Fore-words

Cloudlands 2 is a fun, casual golf game that has options for playing both regular and mini-golf. It includes both single and multiplayer modes, a campaign mode, as well as a course editor that can create surprisingly complex holes, which can be shared online.

Unfortunately, Cloudlands 2 misses out on a lot of the personality of the golf games mentioned above. While the courses have a minimalistic and clean look, there are no human characters in the game. It’s just you alone on the golf course in most modes, though you can see other player’s Oculus avatars in online multiplayer. Each hole is its own floating island, so you don’t get to see the rest of the course around you. This gives you the feeling that each hole is its own world rather than being part of a more extensive course. The sound is mostly forgettable as well with a few chill atmospheric music tracks and some very stock sound effects.

Taking a Swing at It

Cloudlands 2 features a good variety of courses, encompassing a mixture of both regular golf holes as well as mini-golf holes. The basic golf swing mechanic works well. However, the power level seems off on standard golf holes, especially when putting. The game features some very long mini-golf holes, so I understand the need to allow gamers to put a lot of power their swings, but this doesn’t translate well to putting on the regular greens. The slightest swing can seem to send the ball flying if you’re expecting to take your normal putting swing. There is an option to customize the power of your clubs, but since courses mix regular golf and mini-golf, switching power settings back and forth can get annoying.

As this is not a simulation golf game, the variety of clubs available in Cloudlands 2 is minimal. Players are only allowed to use a basic wood/driver, iron/wedge, and a putter. While you can adjust the game for your height, the club does seem to auto-fit to the ground, ensuring it’s always the right length for the current player. However, the club appears to just “stick” to one hand, and only the motion of that hand affects the movement of the club. I found myself placing my other hand where it would usually rest on the club while swinging. Although this gave it a more natural feel, whatever you do with your other hand is irrelevant to the gameplay. You could swing one-handed and do just as well if you’re making the same general motion.

Caddy, give me a hand!

Speaking of hands, I really wish this game would give the player a representation of their hands within the game. While the club sticks to your main hand, your other hand is entirely invisible and has no real effect on the game. Clubs are changed by holding down the grip button and moving the stick. Although this works, the inclusions of a virtual golf bag or caddy might have added some realism and personality to the game.

Movement around the course is handled with a standard teleport system, but with the nice added touch that the trigger of the leading hand will always teleport you directly to the ball. However, this often does not necessarily put you in the right position to take a swing, it just puts you near (and sometimes directly on top of) the ball. After this, some additional teleporting or walking around the play space is required to line up with the ball correctly. This leads to a lot of downtime between swings, and it can be especially frustrating if you just have a few minutes to play a quick round.

Build Your Own Course – No Landscaping Necessary!

The course creator is terrific in its simplicity, giving the player a palette of different course pieces to pop out and place wherever they like in the space around them. This part of the game truly feels magical, like you are a giant piecing together your own golf course. You can zoom down to test and then tweak your course to your heart’s desire. The maximum file size on these courses is generous, allowing you to design your perfect hole of golf with wild abandon.

Unfortunately, the course creator also suffers from the game’s strange one-handed design. It would have been helpful to be able to build with one hand and hold the palette with the other. Tilt Brush and SculptrVR work that way, and they’re fantastic. Instead, Cloudlands 2 only uses your “active” hand to interact with anything. The building scale is also small enough that it’s often hard to tell, before testing, just how much space you’re leaving between objects. What looks like a small lip during building can often come off as an impassable mountain during testing. While the tools work well, significant patience is required to build your dream course.

Infinite Golf!

Although the campaign is short, leading the player hole-by-hole through the game’s three courses, all the holes are playable in single-player quickplay, as well as online and pass-and-play multiplayer. The online multiplayer is particularly well done, allowing all players to play through simultaneously without interfering with one another, and allowing chat through the microphone. There is also a wide variety of community-created holes available online for play, giving Cloudlands 2 a significant potential playtime. If you get into playing and sharing holes with friends and the community at large, Cloudlands 2 could be living on your Quest for a very long time.

Last Words

While Cloudlands 2 has a wealth of content, it is ultimately hampered by some confusing design decisions. These are mostly related to the one-handed control scheme, which feels like a holdover from the original game for Oculus Go, which only had a single controller. However, if you are looking for a fun, casual golf game available now with lots of content, you’ll still have a good time with Cloudlands 2. The real golf dads among us will want to wait for a more detailed golf sim to come to Quest.

The Basics

OrbusVR: Reborn is an expanded/reimagined version of the VR MMORPG OrbusVR, which was launched in early access for major VR headsets in late 2017. Reborn released shortly before the Quest, and this release brought the game out of its early-access period. Because of this, OrbusVR: Reborn was made available at the launch of the Quest, with a hefty $39.99 price tag. However, OrbusVR uses a “buy to play” model, charging upfront for the game, and does not charge any additional monthly subscription fees.

The price tag of OrbusVR: Reborn has inspired a lot of discussion among Quest users online wondering whether it’s worth almost $40. OrbusVR remains one of the most expensive games on the Oculus Store, with only Tokyo Chronos (a visual novel) matching it for price. To some players, OrbusVR will very much be worth the price, with hundreds of hours of content available and more always on the way. To other players, however, it will not be worth it, as the experience will frustrate them out of playing before they really get to experience all of this content. My goal with this review is to supply enough information for you, the reader, to determine whether this game will be right for you and better inform your buying decision.

Gameplay

While OrbusVR is an MMORPG, it does not play like the traditional Hotbar-based MMOs we have become accustomed to. OrbusVR makes use of the Oculus Touch controllers’ motion controls, and each class’s basic controls are intuitive to the weapon being held. Swords are swung, muskets are aimed and fired with the trigger, and magic is cast by drawing runes in the air with a wand. However, each class has some mechanics beyond this that are very important but are not as obvious. These mechanics are summarized in the player journal, but even then are easy to miss for new players.

Character Classes

For example, for my first choice of class, I played a warrior. I began my first fights by walking up to the monster I wanted to kill and wildly hacking away at it with my sword. It was very tiring and the damage done was minimal, leading to very long bouts of hacking to kill the monster. It wasn’t until watching some helpful YouTube videos that I learned what I was doing wrong. The warrior is a combo-based class, with four attack combos that apply a taunt, burst damage, area of effect, or slowing effect to the enemy. Warriors can also hold their swords above their heads until they charge it, then swing once more to repeat the effect. 

The warrior also has a horn that taunts all enemies within a specific range, a charge attack that closes the distance between them, and small or large shields to choose from. The small shields provide more damage, the large ones offer more damage absorption. These are a lot of mechanics to learn, but once you learn them, the motion-based controls will become second nature.

See Also

Best of the Quest | The Newbie Guide

By Omar Kamel

In Features

Interactions

In many cases, a lot of thought has been put into how you interact with the world in OrbusVR. To speak to NPCs, you simply walk up to them and wave your hand at them as though you’re saying hello. You look at your Quests by physically opening your journal and paging through a book that you can move around and turn the pages. You unsheathe weapons and other equipped items by physically pulling them off your body, and you blow horns by holding them up to your mouth. 

Many of these interactions really lend a sense of realism to the world, giving it the illusion of living in a real place. Changing classes is very easy as well, as a vendor in the middle of town hands out beginner weapons for any character class. Changing character classes is as easy as equipping that class’ weapon. You could level every class to max level on a single character if you wish to do so!

However, for every satisfying interaction in the game, there also seems to be another unintuitive aspect. This leads to a lot of frustration among players just starting off. While the journal is easy to use, getting it open is accomplished by grabbing your compass off your body, then turning it upside down. This is easy enough once you learn it but may confuse players early on. The menus, as well, are not always organized as one may expect, with mission tracking, achievements, and class talents being shoehorned into the inventory menu.

Loot

Leveling and gearing your character is generally accomplished by accepting missions in the main town of Highsteppe. Most missions require a certain number of enemies of a particular type to be defeated to complete it.  Missions can be completed at either a bronze, silver, or gold level, depending on the number of target monsters you killed before finalizing it. The various missions offer XP, reputation, money, and gear depending on the level at which you completed it. Gear is also dropped by enemies at random intervals, but cannot be traded or sold between players.  This makes grinding out missions and killing enemies the only way to obtain gear, which is a bit of a bummer.

If this sounds like a grind, it is. Missions can be repeated after their initial completion by spending mission tokens to have them reassigned to you. You get five tokens a day, and they stack up to 25. However, if you run out of these tokens, you are left grinding mobs for relatively low XP gains to level up if you want to play solo. You can, however, still engage in group content, such as dungeons and world events. These will net you XP and gear, so there are always alternatives that may provide more fulfilling ways to progress. 

There are also lore quests available that fill in the backstory of the game and often have more exciting objectives associated with them than the main missions. Unfortunately, the only reward for completing these quests is additional reputation points with the NPC that gave them to you. This makes lore quests feel less rewarding than the main game missions. I can’t help but think that they would be more fulfilling if there were at least some additional XP reward for completing them.

Issues

OrbusVR is the kind of game you must meet halfway. You need to be willing to work through the game’s bugs, grinding, and obtuse design, but if you do the game rewards you with exciting gameplay. On more than one occasion, Orbus would not register the swings of my sword, leading to some frustrating deaths. In some instances, it stopped registering my hits entirely, necessitating a restart of the game. Orbus even crashed my Quest during one session, requiring a complete power-down to make the Quest usable again.

Latency can also be an issue, sometimes causing delays in damage being applied during combat, which can lead to some infrequent, but frustrating, deaths. I’ve also had some moments of hitching in character positions, which can be jarring and could potentially cause some motion sickness. I found the frame rate, in most cases, quite smooth.

Activities Galore

OrbusVR: Reborn is also loaded to the brim with side activities. These include crafting of lures and potions, fishing, dragon pet races, critter capture, resource gathering, special events, and more. Many of these side events, such as potion crafting, are both fun and feed into the main gameplay. Others, like fishing, dragon racing, and critter capture, have their own missions associated with them that can be used to help level and gear your character. These events are an excellent way to break up the game’s combat if that method of leveling starts to feel monotonous. I especially enjoyed Critter Capture, which has the player tracking down small animals (sometimes by finding their droppings), then using a horn to scare them out. After revealing the creatures, you capture them with a net gun in a minigame that feels like an MMO version of the classic NES Duck Hunt. 

As of the writing of this review, a currently ongoing fall seasonal event has added some additional lore quests and Critter Capture events to the game, with seasonally cosmetic item rewards. All of these events add diversity and value to the overall package and offer more content to experience alone or with friends.

Social Features

Orbus nails its social features. The Oculus Quest makes interacting with other players as easy as walking up to them and talking. The microphone picks up your voice automatically, and any players in earshot can hear it. 

Being able to gesture with your hands adds an individual expressiveness to the game that many other MMOs don’t always capture with canned emotes. This works very similarly to other VR social apps like VRChat and RecRoom. However, I believe the OrbusVR community is much friendlier than other VR social app communities for a few reasons. Since the game gives players unified goals to work together to complete, there’s much more of a culture of cooperation instilled within the community. 

The fact that the game has a relatively steep paywall, rather than being a free app, also seems to keep the toxicity in check. No one wants to be banned from the game they paid $40 for.

Group Content

Group content is at the heart of this game like any MMO, and OrbusVR: Reborn thankfully does it very well. As of this review, the game contains four group dungeons as well as an endgame raid. Finding a pick-up group for this content is easy because of the built-in group finder. The portal to these dungeons is located in the central city of Highsteppe, which also provides a convenient location to chat and find a group the old-fashioned way. There are methods to adjust the difficulty of these activities to meet the skill level of your group. The dungeons feel a bit shorter than many other MMOs, consisting each of two bosses connected by relatively short stretches of “trash” enemies. This brevity works in the game’s favor, surprisingly, allowing more runs in a shorter period, and helping to avoid some problems of the Quest’s physical design (see below). 

Even More Content

The bosses in the group dungeons/raid include the type of mechanical complexity that other MMOs usually have. This complexity results in a great sense of accomplishment as your group figures out how to collaborate to overcome the boss. The developers have already promised two new dungeons. In addition, one new raid will be released soon, further bolstering the game’s suite of group content.

Other social activities include opt-in world PvP and organized PvP battlegrounds, a robust player economy that consists of both player-run stores and an auction house. Any mission, quest, or activity in the game can also be completed together with friends, which significantly enhances the fun of these activities. Players can also organize into Fellowships (guilds) giving a more extensive network for players to cooperate on the type of content they want to play. 

There are individual-player and Fellowship houses in the game, but unfortunately at this moment customization of this is minimal. World events also provide some quick opportunities to team up with fellow players. Beacons pop up all over the world signifying a short challenge, often with new objectives and rewards, that can be completed in conjunction with other players that are currently in the area.

Graphics/Sound

Unfortunately, OrbusVR: Reborn is not the most majestic game, visually or aurally. The environments in the game have a very low-poly, minimalistic look. This can be a style decision in and of itself, but here it feels more like it was chosen out of necessity. Player character models have a very cartoony look to them and float through the environment, but just don’t look very appealing. Enemy models are more detailed and creative but don’t always seem to animate as they should. Sometimes the models skip attack animations, and sometimes they skip death animations and simply disappear. Compared to footage of other versions, it seems that a severe graphical downgrade was necessary to get this game running on the Quest. Some environmental effects, such as rain, are entirely absent.

The sound effects in the game are basic but are generally helpful in conveying game state information to the player, such as taking hits from enemies, leveling up, and sound effects related to different class gameplay functions. The various overworld music themes work for their various subjects, but tend to drone on and are easily ignored by the player.

Longevity

Longevity is OrbusVR’s bread and butter. Out of the box, there is a ton of content between leveling up the eight character classes to level 30, then going through endgame raids, as well as a long list of side activities. As this is an MMO, there’s also the promise of further content patches and expansions on the horizon. This will add even more activities to an already content-rich experience and cements OrbusVR: Reborn as the biggest game on the Quest so far.

This large amount of content certainly justifies the $40 price tag. This game will last longer than most other paid games currently on the Oculus store by orders of magnitude. The promise of further content only makes the deal sweeter, and I find this model preferable to paying a subscription fee. There are extra in-game purchases that can be made, likely to help further fund development of the game. When I looked through these items, they were entirely cosmetic items such as pets, mounts, and costume pieces. The prices of these items maxed out around $10 each. There were no consumables, XP boosters, or loot boxes on sale in the cash shop, so there’s thankfully no ability to “pay to win” in the game.

Preview	Product	Price
	Oculus Quest Travel Case (301-00199-01)	$49.99	Buy on Amazon

Quest Comfort

However, in the case of the Quest version, the Oculus Quest itself can somewhat work against the longevity of the game, at least as far as the length of each play session is concerned. Because this is a massive MMO, players will likely want to play this for hours on end, but the Quest’s limited battery life necessitates breaks for recharging. The Quest itself also tends to get heavy on the user’s head during extended play sessions. 

If you wish to really spend your time in OrbusVR, you’ll likely want to invest in some comfort/battery modifications for your Quest. Also, while the Quest is technically a portable system, OrbusVR is an always-online MMORPG, and thus requires a location with a good Wi-Fi connection to be played. Potential buyers must know this and be able to plan for it ahead of time.

Last Words

OrbusVR: Reborn is a challenging game to assign a score to, as it will be many different things to many different players. Some will get into the game’s group content and raiding scene, while others will enjoy engaging with the game economy and playing as a merchant and crafter. Others will love the social aspect of the game, and get deep into collecting cosmetic items, pets, and mounts. Others may not see any of this content and might be turned off by the endless grind of the game, or by the bugs and server issues. Some will get into PvP combat, and others may avoid it entirely. Some will appreciate the innovative nature of playing an MMORPG in VR and truly inhabiting a fantasy world. I have no doubt that others will find themselves compelled to compare it to other, more user-friendly, MMORPGs.

I personally enjoyed my time in OrbusVR: Reborn, and I thought it was a fun world to hop into to do some questing and group content. The people that will most appreciate this game are Quest owners looking for meaty experiences who don’t mind dealing with grinding and technical issues. OrbusVR will also appeal to MMORPG fans that want a game that feels like a throwback to the pre-World of Warcraft days. If this sounds terrible to you, this game may not be what you are looking for, and I would suggest waiting to see if a free demo comes to the Quest before jumping in.

Due to some of my initial difficulties with the game, I found myself compiling a list of 10 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started Playing OrbusVR: Reborn. If you’re diving in, I suggest you read it and save yourself some frustration! Don’t worry, it’s spoiler-free!

However, because of its enormity and old-school design philosophy, there is a lot to learn about the game, and some of it is not explained very well in-game. What follows is a list of 10 things I wish I had known sooner.  I hope that if you give the game a try, this will help the experience go smoothly! You’ll also find a few introductory videos from the developers that will help ease you into the game!

1. Don’t be afraid to ask other players for help!

The community for OrbusVR is mostly very benign, and by default, your mic is always open. If you need help, walk up to a crowded area and ask away! More than likely, someone will be in earshot that will be willing to help. On that note, don’t be afraid to eavesdrop on other players as well. I have learned answers to many questions that I didn’t even know I need to ask this way!

2. Every class has unique mechanics.

OrbusVR does not use the standard Hotbar-based combat found in many MMORPGs. Instead, combat is motion-controlled in a way that makes sense to the weapon each class uses. However, this will only get you so far, as each character class has some unique mechanics that may not be obvious. For example, as a Warrior, I began by merely hacking and slashing at enemies. However, this can only do minimal damage, as the Warrior class is based on directional combos that apply different effects to the enemy you are attacking. Learning these combos is critical, and combo effects can be repeated by holding your sword above your head until you hear a charging sound. Warriors can also equip small and large shields, with small shields allowing the warrior to do enhanced damage, while large shields absorb more damage. Finally, warriors also have a horn they can blow to pull all enemies in range to their location, which is very useful as a tank class. Your class has an explanation of its associated mechanics in the journal (turn the compass upside-down to open the journal). Additionally, I would also recommend watching some of the video guides available on YouTube so you can see the classes played efficiently.

3. There is a difference between Quests and Missions!

Although Quests and Missions sound like they should be synonymous, they are not! Quests reward reputation with the quest-giver and flesh out the story of the world. Missions award reputation, gear, money, and XP, and are one of the main mechanics through which you will level your character. Unlike quests, however, missions don’t always have stories attached to them.

4. Missions are repeatable, which can alleviate the grind!

Whenever you reach the appropriate level, that level’s missions become available from the quest-giver NPCs and can be done once for free. After that, you can spend mission tokens to repeat completed missions! You gain five mission tokens a day, and they stack up to a maximum of 25. To use one, click the green plus symbol in the NPC’s interaction window (near the “talk” speech balloon). Do this, and you will be randomly assigned a mission you have already completed to complete again for more rewards! The extra money, XP, and gear you earn from these missions will go far in your character advancement, making less grinding necessary to attain that next level.

5. You can also repeat Side-Activity missions for rewards!

In addition to missions for killing monsters and participating in world events, you can also use mission tokens to repeat side activity missions for rewards, such as fishing, critter capture, etc. These can also be a fun way to earn some extra XP and breaks up the monotony of grinding on mobs.

6. Monster Loot and Mission Rewards are the only way to get gear.

Unfortunately, NPCs do not sell gear, and it cannot be traded/bought/sold between players, not even through the auction house. The only way to upgrade your gear is to pick up loot drops from monsters and open the reward chests you earn from completing your missions and dungeons. However, the rewards you get always seem to be relative to your class and level. You won’t get any gear you can’t use, though it may not always be an upgrade over your current gear.

7. Similar-looking monsters can be at different levels!

Just because two monsters look the same does not mean they have the same stats! Higher-level versions of similar monsters roam the world, ready to prey on unaware adventurers. You can find a summary of the relative monster difficulties in your journal, but be careful! Avoid any monsters that don’t have a green triangle or yellow diamond by their name if you are playing solo.

8. Don’t like your class? Just equip a new weapon!

You choose your starting class during character creation, but just because a character class sounds cool is no guarantee it will be your style. If you don’t like your current character class, there’s no need to re-roll a new character! You don’t have to repeat the tutorials and lose any progress you’ve made in quests and missions! Just go to the beginner weapons vendor at the tree in the middle of town and choose the character class you want to become. You’ll get that class’ starting weapon and equipping it will change you to that class. You’ll even get an XP bonus until you reach the level you were with your previous character class. Theoretically, you could level every class to the max on a single character!

9. You Can View the Tutorial pop-ups again.

Tutorials pop-ups frequently appear in the early game but can be easy to miss as they appear over your character’s head. If you ever need to view any of them again, head to the settings menu and find the option to see the appropriate tutorial over again.

10. The Quest itself can stand in the way of extended play sessions of OrbusVR.

The Oculus Quest is an excellent piece of technology, and untethered VR enhances the immersion of this game, but some of its shortcomings can be especially bad for MMORPGs. The limited battery life of the Quest can cut sessions short, necessitating breaks for charging. Also, the front-heavy nature of the Quest can cause discomfort during MMO-length play sessions. Because of this, it is especially recommended to find a battery pack and maybe add some comfort modifications for your Quest if you want to play extended sessions. It would be especially nasty to run out of charge part-way through a dungeon run or raid, so plan accordingly!

More Resources

Check out the OrbusVR: Reborn Forums & Community Resources!

The Basics

SuperHot VR is a first-person shooter, except with the added twist that time moves forward only while you are moving your body. This shifts the genre of the game from an action game to more of a puzzle game. In each level, you need to figure out how to defeat all the enemies in the room without getting hit. This involves dodging bullets, throwing objects, catching dropped weapons from enemies, and shooting. The action is intense if you move at full speed, but since you control time with your movements, you can stop and take your time before springing into action. If all this sounds like too much for you, maybe you should try something like Fujii.

VR Gameplay

The gameplay of Superhot VR is sublime. Never has a game made me feel closer to starring in my own action movie. Dodging bullets Matrix-style, throwing ninja stars with deadly accuracy – to then catch the enemy’s dropped pistol – and quickly turning and firing on another enemy sneaking up on me feels incredible. The shooting mechanics in the game are perfect, aiming is very precise, and strategically leading your foes is a must. Throwing objects is a bit trickier to master, but it works well once you get the hang of it.

The fluidity of movement within the game is only enhanced by the Quest hardware. The 360° range of motion that the headset provides, as well as the lack of cables, gives you complete freedom of movement throughout the environments, limited only by the size of your play space. Even if you only have space to play standing and stationary, every level is beatable and still immensely fun. If you are standing stationary, however, there are a few instances where you will have to wait for enemies to close before you can attack them. This might leave you flailing your arms just to make time pass to allow your targets to get closer.

Storyline

The story of the game is very minimalistic. Between levels, you are transported back to a small apartment full of computers from which you are supposedly playing the game. This apartment changes over time between levels in nuanced ways, but most of the storytelling comes from observation of items in this environment. This leads SuperHot VR to have a simple foundation of a story and leaves your mind to fill in the details. While this could be seen in other games as a negative, SuperHot uses this to create a very mysterious atmosphere, and playing this alongside the original console and PC SuperHot helps to fill in the story.

Graphics & Audio

The story of SuperHot VR is also enhanced by its visuals. The in-game graphics consist of solid red, low-poly models against an untextured white background. Objects and weapons are solid blacks. This creates an enormous contrast between types of objects in the game, creating a visual language that is immediately identifiable to the player. It is clear what you need to do in each level, even with minimal instruction. Sound is also very minimalistic, bordering on nonexistent in some areas. Despite some tremendous audio feedback from sound effects, and the excellent computer voice that shouts “SUPER! HOT! SUPER! HOT!” upon completion of an area, audio is SuperHot VR’s weakest area.

SuperHot VR also has an in-game achievement system, with achievements popping up in the game world in the form of post-it notes. Between levels, your collection of these achievements is stuck to your apartment door, which is a very creative way to display your accomplishments in-game.

Longevity

SuperHot VR is very short, taking the average player about 2 hours to complete on the first playthrough. However, upon completion of the game, several new modes are unlocked. All of these are addictive and add extra value to the game. These modes include speedrun modes, endless mode, headshot only mode, survival mode. There’s also a hardcore mode where the game moves more quickly, and every weapon only has one bullet. There is also a “guest” mode that allows other players to play the game from the beginning, but without saving progress. Unfortunately, none of these modes are available until the main campaign is finished once. This ‘play wall’ makes it a hard game to show to friends since you have to beat it first.

UPDATE: Since we wrote our review, SuperHot has been updated and now has a start-up menu that includes several new features including multiple save slots! Read all about it in their patch notes here!

Last Words

SuperHot VR is the most innovative shooter I have ever played. This is the closest many gamers will come to starring in an action movie, and the story of the game is full of intrigue and hidden meanings. While Superhot VR has previously been released for other platforms, it feels like it was made with the Oculus Quest in mind.

Enter Vader Immortal, one of the few Quest launch titles that are entirely original and exclusive to the Quest for its launch period. It also happens to be based on one of the most popular media franchises of all time. But is Vader Immortal the killer app VR veterans need to justify the purchase of an entirely new headset?

The Basics

Vader Immortal consists of two primary modes of play. In the story mode, you follow the tale of a nameless smuggler whose ship is intercepted by Imperial forces outside the planet Mustafar. You are held as a prisoner of the Empire and confronted by Darth Vader himself, who takes an interest in you after you demonstrate an ability to activate an ancient artifact. The story plays out as a combination of scenes between the main characters, simple object interaction puzzles, and lightsaber combat sequences. The lightsaber (not to be confused with Beat Sabers!) sequences are infrequent, and they can’t be failed, but they add a bit of excitement to the story.

The lightsaber combat is brought front and center in the Lightsaber Dojo mode, an arcade-style combat mode where you fight waves of remotes and combat droids. The difficulty in this mode steadily ramps and becomes very frantic toward the later stages.

Gameplay

Much of Vader Immortal’s story plays out in the form of a “walking simulator” style game, where you travel between locations, following a linear narrative. The story itself is an exciting beginning to a Star Wars story, but disappoints with its abrupt, “to be continued” ending. You move around using a combination of room-scale movement, smooth locomotion, and/or teleportation. There are also a few climbing sequences that feel realistic, at least in terms of hand movements. Walking too close to an in-game wall will cause the screen to go black, and display an arrow directing you back into the play space. This is a novel way to handle the player stepping out of bounds, as stopping at a wall in-game while still moving within the real world can certainly cause motion sickness. Unfortunately, this solution is still disorienting to the player.

Interaction with the world takes place in the form of some simple puzzles involving the manipulation of objects with your hands and your hydro spanner. These puzzles feel rewarding for the most part, but some require some awkward hand movements to complete. Lightsaber combat steals the show as far as interaction is concerned. Combat involves deflecting incoming blaster fire back at enemies, as well as parrying melee attacks, striking once an opening appears.

The lightsaber can be wielded one- or two-handed, and the saber “sticks” to one hand even if the player lets go, making it impossible to drop the saber accidentally. Combat is fast and fluid, but there is not enough of it in the main story, and the combat scenes in the story mode are straightforward. The Dojo mode contains the game’s real combat challenges and is where players who get into Vader Immortal’s combat will spend most of their time.

Graphics & Sound

Vader Immortal impresses most with its graphic and sound design. This is one of the prettiest games available on the Quest during its launch period. Everything looks realistic and has that lived-in, Star Wars feel that fans are looking for. When Darth Vader appears, he towers above you and has every bit of presence you’d expect – maybe even more since it feels like he’s right there in front of you! However, some of the details at a distance do suffer a bit, likely considering the Quest’s lower graphics processing power compared to other platforms. This leaves the surface of Mustafar looking very flat in some exterior scenes, but overall this is very impressive compared to other titles on Quest.

The sound design is also top-notch, with all the ambient Star Wars sounds accounted for, and making excellent use of directional audio. During combat sequences, you can quickly tell where an attack is coming from just from the directional audio. This allows you to react in time and makes you feel like a Jedi (or Sith) in training.

Longevity

The main story of Vader Immortal only lasts about 30-45 minutes, depending on how quickly you move through it. After you complete the story, there is little reason to return to it other than to relive the same story again. However, this can be an excellent title to demo the Quest to friends and family, so it may get some further utility there. A good amount of additional time can be sunk into the Dojo, with its many waves of droids to dismantle and customization options. The long-term enjoyment for the game’s $10 price tag comes more from an arcade-style experience, rather than the story, which was not what I expected when I started the game.

Last Words

The story experience of Vader Immortal may not be the system-seller that the Quest needs to hook longtime VR fans, especially if they’re on the fence about buying a new headset. However, this episode is certainly worth the low $10 price tag. The main issue is that it feels like one-third of a $30 experience, rather than a $10 game. The story feels like the setup to something more significant, and future episodes will hopefully pay off the interesting story threads that the first episode sets up.

The Basics

In Job Simulator, you play as a human entering a simulated museum of what work was like before automation had taken over, or at least what the AI imagines human jobs to have been.  There are four jobs to choose from, including office worker, gourmet chef, convenience store clerk, and auto mechanic.  Once you select a job, you complete a series of tasks related to that job, using the Oculus Touch controllers to handle and interact with objects in the environment. 

Chef? Mechanic? You Do It All!

The environments are cleverly laid out, placing all necessary objects within convenient reach from wherever you are standing.  Stations in some of the environments have multiple selectable modes that will change the function of that station.  For example, in the gourmet chef stage, the refrigerator can be swapped with a pantry by the use of a lever, and the sink can be changed to a sandwich prep area.  This clever use of space gives a nice room-scale feel to the game, while not requiring a lot of space in which to play the game.  The flexibility can get somewhat annoying in later jobs, however, as the frequency in which these stations need to be changed increases, and there are many more options from which to choose.  The Auto Mechanic stage requires constant toggling of two different stations to make the required fixes to the cars the robotic characters bring to you.  However, the tasks that the game requires you to perform all revolve around the manipulation of objects in the environment and can sometimes start to become tedious late in each stage.

Gameplay

Using the Oculus Touch controllers to interact with the world behaves as expected and works exactly like handling objects in the Quest First Steps tutorial.  There are a few surprising interactions with some of the objects in the world, though.  Pulling the trigger button while holding a stapler shoots staples like a gun, and a copier can be used to copy any object in the area, not just images on paper.  However, throughout my playtime, I did encounter some instances of the controllers losing tracking, causing my virtual hands to float in midair in an unexpected position.  Even more jarring, at one point the headset itself seemed to lose its tracking, leaving me feeling like there was an earthquake, but a quick restart of the software solved that problem.

While the audio in the game is sparse, there is a good amount of well-voiced dialogue from the robot characters.  There is not much of a soundtrack to the game, but there are a few music CDs hidden in the world that can be popped into in-game CD players to listen to the original songs on them.  Not every joke in Job Simulator is a winner, but enough of the humor lands to enhance the enjoyability of the gameplay.  The jokes are mostly based around the world being a computer’s interpretation of the jobs humans used to perform, and this concept remains strong throughout the game. For example, many of the books and objects throughout the world contain readable cover texts that contain extra jokes for players that care to inspect them, and the interactions with some objects also tie into this concept, such as a computer whose only keys are ‘0’ and ‘1’.  These gags are delivered with a crisp, cartoony graphical style that pops on the Oculus Quest, and enhances the humor of the game, especially in its more slapstick moments.

Longevity

Once Job Simulator has been completed, there is a bit of replay value from some additional modifiers that change up the experience.  There is also an infinite score-based mode in Infinite Overtime mode, which changes some of the layouts of the game’s areas, and gives you a string of randomly generated objectives, tracking the number you complete.  Even with these modes, the replay potential is limited, but this game is perfect for friends and family new to VR, so Job Simulator will likely have some additional value as a “show off” game.

Last Words

Overall, Job Simulator is an enjoyable experience, but its brief length and somewhat low replay value limit its lasting appeal.  The humor mostly works and adds a lot of enjoyment to a game that mostly revolves around simple manipulation of in-game objects.  Despite its shortcomings, Job Simulator is a perfect game for the Oculus Quest’s launch, and, like Beat Saber or Racket: Nx, it’s a great pick-up-and-play experience for players new to virtual reality.