictive as it is fun. If you’re looking for a new way to blast your friends (or total strangers) in VR, then I highly recommend taking this one for a spin. 

After 12 months in closed beta testing, GreenSky Games are finally ready to debut their baby as SWARM swings onto the Quest store. Grab your guns and dust off your Spider-Man fantasies because we’re about to find out if this one has been worth the wait…

Disclaimer

Full disclosure here; I have been a beta tester for SWARM for about 10 months. I’ve watched it grow and develop first-hand and have probably put in close to 30 hours of gameplay since first gaining access to the beta. Is it fair to say this means I like the game? Yes. Yes, it is. Does this also mean I have an intimate understanding of both the game’s strengths and its weaknesses? Indeed, it does. Probably more than any other game that I’ve reviewed, I am confident that I have given SWARM more than enough time to shine. In my opinion, that’s precisely what it does.

Swing Swing, Pew Pew

SWARM is, in every essence, an arcade shooter. The premise is simple. The player is equipped with a gun locked to either hand; these can launch grapples or shoot. You then are presented with a play area, designated by a series of platforms hovering conveniently (if somewhat impossibly) to traverse around. Finally, a relentless assortment of robo-baddies is thrown into the mix, and there you have it! Arcade magic!

There is no contrived narrative telling you why you are inexplicably swinging around destroying the literal swarms of cyber goons. There’s just no need. This is arcade action at its finest. Any attempt to shoehorn in a plot just for the sake of having a “full story campaign” would just slow the pacing down and cheapen the whole experience. 

Because that’s not what SWARM is about. SWARM is about four things and four things alone –

Swing. Swing. Pew. Pew.

Sultans of Swing

I’m relatively sure that I have referred to other games as “non-stop action” in the past. Still, that nomenclature seems foolishly misused on other games when compared to SWARM. For starters, one of the things that sets SWARM apart is that you literally cannot stop moving. The entire game is spent in a state of perpetual motion, swinging from platform to platform as you unleash hell on countless waves of bot-based badness. 

Raining bullets into the fray whilst remaining cognizant of where you’re tethered and where your next grapple needs to land is both fiendishly complicated and frighteningly intuitive. After a while, you stop really looking for the next grapple, relying instead on instinct and muscle memory to guide you around the zone. It really is fun.

Despite the theoretically dizzying movement at the heart of SWARM, I did not once experience any motion sickness at all. However, I can imagine this will not be the case for some. Despite having fairly advanced “VR legs”, I am still prone to the odd game (Dash Dash World, anyone?), but SWARM was a surprisingly comfortable experience to enjoy. This comfort probably comes from the excellent physics system that has been baked into the swinging mechanics.

There are nuanced little touches to the animation that help sell the feeling of weight and tension as you careen around the levels at breakneck speed. These touches set SWARM above its rivals. The ability to pull down on the grapple line to gain lift or use a hand over hand technique to build up some serious speed makes for some really responsive manoeuvring. Couple that with or the ability to use both grapples to make sharp changes in direction, and you have a movement system that is fluid, unique and utterly joyful.

That’s Swingtastic!

The action in SWARM is set over five distinct Zones, each comprising five levels and a Boss fight, and each of the zones has its own unique characteristics and environmental hazards to deal with. This can see you navigating anything from flying cars as they zip around a futuristic city to electrified platforms that cause damage if you grapple them by mistake. These environmental elements ensure that each zone plays differently and demands that you change your play style and situational awareness to suit.

Each Zone is then broken up into a range of classic arcade mission types, from wave defence to timed survival modes. There are also mission types that focus more on precise movement, challenging you to collect crystals as they move around the map. The Boss fights feel appropriately epic, and true to classic arcade games, you will need to find the right strategy and timing for each to take them down. 

SWARM sees the player begin with a standard pistol style weapon that will see your trigger figure aching before long, but string together enough kills in a row, and you trigger a kill streak. This enables auto fire for as long as you can continue to make kills without stopping, a perk which I quite frankly never got tired of. There are also temporary weapon powerups that spawn throughout each level, offering things like heat-seeking missiles and a powerful laser beam, amongst others.

The player also has a limited ability to slow time and a “Zip” attack which allows you to highlight a specific enemy or platform and launch straight at it. Adding these functions into the mix and deciding when to deploy powerups lends a light strategic element to the gameplay, but never enough to take away from the action’s immediate intensity. 

Mood Swings

SWARM is a stunning game that delivers the popular cel-shaded art style as well as any other title that I’ve played on Quest. The visuals are bright and vibrant and clear, suiting the arcadey tone of the game perfectly. Each Zone and enemy type is thoughtfully designed to work together, keeping everything clearly visible and easy to understand even amongst the game’s most chaotic moments. And make no mistake, the gameplay gets CHAOTIC!

The menus and UI are also very well designed, presented in an engaging comic book style that I found really cool to look at. It’s crisp, easy to navigate and just screams of polish. 

The music is also excellent, with each zone having a unique musical theme that goes a long way to making things feel fresh as you progress. The music contributes massively to the game’s energy, from vaguely Middle Eastern-inspired pop to hip hop and some heavy rock. The tracks and themes provide a character and depth that help make each zone unique.

The final component that helps bring everything together is the sound design, and again this is commendable. From gunshots to explosions, everything sounds exactly as it should. The voice-over that announces your achievements and warns you of incoming missiles is great. The spatial audio works well, and cues that let you know what’s happening around you are all spot on. All in all, the audio is exactly how it should be for a game like this.

Just Keep Swinging

SWARM launches with over twenty levels to play, bosses to beat, and a difficulty curve that will provide a challenge for even the most hardened of gamers. These difficulty settings have been really thoughtfully produced and tailor the experience to almost any skill level without losing any of the things that make the game great. I play Casual when I feel like zoning out and having mindless fun, Normal when I want to score chase, and Hard when I feel like a challenge (aka getting instantly obliterated). 

Trying to gauge “how long” SWARM will be is an exercise in futility as this is an ultimate “your mileage may vary” case. There are five mission types in total, which all centre around mastering the art of Swing Swing Pew Pew. These mission types are then repeated throughout the different Zones, which keeps things feeling fresh as you progress through the different environments. Between the mission variety and the unique challenges that each zone presents, there is more than enough to keep you coming back for more – time and time again.

Pew Pew Swing Swing 

SWARM is a fantastic iteration of ‘classic arcade shooter’. The amazingly well delivered perpetual motion mechanic lends a truly unique element to the genre and makes this game substantially better than most other arcade shooters currently available in VR. SWARM is the perfect mix of quick, accessible fun that suits jumping in for quick play sessions as much as it does settling in for much longer ones.

All that said, SWARM is what it is. If you don’t like arcade shooters, have no intention of score-chasing, or if games that have no storyline frustrate you, this may not be for you. SWARM stands at the top end of a crowded genre. It succeeds at every essential element that an arcade game should have and offers enough innovation to make it a great choice, even for genre veterans.

Crashland does indeed see you fending off hordes of enemies. Yes, indeed, Crashland doesn’t have some convoluted narrative giving you an emotional reason to kill its monsters. But it is also true that Crashland has an intensely deep and well thought out gameplay loop that will provide some of the most intense action that the Quest can provide. I understand that to many, that will not be enough. The simple utterance of the dirty words “wave shooter” will elicit an instant nope. To those people, I can say sincerely, it’s your loss. 

I hope you shoot better than you fly

Crashland has a simple enough premise. You are a space gladiator who crashlands onto various planets to face off against the local inhabitants until rescue arrives. There’s really nothing else to it, and nor, quite frankly, does there need to be. I’m sure the same experience could be delivered with some exposition or another that gives the player a reason to push through the minutes of non-stop violence, but in this case, it would probably just be a hindrance. At the end of the day, Crashland is confident enough in the core gameplay loop that it doesn’t dress it up in plot-based connivances. As far as I’m concerned, that confidence pays off.

Combat is entirely projectile-based, with the player equipped with a pistol-like primary weapon and a “boomstick” weapon. The boomstick is essentially a high-powered secondary weapon that operates on a cooldown and provides your in-game motion sensor. This innocuous gadget is vital. You will need to pay close attention to it as the insidious red dots converge on you, or you will find yourself in trouble very quickly. 

Both weapons can be upgraded via powerups that drop from the sky throughout the level. You can cycle through the options to select the best possible weapon for each situation. Given the extensive range of enemies you will encounter and their individual abilities, this versatility is often the difference between life and death. 

Before launch, the player selects from a range of perks. These perks unlock over time as the player levels up, as does the number of perks that can be carried into battle. Finding the right loadout combinations for each world and its specific variety of enemy types is engaging. Matching those to the players playstyle provides a tactical aspect to the game that also makes each run unique.

Salvation Imminent

Crashland takes the wave shooter’s timeless VR trope and fills it with so much style and substance that it feels almost ready to burst. Rather than facing numbered waves of enemies as is traditional for the genre, each world gives the player a timer counting down until salvation arrives. From there, the onslaught of enemies is nothing short of relentless, and there is never a moment where you have time to breathe. I have seldom experienced anything as tense as fighting through the final seconds of a level as impossible numbers of insectoid nasties scramble to take you down.

In addition to the powerups and perks, the player also has boost shots and teleport slots to aid them through the carnage. These additions are limited, with teleports recharged by killing enemies and boost shots gained by collecting the glowing balls dropped randomly by fallen enemies. Careful (often desperate) use of these abilities will often be your saving grace. A well-placed teleport or timely barrage of boost fire can be the only thing saving you from being surrounded or overrun.

The action is quick and intense, and hard. Damn hard. Everything within the game cycle is built towards balancing planning and instinct. Without precision, movement, and careful deployment of powerups, even a momentary lapse in concentration can see the end to the most proficient of gladiators. It’s really, really good.

There be Monsters here

The enemy design in Crashland is quite simply amazing. Rarely am I so impressed by a single feature of a game. Still, in this instance, Crashland has raised the bar so high beyond its nearest competitor that I can’t imagine being impressed again for quite a while. Most games usually offer a dozen enemy types at best, for the most part, empowered riffs on a core three or four. Crashland, on the other hand, delivers fifty of the most diabolical grotesqueries I have encountered in VR. Yes, there are empowered versions as you progress, but they are generally so different in how they need to be dispatched that they feel new.

As you progress through the 24 worlds, each progressive stage reveals several new monstrosities for you to contend with. Make no mistake, these are the things of nightmares. I have played Crashland for six hours at the time of writing, and I have taken the headset off twice because the game got too intense, and I had to nope out. Without any spoilers, there was one level that made me so uncomfortable that if I hadn’t beaten it on my second attempt, I don’t think I would have gone back in for a third. 

Some enemies latch on and immobilise you. Some circle you as they hunt in packs. Some enemies interfere with your weaponry, and others that…well, you’ll see. Regardless of where the overall score for Crashland sits, if we had an ‘enemy design’ criteria, I would score it a solid 10. This is the new gold standard, and other dev teams would be well advised to take note.

Beautiful desolation

Crashland succeeds at making the various hostile alien landscapes eerily immersive. The remarkable depth of textures and the different lighting and weather effects all help give the environments a character of their own. I will admit that I am only a little more than halfway through the 24 levels (after playing six hours on casual) at the time of writing this review, so I have no doubt that there are plenty more worlds to come. That said, so far, Crashland has taken me through an impressive range of ecosystems and landscapes which suit the game down to the ground, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store.

The other big visual drawcard is the procedural animation of the enemies. Each creature moves beautifully through the environment, with nuanced animations that give each beastie a definite and often terrifying character of its own. That, plus the fact that each creature has multiple death animations, keeps things fresh long after the initial impact has worn off.

The sound, like every other element of Crashland, is well thought out and equally well delivered. There is no music (for the most part), and that is an absolute blessing. The ambient environmental sounds create an eery sense of foreboding. This is amplified by the relentless bleep of the motion sensor, continually reminding you that there are ever more enemies on their way. The positional audio for a game like Crashland, which throws enemies at you from all sides, needed to be good, and it’s outstanding.

Each alien atrocity has its own unique audio cue to alert you of its presence. Soon, you will be relying on these for your very life. Each time a new enemy is introduced, the learning curve to pick that sound out of the cacophony of combat becomes steeper and, at the same time, more vital. Overall the sound design is a critical component of the experience, as much fused with the actual gameplay as the very act of pulling the trigger. Again, it’s excellent.

I’ll be back

When a new game is released, one of the first questions is, “How long is it?” In the case of Crashland, this really becomes a ‘how long is a piece of string‘ style question. Crashland has 24 worlds to conquer, each roughly between 3-8 minutes, and three difficulty levels to master. So, if you’re an elite gamer, it is conceivable that you could beat it in around 3 hours. However, chances are that this will take you a lot longer to finish for slightly less godlike players. 

Also, Crashland is a wave shooter that relies on your enjoyment of the core game mechanics. This means that you could be finished with it in 20 minutes if it’s just not your thing. But, if the mix of intense, fast-paced tactical action does appeal, then you’re in for many hours of fun. There are also online leaderboards, so if you’re competitive, then there’s yet another angle for you to enjoy.

Perhaps it would be better to put it this way…

I have played Crashland for six hours on the casual difficulty setting, and I have only just beaten level 14. Given the difficulty curve, I estimate it will be at least another six hours before I get to the final world. Once I’ve done that, I’ll go back and start score chasing. Will I eventually lose interest? Probably. Will that happen within the first twenty hours of gameplay. Probably not.

One of my only complaints is that the game is only single player. The developer has stated that there is currently no plan to add multiplayer to Crashland. However, I can think of no other game that would be better suited to the addition of a co-op mode. If we could head into battle with a friend, scrambling to survive as a team, risking everything for a desperate revive, then I have no doubt that this would easily become one of my favourite games. 

Game over Man! Game Over!

Crashland is a sci-fi wave survival game that innovates within a genre that hasn’t seen innovation in years. It offers a level of depth and nuance to the action that is equal parts terrifying and addictive, and I, for one, love it. Crashland is a simple formula that delivers a lot more than the average shooter. When you find the right balance between fight, flight and some additional might, it really makes you feel like a mighty space gladiator.

I have no doubt that many gamers will remain unimpressed and bypass Crashland purely because of its genre. Those people will sadly miss out on something great. For everybody else, I strongly recommend that you give it a try.

Love it or hate it, we’re going back in for more of the same with the brand new (to Quest) Time Crisis 2 … oh wait, sorry… I mean Crisis VRigade 2. Have developers SumaLab scored a headshot with their sequel and helped cement the App Lab as a legitimate storefront, or will they be found hiding behind a dumpster sobbing into their spent ammunition?

Let’s duck behind that crate and see…

It’s not Time Crisis…Honest!

Did you ever play Time Crisis when you were younger? Did you like it? I did.

I spent an exorbitant amount of money in arcades playing Time Crisis as a teenager. I was so hooked that eventually, I bought the PlayStation light gun exclusively to play it when it appeared on home consoles.

Why is that relevant here? Because despite having its own unique character on the surface, Crisis VRigade 2 is essentially the by-product of some smart people asking, “What if we just remade Time Crisis in VR and called it something else?” After the last few days of playing Crisis VRigade 2, all I can say is that if the sweaty, fuzzed-lipped, pubescent version of me mentioned above had played this game, I would probably still be living in my parents’ house playing video games today.

Crisis VRigade 2 essentially delivers the experience of being sucked into a 90’s action movie based on the premise of being sucked into a 90’s arcade game. The format is simple. The developers had the good sense not to try and complicate things by adding anything resembling a story. The player embodies a police officer. Maybe some rogue detective who plays by his own rules or a SWAT leader out to avenge his partner. I’ll let you decide because the game doesn’t bother, so you may as well just pick a trope that makes you feel actiony, and dive in.

Each level sees you tasked with taking down a notorious crime figure of ill repute, who has, of course, put an army of goons in between you and himself. You’ll face Yakuza on one level, Mafia goons on another, and <SPOILER> in the last. It’s pretty simple stuff, but at the end of the day, it serves the tone and intent of the game well. It also allows you to crack on with what you’re really there for… shooting baddies and hiding behind anything that you can, and you know what? It’s really cool!

Duck, Duck, Shoot!

The gameplay in Crisis VRigade 2 consists of a series of set pieces that see the player placed near some cover spot whilst a veritable horde of goons advance, guns blazing. Each little action vignette positions the player differently relative to the setting and the advancing enemies, requiring different movements to survive. Once you let go and immerse yourself, Crisis VRigade 2 really made me feel like an action hero in the most childishly enjoyable way that I’ve experienced in quite a while. 

The game almost begs you to role-play every outlandish scene from the action movies of your childhood. This includes classic scenes like “fire blindly over the top of the desk while pinned down by enemy fire” or “having your back to a concrete pillar while henchmen slowly advance from either side.” It’s great. I haven’t felt this much like a child playing action heroes in decades. I am genuinely surprised by the nostalgic resonance that this game evokes.

Another nice touch is that some environmental elements can be destroyed, whether by your enemies or yourself. This lends an interesting tactical component to the action. Extended cowering behind cover allows enemies to whittle it away to nothing, leaving you nowhere to hide. Similarly, when cornered, you can shoot out strategically positioned sections of whatever you’re hiding behind, allowing you to sneak a few unexpected shots into the fray. 

In many games on Quest, closely positioned items are rendered as one object, with your bullets unable to pass between them. This is gloriously not the case in Crisis VRigade 2. The game not only allows you to make these cunningly improbably shots but almost requires you to do so if you’re to have any hope of surviving.

Getting Hard in VR

With so many people having an issue with short-form gaming in VR, developers producing arcade experiences often resort to different ways to extend their games’ length. Alternate game modes are often used to extend the shelf life of a set of mechanics, and although not present yet, SumaLab are planning on doing precisely this with Crisis VRigade 2. The other oft deployed tactic is a perilously escalating difficulty curve. At launch, SumaLab have placed a good many of their eggs in this particular basket.

I’m just going to say it, this game gets hard. Really hard. Well, at least, it does if you want it to. Crisis VRigade 2 comes with 4 difficulty modes that change certain play dynamics to ratchet up the challenge. Play on the easiest setting, and you get some aim assist, helpful warning symbols, and so on. As you progress up the difficulty settings, these are stripped away, and punishing new elements such as limited ammo are introduced. I began my playthrough on the Rookie setting with automatic reload. It still took me about 90 minutes to complete all three levels. With a bit more experience under my belt, I finished the same three levels on the Cadet setting in about the same period. After that, this game gets HARD. Despite continuing for over an hour, I’ve still yet to complete the first level on Veteran, although I can’t wait to get back in and give it another go.

There are various unlockable items that you can purchase (using in-game currency), which will make the going a little easier. There are also some “consumables,” such as extra lives, that can be purchased before entering your run. It’s worth noting that to complete levels beyond the ‘Rookie’ setting, I resorted to buying several extra lives and using the odd ‘continue.’ 

On that note, the continue feature is also really cool. It costs you a decent amount of your in-game riches, and you’re forced to decide it while a timer counts down at the end of your game. Deciding whether to pony up and continue reminded me of all the hasty value-economics I had to perform as a kid in the arcades.  

Pretty Pretty Bang Bang

Crisis VRigade 2 has definitely seen a much-needed graphical upgrade since the first installment and is now quite a nice looking game environment to be in. While not exactly breath-taking, it is crisp, clear, and more than adequate for the genre. The visual style borders on cell-shaded, with heavy black outlines lending a cartoony quality to the proceedings; however, the background environments are a little more grounded in reality. All in all, the art styles fuse together well and really help sell the player on the feeling of living out a 90’s arcade adventure.

The audio is also decent, with satisfying sounds of gunfire surrounding you and positional audio cues alerting you to attackers approaching. There is relatively little voice acting work, but what there is, is decent. Credit goes to whoever “played off-brand Tony Montana” as well as the dry, wisecracking voice that follows you asking things like “have you’ve smoked something from the evidence locker?”

Blaze of Glory

Crisis VRigade 2 is the VR reimagining of the light-gun arcade games of old. In its ambition to emulate that experience, it is a total success. That said, if you didn’t grow up pumping coins into arcade machines, have never seen a Time Crisis machine and dreamed of going inside, or just don’t enjoy the genre, then I doubt that it will have much to offer. 

Anyone looking for more robust game mechanics and a longer, story-driven campaign should probably duck for cover and let this one pass by. 

With 3 playable levels at launch, 4 difficulty settings, and the promise of 3 additional levels and a time attack mode, Crisis VRigade 2 has enough meat on its bones to give a satisfying arcade experience. There are many other games in this crowded genre, but none of them is quite as engaging, intuitive, and fun as this one. If you only have room for one arcade shooter in your library, then this might just be the one for you. 

NEEEAAWWWWW

Shooty Skies Overkill plays a little differently to a scrolling shoot ’em up, like the original Shooty Skies. In this, your right hand is your avatar and weapon, by default a blocky cat in a biplane. It’s very much meant to channel the way you might have played with a toy plane as a child, sweeping it through the air shooting imaginary baddies. It’s a neat and under-used idea for VR, if not an original one, and it feels very natural and familiar to play. The playfield is your room, a static space. You’re free to move around dodging enemies and projectiles with as much physicality as you may wish to bring. However, you can also play it sitting down too if that doesn’t appeal. 

There’s a campaign mode to play through featuring procedural waves of irreverent enemies, and fixed checkpoints and bosses to face. You’ll see retro gaming-inspired setting and enemies, referencing (in a non-copyright infringing manner) all sorts, from the ghosts of Pac-Man to the weird chicken knights of Joust. There’s a candy world, and even a joky version of Hell which pretty blatantly references Doom, including a comedy extending chainsaw. It’s all very light and fluffy though, kid-friendly, irreverent and amusing rather than scary or surreal.

MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF… CATS

What is surprising about Shooty Skies Overdrive is how involved it can be. It’s a little galling when you learn that it’s an actual bullet-hell shooter of the old school, despite the fluffy aesthetic, and the challenge can ramp up quite quickly. With your right hand being both your weapon and your hitbox, and your head simply acting as a camera, it feels quite different to play than a lot of other VR shooters in which avoiding bullets means moving your head out of harm’s way. It can be quite overwhelming when the air around you is filled with bad sods and comedy bullets. It’s also liberating when you realise that you can jump and duck and contort yourself to avoid damage. There’s definitely a challenge here, and a considerable one. It’s ameliorated slightly by the difficulty setting you choose to play on. ‘Chill’ gives you three heart hit-points, so you’ve got two more chances if your avatar gets hit. Put it on the titular ‘Overdrive’ though, and you’ll face increased numbers of enemies, and a heavier barrage of bullets heading your way – with a strict ‘one hit and you’re dead’ policy on the door. Despite the aggravation that dying can bring, Shooty Skies Overdrive is fair and rewarding enough that you feel that you can do better next time. You’ll be repeatedly tempted to mash the retry button.

THE LEFT-HAND LAUGH

One of the things that keeps Shooty Skies Overdrive exciting and fun is the random powerups you pick up through the levels. These are assigned to the left hand and can vary from straightforward stuff like shields, a secondary ‘Pug Gun’ for additional firepower and smart bomb-style meteors to throw about, to silly but fun stuff that takes a bit of skill to use, like yo-yos, bullet vacuums and even a trumpet that fires fatal parps, and must be held like a real trumpet. It’s a great variety of stuff, and the characters you unlock through the game give you different drop rates of different items. So you can mould the playstyle to suit you a little. It’s surprisingly involved for a simple wave-based shooter, and that adds a bit to the longevity and appeal of the game. As does the addition of small challenges as you go through the game, awarding unlockable perks for killing a certain number of enemies, or successful deployment of powerups, and so on. This is to be perhaps expected from developers who’ve done well navigating the attention span vortex presented by mobile game development, but they’ve made Shooty Skies Overdrive addictive and moreish in the right ways. 

ARGH TYPE

Unfortunately, all is not well in the bright, shooty skies. If there’s one thing that really hurts Shooty Skies Overdrive, it’s that the audio is pretty poor. Despite the fun sound effects being in themselves OK, the spatial audio is average at best, and everything is a mush. Even with a decent pair of headphones, there just isn’t enough differentiation and panning of sounds. Through the Quest’s standard speakers, it’s muted and compressed. What should be an exhilarating and frantic spin round to identify threats before they hit you is just a frustrating melange of noise; the music might not as well be there. 

Add this to the visual chaos of lots of varying bullet types being hard to differentiate, and it can really annoy. Good 2D shoot-em-ups might bombard you, but they make the bullets bright pink or something, so you have a fighting chance. Whilst Shooty Skies Overdrive presents a fun use of VR in a shooter, it doesn’t use audio in the way it should, and as such it’s a missed opportunity and not quite in the same league of quality as the likes of Space Pirate Trainer. It’s pretty forgivable at the cheap price point they’ve set for it though.