You step into the shoes of Serdar, a doctor whose personal quest to help his ailing wife leads him through the dangerous underground world of the Metro. Without spoiling anything, I can say the narrative is one of the game’s strongest elements, featuring several compelling twists and turns as you uncover various truths along your journey. The writing really shines throughout, delivering both emotional depth and narrative complexity across the game’s 12 chapters. The story manages to feel both personal and consequential, maintaining the series’ trademark blend of human drama and post-apocalyptic survival.

Bullets, Beasts & No Workbenches

At its core, this is quintessentially Metro, though with some notable streamlining of mechanics. The gameplay loop alternates between narrative sequences, atmospheric exploration, and intense combat against various mutants. You’ll encounter everything from dog-sized creatures to more imposing threats, each demanding different tactical approaches. Your arsenal starts with a pistol and gradually expands to include a semi-automatic rifle and other weapons. While the selection isn’t extensive, the gunplay is exceptional, ranking among the best I’ve experienced on Quest alongside titles like The Light Brigade and Arizona Sunshine.

Unlike Metro Exodus, for example, there’s no crafting in Metro Awakening. You won’t be crafting grenades or Molotov cocktails, and weapon modification is extremely limited – the only weapons mod I found was a silencer for the pistol, which was automatically added once found. In that sense, Metro Awakening keeps it simple: no workbenches, no crafting systems. While some might miss these features from the mainline series, this streamlined approach works well in VR, keeping the focus on immediate action and survival rather than resource management.

Don’t Blink: The Art of Metro Terror

The game masterfully straddles the line between action-adventure and survival horror, and this is where it really shines. While it comes with an explicit arachnophobia warning, it never ventures too deep into pure horror territory – something I appreciate as someone who typically “nopes out” of VR horror games. Instead, it excels at building a persistent sense of tension and anxiety. You’ll experience moments of frantic panic in dark corridors, managing limited ammo while mutants scurry about, creating intense situations that feel challenging but manageable. The game keeps you perpetually uncomfortable without crossing into overwhelming territory, striking an impressive balance between tension and playability.

Tunnel Vision Never Looked So Good

Metro Awakening is visually impressive, with strong art direction and effective real-time lighting that contributes significantly to the atmosphere. The game consistently maintains its foreboding atmosphere through excellent environmental design. While much of the game takes place underground, each area feels distinct and purposeful, avoiding the potential monotony that could come with a subway-based setting. Some locations are intentionally revisited as part of the narrative – this isn’t lazy asset reuse but a deliberate story choice that adds to the overall experience.

The attention to detail is remarkable, especially in the interactive elements. You can physically check your remaining ammo by looking at your weapon’s chamber, and small touches like functional fans add to the world’s believability. While it’s not an immersive sim where you can interact with everything like in Half-Life: Alyx, the interactive elements that are present feel purposeful and well-implemented. Character animations are notably smooth with minimal jank – even while recording, which is particularly impressive for a Quest title. The environmental storytelling is subtle but effective, with each area telling its own story through careful visual design.

The Sound of Survival

The audio design stands as the game’s crowning achievement, creating a deeply immersive experience that elevates every other aspect of the game. The soundtrack expertly emphasizes emotional beats throughout the story, from moments of creeping dread to brief instances of hope and optimism. While it pays homage to classic Metro themes, it establishes its own unique identity that fits perfectly with the VR experience.

The sound design is exceptional, leveraging every trick in the horror game playbook to maintain tension. You’ll hear unsettling radio murmurs that you can’t quite make out, precise directional audio that keeps you on edge, and the nerve-wracking sounds of mutants moving through nearby tunnels. These audio elements work together to create a constant sense of unease that enhances every aspect of the gameplay. The voice acting is consistently strong throughout, adding authenticity to the experience and helping sell the emotional moments in the story. The way sound echoes through the tunnels, the mechanical clinking of your weapons, and the environmental ambiance all contribute to making the Metro feel like a living, breathing place.

Mind The Gap: Performance & Playtime

I encountered very few technical issues during my playthrough. There are some minor control quirks, like occasional overlap between mask and reload detection zones, and a few moments where gameplay systems don’t quite sync with narrative elements (like conversations continuing normally while running out of oxygen). However, I experienced no crashes or significant bugs throughout my entire playthrough, which is impressive for a VR title of this scope.

I completed the game in about six and a half hours on normal difficulty. While some players report longer playtimes of 10-14 hours, especially on hard difficulty or when pursuing a stealthy approach, my experience was focused and satisfying. There are collectible postcards to find, which unlock with a satisfying musical cue, but replayability is limited as you’d expect from a narrative-driven single-player game. While there’s no new game plus or challenge modes, Vertigo’s track record with post-launch support (as seen with Arizona Sunshine) suggests we might see additional content in the future.

Last Stop: Final Thoughts

Metro Awakening stands as a testament to how traditional gaming franchises can be thoughtfully adapted to virtual reality. While it doesn’t include all the systems and complexity of its non-VR counterparts, it succeeds by focusing on what works best in VR: immersive storytelling, tense combat, and atmospheric exploration. The combination of great gunplay, impressive visuals, outstanding audio design, and an engaging story kept me coming back for more – I found myself playing about an hour and a half each day until completion.

The game’s greatest achievement is perhaps how it maintains the series’ signature atmosphere while adapting it for a new medium. Every element, from the sound design to the visual presentation, works together to create a compelling and often unsettling journey through the Metro. While some might wish for more weapon variety or crafting options, the streamlined approach serves the VR format well.

It’s very easy to recommend Metro Awakening to all but those who might find themselves too unsettled by its tense atmosphere. It’s easily one of the best games I’ve yet played on Quest, and despite the somewhat brief run-time, it presents a dense and gripping experience from the first cinematic intro to the moment the final credits roll on screen.

This approach raises a crucial question: did Half-Life: Alyx boost Valve Index sales? Surprisingly, yes—it did. Following the announcement, Valve’s Index sales saw a significant jump, with 103,000 units sold in just over a month. A strong franchise can drive hardware adoption. So, is Batman: Arkham Shadow good? And can it sell Quest headsets?

Hopefully, this review will answer the first question. As for the second question? We’ll leave that up to you. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Thug-Life

Taking place early on in Batman’s career, Arkham Shadow is a sequel to a prequel. It takes place after Batman: Arkham Origins and fleshes out some of the early history of Bruce Wayne, featuring various characters known to fans of the lore, including Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, and several others.

As the game begins, you assume the character of ‘Matches Malone,’ a small-time Gotham City gangster that first appeared in Batman #242 during a character-defining run that was written by Dennis O’Neil, illustrated by the incredible Neal Adams, and penciled by Dick Giordano. To many long-time Batman readers, myself included, this was truly an iconic era. You don’t need to have known any of this to enjoy the game or appreciate the progression of the narrative, but it does demonstrate the intimacy that the writing team led by Narrative Director Brendan Murphy and Lead Writer Alex O. Smith have with the original source material.

Anyway, I digress. As Batman / Matches Malone, you set fire to the Bat signal above the Gotham police station, promptly get arrested, and then sent to Blackgate Prison, where much of the game takes place.

As anybody familiar with movie tropes, you know already how this will play out; you’ll get a flashback showing why you decided to take on the Matches identity and why you wanted to end up inside Blackgate.

Wham! Thud! Thwack!

If you’re a rare bird who’s never played any of the previous Batman Arkham games, let’s just say the games were mostly fantastic, relying on excellent writing, superb voice acting, and drawing on the strengths of Batman’s character to alternate between stealthy sequences where you took enemies out one by one while remaining undetected and all-out fights where you fought various opponents together using a combat system famous for its free-flowing nature that allowed you to string together varied attacks and build up incredibly satisfying combos. It was wildly innovative back then and has, arguably, never been bested in third-person gaming since. The games also showed off Batman’s origins as a detective, with a detective mode that lets you scan clues and figure out your next lead.

The biggest question regarding Arkham Shadow‘s gameplay was always going to be how faithfully it manages to translate that gaming experience to VR, and this is where you have to acknowledge the sheer acumen that developers Camoflaj (who did a great job with Iron Man VR) have demonstrated with Shadow’s design choices.

The first choice made here was to limit the scope of the game world in a way that makes sense. You can create a whole Gotham City on later generation consoles, but it would have been impossible to do so on a Meta Quest standalone headset without massive concessions in graphics, so instead, the game relies mainly on the limited world of Blackgate prison, and outside of that only features a few selected locations around Gotham City, and it weaves a story that works well within those confines, preventing you from feeling that the spatial limitations are contrived.

The other choice made here was to alter the free-flowing nature of the combat, leading to a mixture of free decisions regarding who you’ll strike next and when, and short prompted almost-QTE sequences that occur during combat sequences. So you’ll pick your enemy, punch-dash towards them, then be prompted to deliver a jab, uppercut, or hook, and sometimes a beat down with both hands or a punch after you’ve grabbed an opponent’s leg, etc.

Initially, I was disappointed that the combat didn’t replicate the free-flowing nature of the console games, which was excellent for ‘flow-state’ combat. However, after a few hours, I adjusted, stopped comparing it to the originals, and appreciated that—despite sacrificing some of the original feel—it provided an intense workout. It’s easy to take on small fights with only 3 or 4 enemies, but when you go through a big battle with 10 enemies or more, you’ll work up a good sweat! I checked my Move stats, and on longer sessions of 90 minutes or so, I was burning up around 500 calories playing this game.

Predator sequences, on the other hand, have carried over perfectly to VR and feel just like they did in the flat games, except, well – much better. You’re Batman, perched over your enemies, picking them off one by one with stealth takedowns until the last one is down. When you get good at these sequences, it feels, for lack of a better word, perfect.

The game replaces the Riddler Trophies of the previous games with Rat King statues that are often in difficult-to-reach areas, requiring some puzzle-solving to reach; these are all optional and provide some head-scratching relief from the action of the combat sequences.

As you progress through the game, your arsenal also evolves, with skill or progression trees for your combat skills, suit, gadgets, and predator skills. The game already starts with many of those already unlocked, but as you gain experience points, you can unlock more, like letting you use sonic Batarangs, various combat combos, quicker and stealthier takedowns, and more. Some of these are only available once you’ve received new gadgets, like the Bat Claw, the Shock Gloves, and others, all delivered by Alfred via the Bat Wing. This helps you feel more and more powerful as the game progresses, and by the end, you really do feel like a perfectly capable Dark Knight, ready to take on whatever Gotham’s criminals and twisted villains throw your way.

The game also offers what had become a staple in the console versions: combat and predator challenges. Although there are only three of each for now, we expect more of those to come from Camoflaj.

Batman: Arkham Shadow does what it should; it successfully brings the gameplay of the Arkham series to VR and does it with confidence and flair.

My Beautiful Batworld

Arkham Shadow nails the visual language of Batman, blending Gothic and Neo-Gothic architecture with a mood of urban decay. Its dark, gritty criminal underbelly and subtle steampunk elements make it one of the best-looking games on Meta Quest. It could be argued that other games like Red Matter 2 look better, but games like Red Matter 2 don’t have to balance their looks with bone-crushing action sequences featuring a dozen characters on screen at a time.

The game does a marvelous job with all the characters, including the NPC, most of whom are visually distinct. You won’t see the same characters copied and pasted ad infinitum here, and the main characters are incredibly detailed and remarkably well-animated.

Aside from the beauty of the locations and art direction, the actors’ motion and expressive facial captures are superb, highlighting their beautiful performances and lending emotional heft to the already excellent writing.

The game also features real-time shadows, conveniently placing a backlight behind you regularly to highlight your shadow with your cowl and bat ears, subtly and silently reminding you that behind that headset you’re wearing, you ARE Batman.

The only complaint is that the game’s framerate occasionally drops, especially before and after gate-opening sequences, which are likely there to mask load times. It’s a little distracting when it happens, but it never occurred to me during combat sequences where it would have been the most jarring. These hiccups happen even when the dynamic resolution setting is turned on in the game, but Camoflaj have told us that the game is still being optimized, and the first patch might even be out by the time you read this review.

I Hear You, Bats.

If anything, the audio in Shadow is even better than the graphics since, by its very nature, it’s unencumbered by performance limitations. The sound effects are solid throughout, and the soundtrack by Kazuma Jinnouchi blends the familiar dark, orchestral tones of previous Arkham games with fresh compositions that drive home the game’s drama. Jinnouchi maintains continuity with the series while introducing new elements that match the game’s unique mood.

The voice acting is also superb, with standout performances by Roger Craig Smith as Batman / Bruce Wayne, Troy Baker as Harvey Dent, and Mara Junot as Leslie Thompkins. Junot’s portrayal, in particular, conveys deep empathy for Bruce, truly drawing you into the narrative and the emotional connections between the characters and creating a world in which Batman is not a lone solitary figure but a man loved by the people who understand his traumas, his struggles, and the choices he makes.

Bat-Snags

Despite being a smooth experience overall, I encountered a few issues playing Arkham Shadow. Early on in the game, there was a rope tying a door shut, and I was supposed to cut it with a Batarang; this failed spectacularly despite my repeatedly trying; luckily, I found an alternate path, so it wasn’t a game-breaker. A few bugs like this showed up during my playthrough; a vent I couldn’t enter, a doorway that wouldn’t let me in even after it opened, etc. Infrequent as they were, such issues were usually resolved by simply reloading the last checkpoint or quitting the game and starting again.

The game also seems to trigger some communications with Alfred not by chronological sequence but by location, so I found that if a particular voice message from Alfred was triggered at some place, if you returned to that place again, the same recording was played; this was immersion breaking. I’m hoping Camoflaj will fix it.

I’ve also heard of some players who experienced a game crash where the game would just exit. This only happened to me once when my Quest mysteriously declared that it didn’t have enough memory to run ‘Manta.’

Bat Hours

If you’re wondering about length, the game’s campaign lasts about 10 hours, more or less, depending on how well you play it, how much of it you choose to complete, and what difficulty level you select. I played it on Hard. The combat and predator challenges could add significantly to that time if you enjoy those modes.

Bat Thoughts

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a remarkable achievement in standalone VR, featuring a compelling story, strong character development, stunning graphics, immersive combat, and captivating performances. It showcases how well the character translates across different media and highlights and builds upon the impressive world and mechanics created by Rocksteady way back in 2009. It also reflects the dedication, love, and respect that Camoflaj and Director Ryan Payton have shown for both the character and the earlier Arkham games and, in the process, proves that Batman’s world can thrive in VR, making Arkham Shadow a must-play for both VR fans and Batman enthusiasts alike.

What’re you waiting for? Do you really need a score?

For those of you who have seen our review of Myst on the Quest (caption: we gave it a 9) from a couple of years back, you already know that I’m a book-carrying member of the Cyan fan club. In that review, I mentioned that the only real problem with Myst was that it was utterly eclipsed by its sequel, Riven. Now, the unthinkable has happened: Riven has materialised on the Quest and Steam, remade and rethought for VR and modern systems. I’m almost impossibly excited about it, but I promise you, dear viewers, that I will do my best to objectively analyse whether Riven 2024 is worth your time, money, and emotional investment. We will avoid spoilers for the plot or puzzles to the best of our ability.

A Link to the Past

I believe that Riven is one of the most important and successful titles in the history of narrative gaming. It epitomises the principle of “show, don’t tell.” It traps you alone in a beautiful, forbidding world where exploration and understanding are the primary rewards. There are mysteries to be solved, and each machine, lever, and room is an organic part of the world-building, context building upon context in a satisfying, thrillingly non-linear way. The original game was beautiful, intriguing, and immersive despite being presented as a series of static prerendered images. This remains a wonder today. Now, in the age of VR, the promise of Riven should be fully realised.

Age of Wonders

I have seen the opening scenes of the original Riven hundreds of times. I can vouch that Cyan has not only beautifully updated the graphics and gracefully replaced the live actors with motion-captured models, but they have also stayed true to the original performances and body language. The slightly dodgy 3D models of what were once real (but also dodgy) performers were the main sticking point of Myst in VR, but this is thankfully not the case here. When the cutscenes have played out and the game finally opens the door to the world of Riven, you’re free to explore Riven in full 3D for the first time. For me, that is a very emotional moment. It’s the difference between obsessing over a place through photographs for a couple of decades and then finding yourself there for real. I will preempt the rest of my review here and state right now that Cyan has utterly, definitively nailed it.

D’ni, The Champion of the World

The original Riven is a masterpiece. The remake surpasses it in every way, and VR is the definitive way to play it. It’s so much more than just a new way to explore the world; like Myst before it, it’s as if it has been waiting for VR to exist. To virtually stand in beautiful environments that have hitherto only existed as barely animated stills is a dream realised. It actually makes the puzzle-solving so much more rewarding and substantial. A very early puzzle involves working out the rotation of a pentagonal room to make progress. Being able to stand in the room and physically rotate makes the logic of the problem a lot easier to parse. Peering through lenses and gaps for clues is a physical act in VR rather than a button press, and the islands of Riven have been subtly retooled to take advantage of the new possibilities of vantage points and perspectives not available before. The physicality of VR—such as pulling levers, pressing buttons, or opening doors—feels completely fantastic. Reading a book requires physically holding the book and flipping through the pages, which is crucial to the lore and setting. The ability to use both hands on a machine or gadget while looking around, a natural act in real life but impossible in flat gaming, is a necessity in the VR version of Riven.

Cyan Pride

All of this is what one might cautiously and hopefully expect from a developer with a duty of care to its beloved back catalogue. What truly impresses me is that Cyan has been fearless in daring to improve on the original title. They have introduced new approaches to puzzles and new mechanics, altered the topography of islands here and there, and added subtle narrative tweaks and touches that enhance the classic version. All the changes are improvements; some were made not just to bolster gameplay but to make the narrative sing a little more. To new players, everything will seem well-wrought and satisfying. To returning players like me, there are a hundred little improvements and changes that delight, intrigue, and occasionally astonish. Cyan has served their fan base well and provided a wealth of riches for those taking their first steps in this brave new world.

Get the Book Out of Here

Riven is beautiful. The concern with any modern 3D remake would always be whether they could convey the same level of beauty as the original. For a 26-year-old game, Riven still stands up as astonishingly good-looking, the sheer quality of the prerendered world transcending its technical limitations. The folks at Cyan were kind enough to provide us with copies of both the Meta Quest and Steam versions of the game for comparison. Of course, the Quest will never compete with PCVR, and the nature of the game means it can’t draw from the same technical aspects as Red Matter 2. The PC version of Riven is utterly incredible to look at, bringing joyous new life to the game. Even with my gaming laptop running Riven at modest settings for VR’s sake, the graphics are wondrous.

The Quest version is an eyebrow-raisingly decent attempt to convey the same content with some caveats. Firstly, of course, the textures take a hit, but some more so than others. It’s still a beautiful game, but some environments are a little fuzzy and muted. There’s occasionally a bit of glitching and pop-in, but nothing too aggravating. In some areas, the foveated rendering (the pixelation around areas towards the edge of the Quest lenses) is noticeable and a little distracting. But it’s the water that’s actually problematic, noticeably devoid of splashing effects at best and, in one area in particular, flat and glitchy, making the surrounding geometry appear off. The rest of the game is so lovely to look at, and these issues really stand out. They could be better realised. Overall, while the Quest version is never going to reach photorealism, it’s a beautiful thing.

The Cries of Strange Birds

The audio is my favourite part of Riven’s presentation. The sound design is peerless, from the atmospheric ambience of different locations to the creaking of boards and old metal and the clanking of ancient machinery. The fact that most of it remains unchanged from the original game is a testament to the effort and care lavished on every detail over a quarter of a century ago. Sound plays a possibly more significant role in the success of Riven than the visuals, and this becomes even more apparent in VR. Put on some headphones, and you can lose yourself entirely in this alien yet relatable and familiar world.

Special mention must go to the music, a score that manages to be creepy, mysterious, and soothing all at once. Music is sparing and subtle but essential to the game’s fabric, underpinning everything with an unsettling, nagging sense of dread and wonder.

Familiar Patterns of Decay

There are a few things that could be improved in the current Quest version of the game. The glitches and pop-ins are a little concerning, detracting slightly from the game’s polish. While the use of VR is wonderful, and the additions to the game are completely welcome, the new inventory satchel could have been more organically realised. Many VR games use an over-the-shoulder motion to retrieve backpacks, which would be preferable to the button press here, making its absence a curious omission.

Loading times can be distracting and are the main thing that breaks immersion. While the lengthy initial loading process can be easily forgiven and forgotten, the long pause to take an in-game screenshot and bring up the menu is a drag. This might sound spoiled coming from someone who played through the original game multiple times and had to endure physically changing CD-ROMs between every island. However, the (short) loading screens during travel are unwelcome and jarring in VR. At least there’s a pleasant animation to watch while it loads.

My final gripe is that there needs to be a way to annotate the screenshots you take. A virtual pen to scribble on the screenshots and keep notes would have been a most welcome addition.

And So, I Close

Riven on the Meta Quest is, by far, the best puzzle and exploration game on the platform. It easily joins Resident Evil 4 on the winner’s podium for beloved older classics, given a new lease of life in VR. The care lavished upon Riven is considerable, presenting thoughtful armchair adventurers with a nourishing and immersive experience that will linger in the heart and mind long after leaving the headset. It’s been my favourite virtual world for half a century, and VR is the best and greatest way to experience it.

COLD, COLD GROUND

Upon loading Sniper Elite VR: Winter Warrior, there’s a sense of familiarity. Menus look and sound the same, and the narrator and protagonist from the original VR release—an amiable elderly Italian partisan reminiscing about his time as a crack-shot sniper in the Second World War—remain. In the first outing, he related his tales from his sunlight-dappled garden, where his young family frolicked, enjoying the freedoms he fought for. This time, he starts in bed, with a blizzard outside snowing him in, triggering memories of snow levels he didn’t mention previously.

After a brief but effective tutorial firing range, which you can leave without completing if you’re on another save, we’re dropped into the first level proper. Well, sort of. It’s still actually a tutorial and quite narrow in scope (no pun intended, for once). The gameplay is familiar: sneak, snipe, use environmental sounds to cover your shots, kill everyone, plant a bomb, and then get to the exit. You know the drill, perhaps too well.

WINTERLUDE

Let’s start with the positives. Many of the nice things I said in my review of the original two years ago still hold true. The sniping is surprisingly intuitive and effective, the slow-motion bullet kill cam is well-realized, and the graphics are largely lovely.

The sound is good, and there’s a core to the gameplay that’s undeniably fun. If you were a big fan of the original Sniper Elite VR, you’ll know what to expect from Winter Warrior—it provides more of the same, mostly. However, I can’t help but feel let down and uninvested in this sequel.

GUNPOWDER FROM ICE

Despite being a standalone title, Winter Warrior never really feels like a sequel. To be fair, it’s half the price of the original and probably conceived as additional levels rather than a full game in its own right, and it shows. The game has a pervasive tiredness about it, like it’s just going through the motions. The Partisan starts in bed and never really gets out of it. Music cues, assets, animations, and sounds are reused from the first game. Missions should feel like playgrounds of possibility, but are actually a staid and workmanlike series of checkpoints and triggered events. There’s a surprising lack of emphasis on stealth and, believe it or not, sniping. Limited enemy numbers mean that after you’ve killed a few, the game spawns more in, sometimes alerted regardless of how stealthy you’ve been.

‘Letters From Home’ and other collectibles are scattered around levels but can’t be read—they’re just busywork, not additional context. There are challenges in each level that add some fun and replayability, but this idea, too, is regurgitated from the original. The déjà vu is strong, and it contributes to the hollow feel of the game.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

Sniper Elite VR nailed some core experiences and basics that other titles like Medal of Honor and Onward didn’t. It felt like a lot was riding on it, and it confidently quelled many fears. That relief allowed me to overlook some jankiness because it had heart.

The sequel, however, does nothing to advance itself and suddenly feels dated. The lack of engaging VR interactions is grating and reveals a laziness and lack of ambition. Handguns can’t be held with both hands. Door handles, keys, switches, satchel charges, and the like are operated by reaching out a hand and holding down a grip button until a bar fills up—flat game mechanics that break immersion in VR. You don’t feel like an elite sniper; you feel like you’re just waving a pointing finger in the air. These interactions are crucial for VR, and we deserve better. Michel Roux famously asked potential students to crack an egg for him, saying that if they could do that well, he could teach them anything. I feel similarly about VR games handling keys in locks or opening cupboards—if this feels good and intuitive, the rest of the game might have the right attention to detail to be a winner. In this game, those aspects are lacking and definitely hurt the quality of the final product. Reloading and charging guns were nailed in the first installment—now, where’s the rest of the game? The remote pull for ammo and objects is fiddly and inconsistent, with no sense of weight. Enemy animations are basic and staccato, making reading the levels annoying at times. The enemies don’t feel enough like combatants, just paper marionettes waiting to be decommissioned.

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT

One unexpected disappointment in Winter Warrior was the character of The Partisan himself. While there’s nothing wrong with the acting per se, the structure of having him narrate the action as a series of memories means the affable old man persona never lets up. Everything he says has the tone of an advert for authentic pasta sauce, without really conveying the urgency of the player’s situation. Remember the bit in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf suddenly drops the genial grandpa act and reveals he’s a powerful, ancient soul with the weight of the world on his shoulders? That never happens with the Partisan, and a potentially interesting narrative about a lovable old chap who was a super-assassin evaporates in a cloud of whimsy. It would be great if, while peering down the scope of a sniper rifle, the voiceover matched the mood, rather than making me think I should be tucked under a tartan blanket falling asleep in front of Countdown.

A FROZEN, ROTTED ROAD

The snowy theme of Winter Warrior is apt, as the game feels like the first one but frozen in time. It never really thaws, losing a lot of charm and goodwill to frostbite. It will be overshadowed by other releases around it, perhaps deservedly so. With a bit more care, I’d be more positive. As it is, Winter Warrior feels like a dead end. I hope there’s another VR installment of the Sniper Elite games, one that pays more attention to its competitors and respects its audience.

Stick with the original or wait for it to go on sale. It’s got more charm and imagination than this ersatz sequel, which will leave you cold.

If you’re a big fan of the original, you might add a point or two to my score. But if you’re like me and love the original but want more this time, this game feels like less.

Having played the game to completion, we feel it would be fair to describe Hubris as “a narrative-driven sci-fi shooter that utilises a range of made-for-VR mechanics to create a varied gaming experience spanning a range of beautifully crafted futuristic landscapes. From platforming sections to underwater missions and even a fast-paced hoverbike sequence, Hubris will keep players wondering what’s next as they battle their way across a hostile alien world..”

Sounds cool, right?

It would also, and without contradicting any of the above in any way, be completely fair to describe Hubris as “the gaming equivalent of watching a remarkably physically attractive person completely misunderstand the concept of fun and then spend six hours explaining to you why they are the most fun person they know.”

Let’s unpack that, shall we…

GOOD LOOKING… ON PAPER

Hubris begins with the player embodying a character known only as “recruit,” a newbie cadet joining an intergalactic law enforcement organisation known as the “Order of Objectivity.” Rather quickly, your routine transfer to your training facility goes awry. With only the most cursory of establishing narrative, you begin to navigate a strange alien environment steeped in an entirely theoretical mystery.

The story then proceeds to methodically expose itself throughout a 5-6 campaign. As you make your way through the game, you will encounter a trio of characters who, despite being well-voiced and reasonably animated, somehow collectively carry the emotional resonance of a single beige sock. 

While each narrative section makes sense in context and serves to progress the campaign, the dialogue is dull. In fact, the entire story feels as though it was designed entirely to set up a series of missions rather than creating the sense of foreboding intrigue that the game seemed to be aiming for. The story vaguely hints at something deeper in the final chapter but never explains it, perhaps as a setup for a sequel. Up until then, it would be fair to summarise the entire narrative as “Oh no! Bad guys!”

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE

Throughout the game, the player will switch from straight combat to platforming in a way that makes perfect sense for the flow of the gameplay. The only issue is; both the jumping and grabbing mechanics are so inconsistent and unrealistic that they demean any sense of immersion gained by the rest of the game.

The jumping feels weightless, occupying a physics system that feels distractingly alien, even considering the extraterrestrial context. Grabbing clearly marked edges in mid-air is so hit-or-miss as to become a masterclass in frustration, although it fares slightly better on PSVR2 for some inexplicable reason. Mixing the gameplay by interspersing platforming sections amidst the combat missions is a great idea, but it’s let down by the poor execution of the jumping and grabbing mechanics. 

Also mixed into the proceedings are some underwater sections. Thankfully these are a great success. Swimming works well, and the gear change in play style accompanying these sections is rewarding and engaging. These sections really highlight the potential of the varied gameplay the developers were going for. Had the other sections been equally well delivered, things might have been different for Hubris.

PRETTY…PRETTY EMPTY THAT IS

Despite all the sub-genres stuffed into its missions, Hubris remains, at its heart, a sci-fi shooter. If this core conceit had been delivered to a class and standard that matched its presentation, all other criticisms would have paled against a set of basics done well. Unfortunately, as a shooter, Hubris feels vain and shallow.

Players quickly acquire a starting weapon, a humble space blaster that can be upgraded by an infuriatingly slow collecting and crafting system. This system also allows players to transform their beloved pew pew into a broadly ineffectual semi-automatic or what is, quite possibly, the worst shotgun yet to grace VR. With the expanded arsenal quickly proving lacklustre, players will find that the bulk of the action is best serviced with the rather mundane but well-upgraded starter weapon.

Thankfully, the range of enemies you will face hardly requires an audacious arsenal to be dispatched, so that starting pistol should do you just fine. The variety of enemies is slim, as is the, and I’m being generous here, ‘AI’ that drives them. Although not as bad as the likes of Gambit, flanking enemies felt far easier than it should be, and much of the action felt reminiscent of Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.

That is not to imply that combat is terrible. There were definitely a few of the less linear combat sections that had me enjoying myself, but it did all feel like something that we have already seen, and a few years ago at that. Couple that with the lack of grenades, drones, shields, or anything creative or interesting to bring to the combat, and you have an action game that feels disappointingly one-dimensional.

OOOOOH, SHINY

Let’s not beat around the bush; Hubris is a good-looking game.

In fact, it’s the type of game that makes you realise how far developers have come since the Quest 2 was initially released. From the futuristic internal environments to the cavernous underwater sections and onto the strange alien skies of the twin planets, the world of Hubris is an impressive sight to behold.

There is some artifacting around the hands, and sometimes the heads of characters, which is mildly distracting, and the surface water effects don’t quite match the insane standards set in Breachers, but overall Hubris occupies a place at the top tier of what players can visually expect from the Quest 2. The art direction is clear and consistent, and the visual world-building is far superior to its narrative counterparts. In terms of visuals, there is much to appreciate and very little to complain about.

On PSVR2, the graphics clearly outshine those on the Quest 2, which is to be expected. Hubris also benefits from superior haptics.

The sound design in Hubris also speaks to a game with high production values. The sound effects are consistent with the world, and most would feel at home in a high-budget sci-fi film. Some of the critter sounds are a little weak, particularly when compared to the masterful work of games like Crashland, and there is little in the way of ambient sounds in the bigger open areas. But overall, the sound design complements the graphics well, and the two elements together go a long way to distracting you from the gameplay issues, successfully putting some glossy lipstick on our hubristic little pig.

IF LOOKS COULD KILL   

Hubris has a list of features and gameplay mechanics that should make it one of the most engaging single-payer VR games of all time – had they been done well. But, perhaps fittingly for a game called Hubris, it seems that pretty graphics and a laundry list of features were assumed to be enough to satiate players. They aren’t.

The general concept of mixing climbing, swimming, platforming, and driving sections with a traditional linear action game is brilliant. In fact, the pure potential of using all of these techniques to fuel an epic story-driven adventure is intoxicating. However, when compared with the various best-in-class mechanics that already exist in each of these auxiliary genres, Hubris sadly proves that being a jack of all trades but master of none is not an ideal proposition for a VR action game.

Now if you’ve seen our impressions video or any other video about the game, you’ll know that its core selling point is its unique locomotion system that, as I said before, reminds me of the Impossible Spaces system used in Tea for God. The idea is that the entire game is played without any artificial locomotion. You don’t use thumbsticks to move, and you don’t use free movement or teleportation. It’s all done in room scale, cannot be played sitting down, won’t work if your space is too small, and relies entirely on messing with your head using moving blocks and rollers, making it feel like you’re traversing all kinds of distances while you’re really just taking small steps to the front, sides, and back. 

Does this system work? Yes. It works brilliantly and, I’m tempted to say, flawlessly. It works so well, in fact, that you have to be careful since stepping off of moving blocks and off rollers subconsciously tempts your body to try to overcompensate for inertia and, more than once, almost had me fall over. I repeat, I’m a VR veteran and I almost fell over a couple of times. So, you’ve been warned; be careful.

The result of all this is that the game passes the ‘Yeah, but is it immersive!?’ test with flying colors. The movement system is, indeed, very immersive.

Step By Step

The gameplay itself is relavitely simple; you navigate your way around the temple, solving puzzles, unlocking doors, and activating a set of seven beacons to allow you to finally enter the inner chambers of the temple, where you can finally confront the great darkness, and save mankind from all kinds of evil things. 

In your adventure, you’re armed with the whip I mentioned earlier and a torch. Did I mention Indiana Jones? I did in the impressions video, so I promise I won’t again. I’m sure every other video about this game has already hammered the Indy angle hard, so let’s not waste time on that. 

Your whip, the developer promises, is ‘physically simulated’, and it does act more or less like you’d expect it to, but only unfurls, so to speak, when the game decides it would be of use. Although I don’t doubt the mechanics behind it, in practice, it’s a bit hit-and-miss, and chances are you’ll only get good at using it by the time you’ve reached the final levels. Initially, the whip is mainly used to pull levers that are too far for you to reach yourself, and the torch is mostly used to light up braziers, some of which unlock gates, activate mechanisms, or reveal parts of the backstory. There are a couple of sequences where you’ll also use it as a weapon, but this is not an action game. 

There’s a cool blue bird – I think it’s a falcon – that follows you around throughout the game, and as the story progresses, you’ll grow to appreciate why. Enough of that! This is a no-spoiler zone. 

As the game progresses, you’ll unlock one extra thing your whip can do, and it’s pretty cool and helps Eye of the Temple offer some variety in its puzzle design.

Hello Legoland

Visually speaking, the game’s graphics are good but not remarkable. There’s nothing here to compete with some of the better-looking games on Quest, but the art style is consistent and attractive enough to keep you immersed. However, it’s too consistent, the South American style that the game relies on is unchanged throughout. This is logically consistent since the game does all take place in ONE temple, but I would’ve appreciated some variety in overall style and textures. A few areas with distinctly different themes would have made a huge difference and surely could have been explained by some narrative device.

The audio design is very good, and the soundtrack by Claudi Martinez is very fitting, although somewhat generic. Although generally sedate and relaxing, it’s triggered by the context and gets more energetic and upbeat when more action is called for. Overall, it serves the game just as it should, as does the sound design.

Matters of Scale

Eye of the Temple takes about 4-5 hours to complete but squeezes out some extra longevity by offering speedrun challenges to gamers who enjoy those, and secret treasures to be found for completionists. 

At $19.99 it’s about par for the course for this scale on Quest. As a puzzler, it offers a unique experience, but I also have to mention it has its ups and downs. It was great fun at the start, then started getting a bit dull as the gameplay and the environments started feeling samey, then it became more fun again when the whip gained an extra feature about halfway into the game, offering a little more variety in the nature of the puzzles. I’m also tempted to say that since the game has a couple of action sequences, perhaps a few more would also have upped the ante.

Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Temple is an immersive puzzler that perhaps relies a bit too heavily on its locomotion system to keep you entertained. It’s rewarding, but brief, and could have used more variety. Having said that, I had a great time with the game, and despite a bit of a lull mid-run, the latter half kept me going, and I felt compelled to play it to the end. 

Good stuff. 

Having played the original Colossal Cave, you have some idea of what the game is all about. You know that you explore a large cave found nearby your starting location. You know that you’ll collect treasures, examine and pick up various strange objects, and use those objects to get past some of the obstacles you encounter, including a dragon…because…who doesn’t like dragons?

You wonder if Colossal Cave is any good, as the game begins you notice that the game has limited locomotion options. One is called Classic Locomotion and lets you move around the environment using the thumbstick. Although there is an option to switch between snap and smooth turning, there is no option to have the motion follow your head. You find this somewhat annoying, so you try the other option. The other option is called Comfort Locomotion. The menu screens tell you that this is the favored control method of the remake’s lead designer. You try it. It’s odd and unwieldy, it maps all motion controls to the left controller and all inventory controls to the right controller. You advance by holding down the trigger button, as though it’s some kind of gas pedal, and you reverse by holding down the grip button. 

You try it for a while, but hate it.

You revert to the so-called Classic Locomotion, despite its lack of head-follow options.

Colossally Crippling

You find yourself in front of a cabin in the woods, you approach it and try to open the door with your in-game hand. 

You can’t do that. 

Your in-game hands function merely as cursor pointers, making you feel as though you’re stuck in some kind of point-and-click adventure game made in the mid-1980s. You wonder why a 2023 VR port of a text-based adventure game originally made in 1976 is using a control system traditionally used by DOS-based PC games made in the 1980s. 

Your hand, now merely a pointer for an eye-shaped cursor, points at the door’s handle. You click on the use button, mapped to your trigger button, and Colossal Cave’s narrator confirms what you can already see; that the door is closed. 

You cycle between the trigger button functionality by using the grip button, and it now turns your cursor into a hand, signifying that you can now take or use things with your cursor. 

You click the hand-shaped cursor on the door handle, and it opens. 

You wonder why you could not simply have grabbed the door handle and pushed it open yourself. Why am I pointing at things to use them, you wonder to yourself, but soldier on.

Inside, you find a few objects, although you can clearly see what they are, you can still click your eye cursor on each to have the game tell you what they are. It seems redundant and useless.

You pick up some food, not by using your hands, but by pointing your hand-shaped cursor at the food and clicking the trigger button. It goes into your inventory. 

Wanting to eat the food you just picked up, you open up your inventory screen, find your food, and click your cursor on the food, virtually picking it up. You then click on the ‘eat’ button above your inventory, and thus, eat the food.

You wonder if just grabbing the food and putting it in your mouth would have been easier, and perhaps more immersive.

You soldier on. 

Tedium Tremendous

Finally, after picking up a couple of more items, you leave the cabin. To the left, you notice a path. You follow the path, thanking the lords above that Colossal Cave at least allows you to change your movement speed. 

You see an owl in a tree. On the ground below, you find a metal grating. You remember that you cannot just pull on it because your hands aren’t really hands, merely cursor pointers. You examine it instead, and the game dutifully tells you that it’s locked. 

You remember you have keys. 

You pull up your inventory with a controller button, then you select the keys by pointing at them and clicking the trigger button, then you point the keys at the use button, and then finally you point them at the metal grating. It unlocks. You descend the stairs and make your way into a cave. 

As Colossal Cave progresses, you wonder why a text-based adventure game released in 1976 has been ported to a Virtual Reality platform in 2023 with the click-and-point mechanics of games made in the 1980s. 

You wonder why you can’t use your hands as hands. 

You wonder if these design decisions are an attempt to remain faithful to the original Colossal Cave, but quickly remember that the original game was not, in fact, a point-and-click game, but a text-based game.

For a moment, you think it might have been better if this game started you off in a computer lab, where you could sit down on an old PDP-10 computer and just play the original text-based game. Surely, that would have been more in keeping with the spirit of the original if that had been the intent. 

Then you think that would make for a terrible VR experience, although it might have worked well as an intro to a far better game than the one you’re now playing. 

Cavernous Despair

You explore the caves for a while. Knowing that others will ask you what you’ve experienced in the cave, you begin taking notes.

There is no combat in Colossal Cave, at least not in the way that most gamers would define it, you can ‘use’ objects on things or characters, like a bird that you trap in a cage, and then unleash to have it attack a cobra, for instance.

There is some diversity in the environments found inside the cave; the ruins of an ancient temple, an area in which there’s some construction going on, an area with glowing plant life, etc. Many of these have many exits, and many of those just go around in circles.

Colossal Cave, you take note to inform them does have puzzles, mainly about figuring out which object to use in what situation, but most of the puzzles are, to use a kind word, ‘quirky’. Others would simply call them irrational, or, to use another generous word, ‘whimsical’. 

As Colossal Cave continues, you realize it’s all about exploring, finding objects and treasures, using the right objects at the right time, and finding your way around the world.

You Shall Not Pass

After wandering around in the caves for a while, you put down your Meta Quest 2 Virtual Reality Headset and do other things which are far more enjoyable than playing Colossal Cave. 

You come back to it the next day, hoping your second session will be more fun now that you’re inside the cave system, you find out that although the game offers nine save slots, it does not feature auto-save, and you realize this must be another ill-conceived way to remain hypothetically faithful to the fictional point-and-click game that the original never was.

Curses, I say! Curses!

You remember that this game, priced at $39.99, costs as much as Resident Evil 4, and shudder as you imagine the disappointment it will deliver to anybody who buys it and misses the refund window. 

You conclude that the game is nostalgia-bait for older VR players who will recognize the name of a game known mostly for being there first, and that this version delivers neither the text-based authenticity of the original nor the fun that you can enjoy for games costing half as much from the Meta Store. 

Not the last one, huh? Well, hustle, new kid, because that’s not the only disaster that awaits you on your first day at Cosmonious High, as you begin to investigate how exactly that asteroid got through the school’s defences and why so much is suddenly going wrong with the school.

A GOON-iverse of possibilities

In this latest game from Job Simulator devs Owlchemy Labs, the player, usually referred to by some variation of ‘New kid’, is the first enrollee from the ‘Prismi’ species at the eponymous intergalactic institution. These aliens are blessed with the ability to adapt when placed in a difficult situation. This is achieved by spontaneously developing a new power. The first of these evolutions is the water power granted in the very first moments of the game. It’s used to escape the burning school bus and then put out residual fires around a campus that has suffered a meteor strike. That’s not all, though. You can use the new ability to water plants, wash paint away, and refill fountains. Other powers include Ice, Fire, and Telepathy. The powers you develop during the game evolve for a specific purpose, but none are ever restricted to being used for only that purpose. There are eight in total, selected from an intuitive menu that appears on the back of each hand.

As you progress past the first few fiery moments of Cosmonious High, you start getting introduced to the game’s cast of NPCs, who give you tips on how to play. But very little instruction is actually needed because the controls are incredibly intuitive, even if you missed out on the developer’s previous games.

If you are familiar with Owlchemy’s previous titles, however, you’ll know that getting ‘hands-on’ with anything and everything in a game world is a crucial pillar of their creative ethos. With the experience of ‘Job Simulator‘ and ‘Vacation Simulator‘ behind them, they bring such immersion to the environmental interactions in Cosmonious High that these gestures have begun to bleed into my everyday life. You can summon any in-game item into your hand by simply pointing at it and flicking your wrist towards you. It wasn’t long after playing for a few hours that I believed for a tiny moment that I could achieve this feat with my real-world TV remote. A few hours later, I wondered what my desk lamp might be thinking. It’s pretty incredible that a game that’s so visually unrealistic can still seep into one’s consciousness in this way.

The game builds its more structured activities based on total but straightforward interactivity. These are built around various subjects taught at the school – all of which must be passed with sufficient credits.

Immediately available classes are Visualetics and Chemosophy. The former is where you can combine your water power with pigments and then paint… well, everything and anything really. The latter is closer to ‘Job/Vacation Simulator’ territory as you stand behind a counter combining and stirring coloured liquids to make new compounds and materials. These, again, can be applied to all the beakers, books, hats, balls, and literally anything else you can find lying around the school. Want to cover an ‘Among Us’ plushy with Stickium and throw it at the ceiling? Fill your boots, newbie!

Later on, you open Astralgebra, where you can study planets. Well, I say ‘study’; it’s more like ‘create’ planets… albeit small ones. Other classes include Socionic Arts and Auditoriology, with activities like treating a sick pet alien and singing small creatures into existence.

Each class offers a unique new way to interact with the world, and the results are rarely confined to the room you learnt them in.

With almost everything in the game able to be picked up, thrown, kept, or eaten, you could be forgiven for thinking that this would be the core of the world’s believability. But it’s actually almost everything else that makes Cosmonious High feel like a living environment. Characters chat with each other naturally until you get their attention with a wave or by selecting an emoji from the speech bubble you pull from your mouth, the malfunctioning intercom provides the signature Owlchemy tone, and despite only having a dozen other students and a handful of teachers, the whole school feels genuinely alive.

This is helped in no small measure by the game’s open-world nature. The map is relatively small, with just around twenty rooms and corridors. There is a ‘hub’ of sorts in the central ‘Grand Hall’, but there are pathways and secret passages that link areas without revisiting the hall. Like all the best open-world games, it’s sometimes difficult to complete an objective without getting distracted by something else.

Outside of gaining classroom credit, each of the dozen other characters has their own story for you to get involved with. There are also broken devices to fix and debris to clean up everywhere you look. There are even faint echoes of a Metroidvania in the way you need particular abilities to access locked-out areas and routes to progress.

Genre GOO-Idity

One of the best aspects of Cosmonious High may initially put some players off. Set in a high school, with a kinetic art style, day-glow palette and excitable voice work, people might pre-judge this as a ‘childish’ game or, at least, one aimed at a younger demographic.

While it’s true that there’s nothing in the game that you couldn’t show even the youngest VR enthusiast, the developer’s reason for the primary colours and lack of any real threat or peril is that the game was born from the idea of an ‘optimistic future’.

What feels like a carefree and easy environment has clearly been put together with fantastic attention to detail. The school and everything in it has a bulbous, cartoony look that leans heavily towards secondary colours and rounded edges. It really helps it feel like a cohesive and organically constructed facility. The 12 students all have an individual look and personality, revealed through the art and voice-work. Despite coming from three easily identified species of aliens, their individuality isn’t constrained by the things that set that species apart from the others.

Pronouns in the game are also varied but handled so naturally that I didn’t even pick up on them at first. A particular early game quest sees you aid one character in the romantic pursuit of another a la ‘Cyrano De Bergerac’. As I completed this task, I did so in the casual belief that the characters were both male and gay. As I composed this review, however, I realised that I wasn’t sure that either character ever identified as male or gay. It’s a great credit to the developers and their flair for natural dialogue that this was the case, and shame on me for not paying better attention.

In the beautiful, inclusive world of Cosmonious High, there are no judgements and definitely no pre-judgements. As a result, it looks and feels like a fantastic place to go to school.

Cosmonious High also sounds excellent. You may have gathered that the character voices are exceptional, conveying personality with a sense of humour and individuality that perfectly aligns with the rest of the game. The music is similarly cohesive, being largely ambient and often overheard, in a brilliantly organic way, from nearby speakers or another student’s headphones. There are school anthems, fanfares, and hilarious in-world pop songs with full vocals; “Can’t Stop Me From Stretchin’ my Goo” was my personal favourite, but they’re all total bangers.

Too GOO-d to be true?

WIth a gameworld constructed to be a giant toy box, it seems nit-picky to complain that there’s little challenge in the game. The vibe is geared towards letting the player have fun, and it nails this completely. Still, it wouldn’t have hurt to have a few more complex puzzles, even if they were optional, to provide some extra satisfaction along the way. 

However, a more serious concern is the nature of movement in the game. It’s become the norm in 3rd wave VR to be able to teleport by pushing a stick forward and then rotating it to choose the direction you face when you ‘land’. Cosmonious High employs only half of this, the first part; the rotation aspect is absent and sorely missed.

Hopping to a new location and then turning in increments (if you’re playing seated) is clunky and incredibly jarring in a game world where everything else feels natural and fluid. Perhaps it was a bug in my review copy or something that can be changed with a patch. I hope so because otherwise, it’s a bizarre and counter-intuitive creative choice.

Stretching my Goo

Even with the clumsy teleportation throwing a tack in my path, I finished the main story in 4 to 5 hours – but I reached that end-game with only half of the possible 100 Credits collected. 

You’d have to pay me an enormous amount of real-world money to convince me to go back to my real-world high school, but you wouldn’t be able to stop me from clocking at least a few more hours at Cosmonious high. I’ll be heading back to find those last few Blebs, open those space-ball hoops, and collect the missing cards from my Pirates of the Gooniverse set.

GOO-ing for the hat-trick

Owlchemy Labs have already shown us they’re masters of the micro-sandbox with the’ Job’ and’ Vacation’ Simulator games. While it’s by no means huge, Cosmonious High brings a much larger sense of scale than its two predecessors in every way. The deceptively multi-layered characters are more numerous and better realised. The game’s world is elevated beyond anything we’ve seen from the developer. Its design is wonderfully consistent and vibrant and brought together with so much class that it makes the game a brilliantly fun experience.

The control issue is a small fly in a delicious soup, but even that can’t get in the way of a great experience that, unlike too many recent games, completely embodies what VR is, or should be, about. More than once, as I ended a session, I tried to place my controllers on a surface that only existed in the game – and I really don’t think there’s any higher praise.

Surely, all this would make for a thrilling VR game, one might think.

One would, unfortunately, be tragically, heartbreakingly, wrong.

Me Tarzan, You Jane

Remember the horrible prehistoric decades of cheap film-tie-in video games when for every action movie released, a terrible cash-in video game came along? It wasn’t just movie tie-ins, of course. Any IP famous enough suffered the same fate; reliance on the franchise to sell the game to unsuspecting children, incompetent mechanics, sloppy gameplay, and graphics that were at least one or two generations behind.

This, I’m afraid to say, is that.

My Mother Was An Ape

Tarzan VR promises many things. It promises that you’ll play as the titular character. It promises that you’ll swing on vines, swim, climb trees, and fight your way through three episodes of the game.

This is all true; you get to do all those things, but what the marketing doesn’t tell you is that no matter which of those things you’re doing, you’ll hate it. You’ll hate it so much that it’s borderline inconceivable that you’ll want to suffer through three episodes of this dreck.

Me Tarzan, Am Telekinetic

The gameplay in Tarzan VR is simple and boring. You move with the left thumbstick, and you turn physically or with the right thumbstick. You can sprint by moving your arms in a swinging motion as though you were running. You are given one weapon per episode, which you can tuck away by clicking the B button.

Swinging across vines is, depressingly, a hit-and-miss affair and can be incredibly frustrating, so much so that I almost abandoned the game at some point because of it. You see, you don’t jump to catch a vine, but click the grab button when you’re close enough to it, at which point it magically stretches towards you, you grab it, and your swinging begins. To catch the next vine, you reach with your other hand and click the grab button again, but the grab action only works when the other vine is close enough, or when some random part of its length is close enough, or when Tarzan VR, in its infinite wisdom decides to make the other vine grab-able. It’s sometimes so finicky that you’ll be swinging idiotically for almost a minute, hoping that the engine might allow you to grab the next damn vine.

Your enemies are mostly copy-paste men dressed in military costumes, and they have all the AI of an old brick. Some of the smarter ones will rush towards you much as you’d imagine a brick on wheels might. However, most will just conveniently stand next to an exploding barrel. You can blow up such barrels with your slingshot because, apparently, metal barrels explode when you throw rocks at them. Bad guys you don’t blow up can be pummeled with your fists. Oh, and you replenish your health by eating bananas and coconuts.

You’re given one unique weapon per episode. In the first episode, it’s an axe. In the second it’s the slingshot, in the third, it’s a long bow. You don’t accumulate the weapons, though, so you can’t use the axe in the second episode, for instance. This makes the ‘mini-boss’ fights unnecessarily difficult, since the slingshot only stuns enemies but doesn’t actually cause any noticeable damage. Still, you can lure the enemies close to a barrel, stun them there, and then blow it up after you gain some distance.

Kala Became Sad

When Tarzan starts, the first thing you notice is the graphics; they’re poor and flat. Rather than being realistic or stylized, the art style is perfectly happy to settle for what I can only refer to as ‘meh.’ They’re supposed to look cartoony, but they’re not as good as those in, for example, Jurassic World Aftermath or Yupitergrad.

The few exceptions to the incredibly dreary gameplay graphics are the Tarzan comic book pages that float towards you when the game first starts. They give a nice pulpy feel to the intro and the mistaken impression that Tarzan VR might hold some promise. Unfortunately, all such hopes are quickly dissipated. The graphics are disappointing, the animations are depressing, and the level design is linear and amateurish. Everything just feels like it’s the end result of a discount Learn To Code weekend workshop attended by somebody who didn’t want to be there.

There are so many ways Tarzan VR could have been better.

The swinging mechanics could have been vastly improved by having Tarzan jump to the vines, and then be able to jump between them to get closer to the next one. Haptic feedback could have been used to make both the swinging and the weapons feel more tactile. The enemy AI could have been improved so it doesn’t just consist of ‘shoot at Tarzan’ or ‘run towards Tarzan’. Weapons could have been accumulated across episodes rather than replaced. The graphics could be far better, both in terms of their polygonal level of detail and in terms of their textures.

The closest I got to actually enjoying Tarzan VR was when I got a chance to recruit a lion, who then ran along with me for a while, and took down some of the enemies, but again, rather than feel that you’re fighting alongside a majestic king of the jungle, the lion was so poorly rendered that it felt like an emaciated beast in dire need of nutrition. This sequence was a good idea and should have felt glorious, but it failed to deliver the graphics, animations, and sound required to carry it through.

Tarzan VR‘s highlight is the licensed audio, but you don’t need VR or a game purchase to hear some nostalgic ululating or voice clips. You can get those on YouTube without suffering through this tedious excuse for a game.

Tarzan Vee Er…

Here’s a little confession. As I write this review, I’ve not finished Tarzan VR. Instead, I have played two-thirds of the game at substantial mental and spiritual cost, finishing Episodes 1 and 2. Of course, there might be some alternate world out there in which some genius game designer god is messing with us. Maybe this sadistic monster of a god has crafted an incredible VR masterpiece and chose to hide it within the third episode of a game that does its absolute best to dissuade you from finishing it. If so, then I’m sorry, dear reader, but that’s a risk to my integrity that I’m happily willing to take. There’s only so much punishment I can take for your sake, and my limit has been reached.

As it stands, I’d sooner stand next to an exploding barrel and slingshot myself to an early grave than continue this particular jungle adventure. This is a game I cannot recommend to anybody, even to die-hard fans of old Lord Greystoke. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll get a good VR version of Pitfall, but for now, there are many, far better, Quest games you can play.

Will they succeed in casting a spell on gamers this time around, or will The Wizards – Dark Times prove to be nothing more than a charlatan peddling a cheap bag of tricks. Before we take a look, nothing up my sleeves..hey, presto.

You shall not pass!

The Wizards – Dark Times sees you play the role of (you guessed it) a wizard! Set in a fantasy world called Meliora, Dark Times continues the players’ journey as the unnamed mage from the first game. You again play accompanied by the overtly glib and entirely formless Aurelius, the dryly sarcastic narrator from the first game. 

Don’t worry if you haven’t played the original; there’s nothing so in depth and convoluted within the plot that you would need a refresher course. Essentially, there is evil magic afoot, and it’s up to you to stop it. There is more to it than that, but at the same time, there isn’t really. After a reasonably short amount of dialogue-based exposition, the player sets about traversing the corrupted lands of Meliora to undo the effects of the dark magics that have beset the land. It’s not getting complicated, and you know what? That’s fine by me.  

As far as the broad strokes of gameplay go, The Wizards – Dark Times is no different to the likes of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge or Warhammer: Battle Sister. The player is treated to a bit of dialogue, leading to a light puzzle or a combat set piece. Rinse and repeat. 

Although it’s not ground breaking, there are a few nice touches throughout that mix up the gameplay. I particularly enjoyed the level where it constantly rains, rendering your primary fireball spell completely useless. There’s also a level that forces you to play one-handed, limiting the spells you can use and forcing you to change your playstyle considerably. It’s a fun way to add a little variety.

Goodness gracious great balls of fire

Dark Times sets itself apart from these other narrative adventures (and in some ways surpasses them) with unique spellcasting mechanics.

The combat in The Wizards franchise is unlike any other game on the Quest and is utterly joyful to play. You’ll learn 11 spells throughout the game. These have you summoning magical weapons and mastering everything from fireballs to lightning blasts. There are six core spells, each triggered by their unique gestures and an additional five empowered versions of these core elements.

The gestures are responsive, intuitive and fun to use. The spells themselves are different enough in range, damage and effect to make each of them useful depending on the situation. Combat gets even better once you get a bit of confidence with the mechanics and find yourself launching combos, strings of gestures that run on from each other, leaving a trail of magic in your wake. It’s some of the most fun combat I’ve had in VR and had the other elements of the game been executed at this level, it would’ve become one of my favourite games.

My only complaint on this front is that one spell, in particular, feels a little overpowered. I avoided using it unless absolutely necessary. However, if you wanted to, you could simply spam this spell and basically walk through the rest of the game. 

Smoke and mirrors

Graphically, the Quest version of The Wizards – Dark Times attempts to replicate the look of its PC counterpart but unfortunately misses the mark on many vital points. While the environments provide a fair representation of a mythical fantasy world, some distracting technical issues occur throughout, sadly detracting from the gameplay. Most notable is the way that assets pop in and out of existence. This happens with annoying regularity, and although not game-breaking, it does break the immersion considerably. 

Additionally, the visual effects accompanying magical attacks and some general background ambience sounds are slightly flat and underwhelming. This is particularly evident as you cast the fireball, essentially the player’s primary weapon. It’s hard to describe, but something about it looks off – like a 3-dimensional effect has been misaligned around a 2-dimensional circle. 

It’s pretty disconcerting, and I found that I had to force myself not to look at that particular spell to get immersed. 

The lighting is also a bit inconsistent, with the fireball spell lighting the way in some areas and disappearing sadly into the void in others. Similarly, objects, enemies, and pathways seem to appear out of a poorly executed gloom that seems to exist for no other reason than to reduce the number of assets rendering at any given time. 

That said, there are some areas and effects which look quite good. Overall it’s not terrible, but compared to games like Galaxy’s Edge, which has some similarities in scale and outdoor aesthetic, the world just lacks the polish and depth that the Quest is capable of delivering.

Spells like teen spirit

The audio in The Wizards – Dark Times serves as an entirely adequate complement to the gameplay. The enemies each have their groans and grunts to indicate their presence nearby, and the spatial audio filters these sounds to the player well enough to get a feel for what’s happening around you. That said, there are such a limited number of enemy types that I feel like a bit more effort could have gone into their sound design. It’s all perfectly acceptable, but I can’t help but think that a bit more character and variety in the enemies’ sounds would have gone a long way to adding some more tension to the moments in between the combat. It may even have added some more depth to the experience whilst in battle as well. 

The music plays its part in deepening the atmosphere, with grand crescendos escalating as combat ensues, only to fade away to indicate the last of the threats has been vanquished. Outside of the ebb and flow of battle, the music occupies a supporting role, adding just enough to prop up the atmosphere without becoming intrusive. It’s hardly the highlight of the game, but it serves its purpose. 

I’m usually not a fan of the “quipping for quip’s sake” style of narrators in games, but it works well in The Wizards – Dark Times. This is in no small part due to the quality of the voice acting. It’s rather good, and although there are only three speaking roles in the game, they are all performed admirably.

Magical mystery tour

The Wizards – Dark Times is (at release) a single campaign with a finite beginning and end. Personally, it’s hard to give an accurate run time for Dark Times given how many hours I’ve spent in the PCVR versions arena mode. As a result, I breezed through my playthrough in just over 2 hours, only dying once. But it should be noted that I did that by bypassing the games natural learning curve, having already become widely proficient in the games magical combat. 

My first outing with Dark Times took me somewhere between 4-5 hours to complete, and as the Quest version seems to match the PCVR in level design, enemies and content, I see no reason that this game should clock in below 4 hours for the average player. If, however, like me, you’re an experienced spell caster, expect to blast through it swiftly.

With only six enemy types to go toe to toe with and two relatively mild difficulty settings, I can see that many people will put this game to bed after the first play through. I cannot stress what a shame this would be. The combat is so much fun that it begs for an arena or a roguelike mode. Well, the good news is that this is on the cards, with Carbon Studios not only working on delivering an arena mode for the Quest but a special Co-op arena mode featuring new enemies to boot! 

I can only score the game on the content available as it launches, but when multiplayer arena mode lands, in the immortal words of Arnie… “I’ll be back”.

Avada Kedavra

The Wizards – Dark Times is a narrative-driven adventure game that offers a unique spin on the oversaturated shooter genre. Rather than taking on your enemies with traditional weaponry, Wizards introduces a gesture-based spell casting system that is unique, intuitive and refreshing to play. 

The game suffers from a few technical issues which hold it back from excellence. But, the ability to throw magic around to dispatch foes instead of the current endless barrage of pew pew is more than enough reason to give it a try. As it stands, it’s a perfectly solid way to spend a few hours, but when the promised co-op arena lands, The Wizards – Dark Times will come into its own. 

TLDR

The Wizards – Dark Times offers a distinctive, magic-themed adventure that leverages classic gameplay tropes against an innovative and intuitive gesture-based spell casting system. It’s not perfect, but it’s different from just about everything out there and worth the price of admission just for that.