Lights, Camera… Action!

Action Hero casts you as an actor/stuntman playing the lead on various movie sets, a clever premise that should breathe new life into Superhot’s time-manipulation mechanics. The game unfolds across five distinct “movies,” each broken into four acts. Each Act consists of five or six action-packed vignettes. Your director then encourages or chides you through sequences ranging from high-speed battles atop a moving train to Matrix-inspired showdowns.

The Hollywood setting proves genuinely inspired, offering a natural justification for the game’s segmented structure and repeated attempts at perfection. Each “movie” pays homage to different action genres—you’ll find yourself channeling Indiana Jones one moment and Neo the next. The aptly named “The Code” sequence, with its cyberpunk aesthetic and reality-bending set pieces stands out as a particular highlight.

While the concept and setting work well, there is definitely room for improvement. You can choose between two directors at the beginning of the game, but this choice seems to be entirely limited to the voice-over that pushes you through the game, which is a real missed opportunity.

Had the choice between the directors been integrated into the actual gameplay mechanics, the option between two distinct personalities could have been transformative rather than merely superficial. Had the stricter director imposed time limits, restricted the number of retakes before “firing” you, or demanded specific style points for a scene, the game would have been much improved. Similarly, the other director could have offered more generous conditions but lower score multipliers.

Implementing such mechanics would have perfectly aligned with the movie-making premise while adding meaningful replay value and, at the same time, offering the game at least one gameplay addition to set Action Hero apart from its inspiration. Instead, we’re left with little more than a voice pack selection.

A Time-Tested Formula

Let’s address the poignantly static elephant in the room: Action Hero‘s core gameplay is virtually identical to Superhot. Time moves only when you do, creating a strategic dance of bullet-dodging and precision shooting. This “bullet ballet” remains as engaging as ever, with each vignette playing out as a spatial puzzle where plotting your path through enemies requires both tactical thinking and physical prowess.

The game shines in its moment-to-moment gameplay. Consider a sequence atop a speeding train, where motorcycles leap through the air amid explosive chaos—time crawls to a stop as you map out your response, each movement a calculated risk. When scanning your surroundings, you learn to move with exaggerated slowness as any quick head turns accelerate the incoming threats. Players will use these temporal mechanics to master each scene, eventually blossoming from a cautious planner to an action hero who can handle real-time combat with practiced grace.

Individual scenes can be completed in seconds, but perfecting them becomes an addictive pursuit. The game includes a “normal speed” toggle that lets veteran players attempt runs without the time manipulation crutch, adding another challenge for leaderboard chasers. It’s the kind of game that can steal minutes or hours as “just one more try” becomes your evening’s mantra.

However, where Action Hero falters is in its reluctance to innovate. While Superhot’s mechanics were revolutionary, their direct reproduction here feels safe to a fault. The game could have explored new variations on the time-manipulation theme—perhaps scenes where time moves backward, where maintaining momentum is crucial, or where particular objects remain in real-time while others slow down. Instead, it settles for being an exceptionally well-produced clone of an exceptionally well-made original.

Blockbuster Flair

The most significant departure from Superhot comes in the visual design. Gone is the stark white-and-red minimalism, replaced with vibrant, colorful environments that pop in VR. The movie set themes allow for varied locations and spectacular set pieces—exploding barrels, mid-air motorcycle jumps, and Matrix-style environmental effects create memorable moments.

However, this shift comes with tradeoffs. While Superhot’s minimalist aesthetic achieved a timeless elegance, Action Hero‘s more conventional approach, though polished, feels less distinct. The blockbuster styling is well-executed but lacks the iconic visual identity of its inspiration. It’s a reminder that sometimes less truly is more. That said, this will come down to personal preference as there will doubtless be many who prefer the bombacity of the blockbuster aesthetic. I prefer the context and flair given by the action movie set motif, but I know that others (Ed.) will not agree.

Setting the Scene

The sound design effectively serves both form and function. Slow-motion explosions and gunfire sound satisfying and provide crucial spatial awareness cues. A barrel exploding in slow motion to your right naturally draws your attention. The audio mixing cleverly balances the needs of both slow-motion and real-time gameplay, ensuring important sound cues remain clear regardless of your temporal state.

The sound design also pulls double duty, simultaneously selling both the action movie experience and the “behind-the-scenes” setting of a movie set. The addition of director voice-overs adds personality, though as mentioned earlier, the two-director system feels like a missed opportunity for more profound gameplay variation. The overall soundscape successfully reinforces both the action movie premise and the core gameplay mechanics.

Cut! Reset! Let’s go again!

Action Hero presents a challenging dilemma for reviewers. Viewed in isolation, it’s an exceptionally well-crafted VR action game that delivers satisfying gameplay in digestible chunks. The movie set premise is clever, the execution is polished, and the core mechanics—borrowed as they may be—remain compelling.

Yet it’s impossible to ignore the game’s derivative nature. This isn’t merely inspired by Superhot; it’s essentially Superhot with a fresh coat of paint. While the original broke new ground, Action Hero seems content to merely redecorate it. The additions it does make—the movie set premise, colorful visuals, and director system—feel more like surface-level changes than meaningful evolution.

For players who have never experienced Superhot, Action Hero offers an excellent entry point into this style of VR action. Those craving more of Superhot’s unique gameplay will find a pseudo-sequel on offer and will likely relish it for its familiarity. However, veterans of the original may find themselves wishing for more innovation beneath the Hollywood glamour.

Concept: 4
Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 8
Sound: 7.5
Longevity: 8
Overall: 7.5

Color by numbers Superhot

This dynamic of anticipation and dread, combined with the stark contrast between the agent’s cautious exploration and the alien’s predatory stillness, brings an unsettling atmosphere to the game. It feels reminiscent of certain asymmetrical multiplayer VR experiences like Panoptic, where two sides use different strategies and abilities. Here, though, the tension is cranked up a notch because you never know exactly when danger will strike.

Mannequin Mayhem

Mannequin‘s gameplay offers more depth than it might first appear. What starts as a straightforward hide-and-seek game quickly develops into a mind game where both teams need to rely on strategy and communication. As an alien, one of the most enjoyable elements is setting traps. For example, one alien could purposely get caught moving, luring agents into the open where others are waiting in ambush. The aliens have a short dash ability, so the moment they get close to an agent, it’s usually game over.

For agents, though, it’s not so simple. Their detection equipment can help spot moving aliens, but they have to be careful with their shots—accidentally shooting a real frozen human means their gun jams, leaving them vulnerable to attack. This constant balancing act keeps the stakes high. I found this part of the gameplay particularly satisfying, especially with how easy it is to slip up as an agent if you’re overconfident.

What really makes Mannequin stand out is the emphasis on teamwork. Even after you’re “killed” and turned into a ghost, you can continue helping your team by scouting out aliens or agents and communicating their locations. This keeps the experience engaging even after death, similar to how Echo VR kept stunned players involved with team coordination even when they were out of action. The revive mechanic also adds another layer of strategy, with the potential for thrilling comebacks if your teammates are quick on their feet.

Frozen in Time

Visually, Mannequin does an excellent job at crafting an eerie atmosphere. The stylistic graphics complement the gameplay well, with its frozen humans scattered in mid-movement, as if life just paused around you. This is enhanced by little details like objects suspended in the air as though frozen in time, reminding me a bit of the surreal environments in Into the Radius, where floating objects give an otherworldly feel.

The color palette strikes a balance between vibrant and unsettling, creating environments that feel frozen in more ways than one. That said, the levels can start to feel somewhat repetitive. While the frozen environments are distinct, they don’t vary much between rounds, and the art style, while effective, could benefit from more diverse settings. Hopefully, future updates bring more variety to the maps, which would help keep things fresh for players long-term.

Listen Closely, or Else

If the graphics set the mood, the audio in Mannequin makes it essential to your survival. Spatial and locational audio play a huge role, especially if you’re playing as an alien. Your ears are your best defense, letting you track the movements of agents by listening for their footsteps or the beeping of their detection equipment. There’s a strong sense of tension as you’re frozen in place, relying on sound alone to plan your next move.

On the flip side, agents need to pay close attention to these same auditory cues, using them to pinpoint mannequin movements. The audio design is exceptional here, elevating the suspense and making every game feel like a high-stakes dance of patience and precision. In this regard, it shares a bit of DNA with stealth games like Phantom: Covert Ops, where audio is critical to both tension and gameplay. The way sound influences your decisions adds to the immersive quality of the game, making it as much about listening as it is about looking.

Live by the Community, Die by the Community

Like many multiplayer VR games, Mannequin’s longevity will largely depend on its community. The game has all the tools to be successful—a fun and accessible concept, depth for strategy lovers, and enough tension to keep things interesting. However, whether it thrives or falters will come down to the player base.

During my time playing, I noticed a mix of younger players and casual gamers, which isn’t surprising given the straightforward mechanics. The game doesn’t demand the kind of dedication you’d expect from more hardcore VR experiences like Population: One or Onward. It’s the kind of game you can jump into for a few rounds and still feel like you’ve had a good time. But without a solid community to keep the lobbies full and the matches engaging, it could be tough for Mannequin to sustain long-term appeal.

Memory Lane

For all the positives, Mannequin does have one major flaw that threatens to undermine its long-term replayability: the frozen NPCs aren’t randomized between rounds. Once you’ve memorized where the real frozen humans are, playing as an agent becomes significantly easier. If you have a good visual memory (like I do), you’ll quickly start recognizing which figures are NPCs, making it much harder for aliens to blend in.

This is something I pointed out during playtesting, and I was surprised to see it hadn’t been addressed in the latest update. Randomizing the placement of NPCs seems like a no-brainer for a game like this, where unpredictability is key to maintaining suspense. Until this is fixed, the game risks losing its edge for more observant players, and that could turn away some of its more dedicated audience.

A Mannequin with Potential

Mannequin is a unique and suspenseful multiplayer experience that brings a fresh concept to the Quest’s lineup. The game offers moments of high tension and strategic depth, with its simple yet effective mechanics. The graphics, while not groundbreaking, create a memorable atmosphere, and the audio design is top-notch, integral to the core gameplay.

That said, its future success depends on two key factors: the community and continued updates. If the player base stays active and the developers address some of the current issues—particularly the non-randomized NPCs—Mannequin could become a go-to casual multiplayer experience. For now, it’s an entertaining game with a lot of potential, and with a free trial available, there’s little reason not to give it a shot. Whether you’re a kid looking for some fun or an adult who enjoys casual, strategic gaming, Mannequin has something for everyone.

Note: I’d happily give it a 7.5 if they add NPC randomization! So if you’re reading this at some point in the future when that’s been done, then it’s a 7.5!

Guardians Frontline combines intense shooter mechanics with strategic base-building elements, allowing players to engage in combat as both soldiers and commanders. The game has been well-received within the VR community, evidenced by high user review scores and multiple awards at the 2023 NYX Game Awards.

The update introduces evolved enemies, including a spider-like foe that can burrow underground and a new Siege Sentinel with long-range attacks. Additionally, the level cap increase to 50 opens up new ranks for players to achieve, rewarding top players with a new skin that provides extra resistance against explosive damage.

Further improvements include a new attack for the AK20 weapon, various bug fixes, and enhancements to the game’s Editor Mode, allowing for even more customized gameplay experiences.

For those interested in seeing the changes firsthand, a new trailer has been released alongside this update. For more information about Guardians Frontline and to stay updated on future developments, visit the official website and follow the game on social media.

Have you tried out the new update for Guardians Frontline? Share your experiences and thoughts on the new enemies and features. How do these changes impact your strategy and enjoyment of the game?

Project Demigod offers players a superhero simulation experience, allowing for physics-driven combat within a virtual environment. With a selection of 10 powers that can be mixed and matched, the game presents over 40 possible power combinations. These abilities range from super strength and energy bolts to elemental controls like fire and water.

Key features being introduced with the full launch include a Hero Events System for battling enemies in specific scenarios, integrated mod support for a wide range of user-created avatars, and optimized performance enhancements. The developers have also outlined a content roadmap that promises the introduction of new enemy types post-launch.

The game’s transition from the App Lab on Quest to the full Meta Quest store will see it removed from App Lab on January 25, becoming temporarily unavailable for purchase until its official release. Those who have previously purchased the game on App Lab will retain access without needing to repurchase. The Steam Early Access version will continue to be available until the launch date.

For more details on Project Demigod and its features, interested parties are directed to the game’s official website and recent trailer.

What are your expectations for Project Demigod as it moves out of early access? Share your thoughts on the upcoming full release.

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.

Today, almost two years later, and having been adopted by publisher Fast Travel Games, Guardians comes to the official Quest store as Guardians: Frontline!

Guardians Frontline takes elements from RTS games like Red Alert and StarCraft and mixes them with the action-heavy first-person shooting of games like Halo and Destiny. In some ways, it even reminds me a bit of BattleZone 98 Redux, a wonderful game in its own right. 

In Frontline, you play as an eponymous ‘Guardian’ tasked with protecting humanity from nasty alien bugs. This involves a lot of bug-killing and a general feeling that you’re playing a virtual reality adaptation of Starship Troopers.

Welcome to the Roughnecks!

Most players will start Guardians: Frontline in campaign mode. This is made up of a tutorial followed by 13 chapters or missions, stretching across three different planets. The story is perfunctory at best, but, as in most RTS games, the real point of the single-player campaign is to prepare for the all-out havoc of multiplayer. 

The gameplay is very engaging, making you alternate between first-person bug shooting and the kind of things an RTS demands; placing extractors near the shiny red crystals that give you your resources, building turrets to protect your base, building ground-to-air defenses to take out the flying bugs, and various other strategic concerns. Your offensive forces are also quite diverse, you can build drones, robots, bipedal armored units, and even mechs that you can teleport into and pilot, all used for wreaking havoc amongst the alien baddies. 

First-person locomotion consists mainly of running around using free locomotion, although comfort teleportation is also available. You’ve also got a jetpack that allows you to hop your way across the terrain in large leaps, as well as the ability to teleport to pads that you can place throughout the maps. All these options make it easy and intuitive to get around, once you’ve gotten used to them.

Speaking of options, I have to commend the game for the ridiculous wealth of options it provides in the settings menu. You can essentially configure just about anything you can think of, a true testament to how gamer-focused Virtual Age were when developing Guardians. 

Command & Conquer

What really surprised me, though, is how well Virtual Age have integrated the more complex RTS elements of the UI. By pushing one button on the main controller, you switch from gun mode to command mode, allowing you to easily navigate a menu that shows up on your other arm, easily selecting defenses or units to build. Once selected, you point at the landscape to decide where the selected unit will be built and rotate your hand to change its alignment on the ground. It’s simple, it’s quick, and it works effortlessly.

I only wish there was a way to build several units of the same type in one go without going back and forth to the menu on your secondary hand. I checked with the devs on discord, though, and they seemed open to implementing that as a feature, so I’m hopeful we’ll see it soon.

Guardians Frontline offers a wealth of mission types, all of which can be played in single-player or co-op mode. When you launch any mission, you have a toggle that determines whether other players can hop into your game and join you against the bugs. Whenever this happened to me, it was always welcome. Players who hopped in, regardless of their age, were invariably cordial and cooperative, and it was their involvement that got me through a couple of difficult levels! 

The other potentially huge draw to Frontline is an ongoing, potentially endless mode called Galaxy Conquest, fueled by community-created maps. Although this mode, in theory, provides an endless supply of end-game content, the quality of that content will vary, as with all community-created content. 

It’s relatively easy to complete Guardians’ main campaign on Normal mode if you’re a seasoned FPS/RTS player, but switching to Advanced provides a lot more challenge, so much so that I didn’t dare try out Insane.

Fight for the Future

Visually speaking, I’m impressed with the clarity on display. The graphics aren’t spectacular, but they’re good, and the interface is clean and clear. The alien bugs are well-designed and very easy to tell apart, as are your own units. It’s easy for RTS games to become visually overwhelming, especially when lots of units are on the screen, but Frontline never falls into that trap. If you’re getting overwhelmed, it’s because the bugs are crushing you.

Your guns are pretty cool, each is distinct and well-designed, and, in general, they’re fun to use, each with its own pros and cons.

The sound design is equally pretty good, and spatial audio is used to good effect, making it clear where you need to be paying attention. Gun sounds, however, could be improved, they’re not bad, but I feel they could use a boost.

Never Pass Up a Good Thing

Guardians Frontline has come a long way since its early days when I first tried it out while Pete was reviewing it. It’s now a full game with a substantial amount of content, a good variety of units, and a general feeling of polish that was initially lacking during its first iterations. Virtual Age have done well, making a game that’s easy to recommend for fans of the genre, and, at least so far, the only game of its type on Quest.

If you want to shoot wonderfully designed alien bugs without the strategy component, be sure to check out Crashland!

[Psst: We have two Guardians Frontline codes to give away and we’re running a giveaway competition for them, click this link if you want to enter!]

The original Cities: Skylines was, in its day, the challenger to a more established franchise’s throne, conceived as a more playable and approachable and less bloated alternative to the corporate mess that Sim City had become.

THRU THESE ARCHITECT’S EYES

Cities VR is a city-building management game, viewed from an aerial perspective, featuring the usual mix of laying roads, zoning infrastructure, providing utilities and services for the residents, and keeping the population happy and the books balanced.

These types of games may be familiar to most gamers, be the reaction love, loathing or indifference. But it’s a genre weirdly under-represented in VR. On the Quest, there’s Deisim on App Lab or Sidequest, which is really more of a streamlined god game than city management, and of course, the lovely Spacefolk City, which our own Pete Austin fell in love with a little while ago. And that’s all that comes to mind. Please feel free to remind me in the comments of any others I might have overlooked, but I think I’m right in saying that it’s a curious gap.

With the six degrees of freedom god’s eye view and the immediacy of control that VR could present, you’d think the Quest would be dripping with city builders and god games.

ONE RING ROAD TO RULE THEM ALL

Cities VR goes some way to showing why the genre might not be the shoo-in for VR that you might think. To put it simply, Cities VR isn’t very good. That’s not because it doesn’t have quite the feature set of the original Cities: Skylines, far from it. There’s nothing wrong with streamlining an experience for VR; given that statistics and reams of information are easier to parse on a flat monitor display, it’s a mercy that there might not be so much to keep track of in the heady confines of VR. And Cities VR is more than complex enough in this regard; needlessly and to a fault.

It’s never a good sign when the first screen of a game is a pixelated, dreary still of the developer’s logo. So it is with Cities VR, and it does set the tone for what’s to come. The game is overall clunky and unfriendly for new players. The tutorial highlights everything wrong with the game rather incisively. The controls are finicky and never feel intuitive; the radial flick to select different categories of buildings and materials just feels off. There are comfort and movement options to tweak, but they aren’t nearly comprehensive enough, and even at the highest sensitivity, the smooth turning is painfully slow. Tutorial pop-ups stick themselves right in front of your view like a pissed and over-familiar uncle at a wedding, and most of them obfuscate their intent enough to infuriate. It took me four attempts to get through just the tutorial, and it was maddening.

The sound effects in Cities VR grate – the clicky-clacky noise which plays incessantly when building a road or a pathway is quite incredibly misjudged. You’ll hear hours and hours of it through the game, and it’s like sandpaper for the frontal lobes. After prolonged exposure, you’ll want to find whichever cartoonish tap dancer provided the original sample and beat them to death with their own shoes.

HELL, HULL AND HALIFAX

Cities VR lets itself down almost consistently in terms of presentation. Little here resembles the lush, clean-looking title touted in the Meta showcase. The literal building blocks of the game are janky; buildings under construction look like pixelated progress bars, the colour palette is all over the shop, and the interface does all it can to make you feel like you’re doing something wrong or pressing the wrong button nearly all the time. And then it proves it to you.

The graphics are substandard, with huge amounts of pop-in even before you start to build your city. Shadows are so blocky and ugly that you wonder why they’re there. It all seems a bit placeholder and alpha, which for a modern and expensive top-tier Quest title really can’t be forgiven. There’s a lot to do in Cities VR, although perhaps thankfully not as much as there is in its parent flat game. The problem is that it is actually unpleasant to do most of it, and I’m afraid that it might take more than an update or two to put the problems right.

A TOWN WITH NO CHEER

With such unacceptable levels of jank and a gameplay template that has been poorly realised despite the apparent lack of ambition on display, it’s tough to recommend Cities VR, even to hardcore fans of the genre. Those fans will also be disappointed by the comparative lack of depth in Cities VR compared to the founding game in the series.

More casual players will almost certainly get more joy out of Little Cities.

For some odd reason, some of the marketing for the app calls it a ‘game’, even though it’s decidedly not a game. We’ve seen this happen before with Lost Recipes, for example. It seems that marketing departments feel that ‘games’ sell better than ‘apps’, but we at 6DOF Reviews consider that misleading at best, and perhaps even disingenuous. The fact of the matter is that Virtuoso is a music-making app – it’s a lot of fun, but just because something is fun, doesn’t make it a game. Alright, time to get off the soapbox…

Fast Travel Games has today announced that Virtuoso, a virtual music creation sandbox that lets anyone bring melodic creations to life in VR, will make its debut on Meta Quest, Rift and SteamVR on March 10, 2022. Created by the studio Really Interactive, Virtuoso brings an immersive musical stage into your headset. The Virtuoso demo tape… or rather, announcement trailer… features the track “Parade” by Scandinavian dance music duo Tungevaag & Rabaan recreated in-game:

From their press release:

Explore the unique instruments and effects of Virtuoso to find your personal sound and bring out your inner musician. With instruments that have been specifically tailored and tuned for virtual reality, as well as an interactive tutorial, you’ll go from music class dropout to worldwide pop star in no time. Use the Looper tool to become a one-person band, creating dance floor ready jams on the fly. Save and share your creations with friends and gain inspiration from other members of the Virtuoso community.

“Virtuoso is a new take on playing and creating music that is both accessible for complete beginners and amazingly powerful in the hands of experienced musicians,” said Jonatan Crafoord, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Really Interactive. “The instruments are built from the ground-up for expressing yourself musically in VR, while the tools and interactive tutorial help you stay on beat and in tune. We can’t wait to hear the music that the Virtuoso community will create in it!”

Key Features of Virtuoso include:

• Create music in real-time using the Looper and easily share it for all to hear! Even if you’ve never touched an instrument before, features like Tempo Sync and preset scales help you stay in time and on pitch.
• The six instruments of Virtuoso have been created specifically for VR. Set up your own custom drum kit with the Empads and tickle the keys of the three-dimensional Oorgan. You can also add vocals with lush reverb using the virtual microphone!
• The interactive tutorial along with intuitive instruments and tools means that everyone, from professional producers to casual music lovers, can become Virtuosos!

When it arrives in March, Virtuoso will be the first third-party title published by Fast Travel Games’ recently-launched publishing arm.

For more information on Virtuoso and Really Interactive, you can visit virtuoso-vr.com and www.really-interactive.se and follow the app on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. 

About Fast Travel Games

Fast Travel Games is a VR exclusive games developer and publisher based in Stockholm, founded by industry-leading veterans and behind critically acclaimed VR titles such as Apex Construct, The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets and Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife.

About Really Interactive 

Really Interactive is a Stockholm-based creative studio focused on developing VR game titles, interactive entertainment, and real-time applications.

Afterlife’s debut gameplay trailer shows the player moving around as a Wraith, while suddenly being chased by one of the sinister Specters roaming the Barclay Mansion. The trailer can be seen below:

Become a Wraith

Set in the World of Darkness, a modern fantasy horror universe where you are the monster, Afterlife shares the same setting as Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. In Afterlife, the player becomes a Wraith, one of the restless dead with supernatural powers at their disposal. As they progress, their powers will grow, granting them access to new areas:

• Wraithgrasp: Allows the player to manipulate objects from a distance and change the environment around them.
• Sharpened Senses: Helps the player pick up distant whispers or track the movement of other spirits.
• Insubstantiality: Gives the player the power to walk through solid walls.

The Barclay Mansion

Afterlife plays against a backdrop of modern Hollywood decadence and occult research:

• The player will explore the massive Barclay Mansion to gradually reveal its terrifying history, and the reason behind their own death. 
• The mansion is filled with apparitions and sinister Spectres trailing the players’ footsteps, each with its own background story and with a connection to the bigger mystery.  
• To stay hidden and uncover the truth, players need to be stealthy and use objects to hunt for clues in the world around them.

A World of Dark Secrets

For the first time in history, players will get to experience a World of Darkness game from the Wraith’s perspective:

• As a Wraith, death is not the end. The player is caught between this life and the next, accompanied by their Shadow, a manifestation of their dark subconscious.
• The Shadowlands are the reflection of the daylight world: a place where the dead walk unseen, side by side with the living.

For more information about World of Darkness, visit the official website. 

Are you excited for Wraith: The Oblivions – Afterlife? What are your favorite horror games on Quest? Let us know in the comments! As always, we’ll try to have a full review ready for the game as soon as it’s released!