And with that marketing in mind, and before the review proper begins, I want to get something off my chest, and I’ll start by saying this: I’m not in good shape.

About two years ago, I was in pretty decent shape because I was making an effort to look good in my wedding photos. But 4 months of furlough followed by 20 months of working from my sofa has put me in the worst shape of my life, and I’m very keen to find an enjoyable way to put that right.

As with so many other health, wellbeing, and so-called body positivity products, the marketing materials for Les Mills exclusively feature healthy, skinny, beautiful people who probably don’t have a resting heart rate as high as 27bpm between them. 

Please don’t mistake this for bitterness. I get that the imagery is supposed to be aspirational. Still, when every single person pictured on a poster, TV sting, or trailer for Les Mills BodyCombat (in all its various iterations) appear to have about 2% body fat and flawless skin, it doesn’t really endear the ‘Les Mills’ brand to those of us who don’t get up at 5 am for a quick triathlon before enjoying a breakfast of kale juice and onion powder. The people behind the Les Mills brand claim to champion “A Fitter Planet” yet seem to think this can be achieved by targeting their range of products at people who are already painfully fit.

All that notwithstanding, Les Mills BodyCombat is a fitness app that can be enjoyed by people of all health levels. Workouts range from 5 minutes to half an hour and come in one of three intensities. A total of 30 programmes come with this ‘one-time-purchase’ version of the product. Although a subscription model is, predictably, on the way, the publishers promise that this standalone version will always be available and will receive free updates.

Concept

You begin Les Mills BodyCombat by entering your personal details; your height, weight, age, etc. This is apparently so that the app can tailor recommendations and track targets. I, however, saw no real indication of how this might be working during my time with it. 

With the admin out of the way, you are greeted first by the painfully enthusiastic Rachael, then the slightly less irritating Dan. Both instructors demonstrate the basic foot positions and boxing motions required to get you started with a lot of enthusiasm and personality. However, as a cynical Brit, I have a violently allergic reaction to being patronised. So getting told I’m “awesome” because I can tell left from right and throw a jab makes me break out in hives.

The basics of the app will come as no surprise to anyone who has played Beat Saber, Box VR, or even Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch. You jab, hook and uppercut various targets as they scroll towards you. Barriers to squat under or lean away from are soon added to the mix, along with various other types of target designed to keep things interesting.

There are Sky Punches that let you unleash your inner Emilio Esteves and Battle Rope Punches that let you thrash out at the ground like a stroppy toddler. There’s even a tricky move that has you imagine grabbing someone you’re not very fond of by the ears and smashing their face into your kneecap. This is the only move in the experience that is ‘technically’ difficult; I couldn’t get a knee hit to register at all until I accidentally smacked a controller into my thigh. Even now, I continue to complete this move by kneeing the base of my hand (which is slightly less delicate than a Quest controller). Even though I’m unsure this is the correct technique, it works. When there’s a combo count and high score table in view the whole time, I don’t care that I’m getting the same workout, whether it registers or not, because I want to win!

These score and combo features are by no means unique to BodyCombat, but they are one of its biggest successes.

As you wait for your workout to load, six other torturees appear around Rach or Dan as they encourage you to stretch, shake it out, or otherwise prepare for the rigours ahead. These other players aren’t actually ‘live’. They aren’t enjoying the same class simultaneously, but the presentation does a good job of making it feel that way, and during play, their scores are updated as if they were playing along with you. The little beep that sounds when you drop down a place on the scoreboard genuinely serves to refocus your attention on maintaining a combo and hitting hard to get the maximum points. It’s a small touch, but it works well as motivation.

Interface

It’s audio queues like this that Les Mills BodyCombat does exceptionally well. You always know when you whiffed an uppercut, dropped a combo or bumped into a wall. Little things like this are hugely important in any experience, but when the tempo picks up, and the targets are coming thick and fast, it’s imperative that you don’t have to break focus to see what else is going on. Visual queues are well used too. The targets are a kind of conical drum shape, so it’s always clear how you need to punch them. I particularly like that you can see your shadow on the incoming walls, allowing you to accurately position your body to avoid it. The different effects used to illustrate how well a punch landed are also instantly recognisable and easy to interpret. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but the quality of the execution should be applauded.

Music obviously plays a big part in the experience, and it’s all fairly unremarkable but entirely appropriate high energy workout music. Would I prefer to have been sweating it up to The Clash? Of course, I would. Does that actually matter? I honestly don’t think so. With this type of activity, it’s more important that the accompanying music guide your tempo and rhythm, and the music in Les Mills does that very well.

Dan or Rachael, and usually both, in turns, guide you through each workout in a way that only seasoned fitness instructors can: With enthusiasm, knowledge, gusto, and not one iota of self-awareness. To their credit, for every time this is unintentionally hilarious, it’s twice as often genuinely helpful. 

You are prepped for each new sequence before it arrives and always made aware of any stance changes. Dan, in particular, is very good at imparting tips on maintaining good form to get the best results.

The biggest problem with the instructors is their complete lack of interactivity or branching feedback. This is a shortcoming the Les Mills instructors have in common with those of the subscription-based Supernatural. The sessions themselves are entirely scripted, so they will continue to tell you how completely you’re ‘smashing it’ even if you stand stock still, miss every punch, and let every barrier smack you in the face.

Of course, if you do that, you won’t score well, and that’s when you will get a remark actually tailored to your performance – a ‘You’ll do better next time!’ or ‘So close!’

Functionality

Like those in Supernatural, the fully-scripted instructions are a genuine frustration. Not only do they completely ruin immersion when you’re struggling, but, even more importantly, they don’t capture failure during initial tutorials – and after these have played out, they cannot be repeated. This has left me in the previously described ‘kneeing my hand’ situation when a more interactive lesson or the simple ability to review the tutorial might have helped me understand the correct method. I think it’s safe to assume that slowly giving yourself a dead leg isn’t the proper method.

The menus in Les Mills BodyCombat are another area that could use some fine-tuning. Each of the thirty sessions is available to play at any time. They’re subdivided into groups, and you select the workout you want within that group by moving left and right on the controller thumbstick. This all works fine. However, vertical movement is achieved with the usually reliable ‘grab’ technique of clicking and holding a trigger before moving up and down to scroll. Here the execution is flakey. There is a scroll bar on the right side, but it doesn’t appear to be interactive, so you’re left-clicking and pulling at various parts of the menu in the hope that it will ‘catch’, and you’ll be able to scroll to a different part of the menu.

Other interactions are minimal but functional and easy to use. Clicking a workout will show you its specific moves and advise how you did the last time you completed it. A progress panel details calories burned and where you stand on a self-defined workout goal for the week. There’s also a ‘Level’ here that seems tied to your total score, but it’s not really made clear what this is for or if it has any impact outside comparing yourself to other users.

Frustratingly, there is no ‘recently played’ section. With every workout having a similar, cliched title, this is a sorely missed feature. You can, however, favourite a workout to make it easier to find, and this is very welcome.

Value

The amount of value you will get from this ‘one-time-purchase’ version of Les Mills BodyCombat will greatly depend on how often you feel the need to change up your workout and your tolerance for the same music and instructor’s patter each time you play. The latter is an issue for me, and I would welcome the option to shut them up once I had the hang of a workout I enjoyed and wanted to repeat often.

In terms of content alone, there’s no doubt that you’ll get more for your $30 here than you would for the equivalent value of in-the-flesh BodyCombat classes or Gym membership. The ‘gamification’ of this concept is definitely more engaging than a Youtube video could ever hope to be.

Conclusion

During a session, when things are going well, and you’re in the moment (our friend Dan calls it ‘The Flow’), Les Mills BodyCombat is as good a workout as you could hope to find anywhere in VR. As is the case for many others, it’s vital that I’m distracted from the fact that I’m exercising. Ask me to kick a football around, and I’ll still be playing when the sun goes down, ask me to jog two laps of a track, and you’ll get a very blunt and very negative response. With Les Mills, the activities themselves may not be anything new; the punch squat, combo, repeat loops have been seen many times before, but Les Mills BodyCombat does a good job of providing an entertaining distraction from the effort it requires you to make.

In their presentation, BodyCombat‘s workouts feel very gamey. Still, both games and workouts require you to fail, learn, and build from your mistakes – and that is this product’s weakest area by far.

In the VR world of Les Mills, failure is literally not an option. Because your failures are not registered during the workouts, they are not corrected. This makes it very difficult to learn and improve.

I’ve enjoyed the workouts Les Mills BodyCombat provides, and I will keep using it. I appreciate the lack of a subscription model and how utterly exhausted a thirty-minute session makes me. Still, there is a lot of room for improvement, and it will be interesting to see what, if any, updates are made post-release.

Three-dimensional takes on Pong have been around almost as long as the original iterations themselves. I was a big fan of Robo Squash on the Atari Lynx back in the early nineties, but similar games – such as Chris Newcombe’s Room Ten – appeared as early as 1986 on the ZX Spectrum, a system whose 3D was…rudimentary…to say the least. 

So can Sucker Punch VR elevate the humble bat and ball game to a thing a VR greatness? There’s only one way to know: Seconds out…!

Comes Out Swinging

Sucker Punch VR’s modern evolution of this idea begins by having you defend, and indeed attack, a 10 x 10 grid. Each square on the grid represents a ‘lane’. The player’s job is to protect their grid from cubes that travel towards them along these lanes by punching them back towards their opponent using special gloves.

Matches are usually played to 200 points, with each basic block that beats your defence scoring five. Key to the tactical side of the game, the longer a block remains in play, the more it becomes worth, with the colour changing to represent the increased value.

Powerups, available for purchase from the in-game shop, add another level of variety to the play. Thankfully there’re no microtransactions here; in-game currency is earned exclusively from winning matches. Losing a competitive game will also cost you whichever powerup you have equipped. If you don’t want to risk losing your equipped powerup, you can purchase insurance for a small percentage of your currency. It’s a nice touch that aims to add an element of risk vs reward to proceedings.

He ain’t pretty no more!

The aesthetic of Sucker Punch VR is somewhere between the gaudy colours and soft edges of Gang Beasts and the battered techno-future of Portal. Many of the environments are brightly coloured, and the object cubes cycle through loud rainbow hues. Alongside this, opponents are represented as hovering droids, and many of the powerup gloves have an electro-mechanical style. It’s an odd mix, but it just about comes off.

The audio is less successful. The background tunes are basic electronica and offer no real relationship to the gameplay. They almost universally lack any impact, and audio cues are either wholly non-existent or too subtle to stand out during gameplay.

Even the most basic of events, such as scoring or conceding points, have effects that are lost in the various other, arguably unimportant, sound effects that accompany a match.

Hitting the Canvas

This lack of feedback is not just a problem with the audio; it’s actually the game’s main failing and the thing that eventually led to me to stop playing. As you reach to punch the cubes, the haptic and aural cues are far too minimal. The aforementioned lack of scoring sound effects makes it impossible to get any feel of how the match is going, forcing you to keep half an eye on the score. Although there’s plenty of visual real estate above your opponent, where it could have been seen effortlessly, the score is awkwardly displayed at the side of the play area. 

A more fundamental issue is how basic the gameplay is.

The power of your punch defines the speed of the shot. The powerups bring the ability to split cubes or have them switch lanes. Some powerups will project force fields, with various effects, across the whole play area.

But, aligned to the lack of impact and feedback, none of these things really feel earned or particularly within the player’s control. Wins and losses both appear to occur incidentally. Tactical play never really evolves beyond slowing down gameplay until your powers are charged and then using them against the highest-scoring single cube or group thereof.

It’s worth noting that I have been entirely unable to find a multiplayer match at the time of writing, so these thoughts are based entirely on the single-player experience. 

The meat of this is the league. This is where the powerup gamble should elevate the experience – but this provides more frustration than satisfaction. The insurance you pay to secure your gloves in case of a loss is so insignificant that it’s rarely not worth taking out – which renders the whole exercise a little pointless. Moreover, it’s impossible to make any actual estimation of the standard of the opponent before you begin, so knowing when or when not to take the risk is pure guesswork.

Training matches are also available to test the effects of newly purchased powerups, and there’s a daily challenge level for the committed player.

Bob and Weave

Despite all the issues I’ve mentioned, one aspect of Sucker Punch VR shines; it provides an excellent workout. The punching action is the least of the exertions demanded. The 10 x 10 grid is simply impossible to cover without stretching, squatting, and moving side-to-side. 

Playing Sucker Punch VR is closer in approximation to a reflex-light test than a boxing simulator, and I can’t help but feel that if the core gameplay were more closely tied to this idea, it would be a far more successful, more enjoyable experience.

• Why Don’t We Just Do What’s Good For Us?
• VR Fitness with the Quest: The Pros
• VR Fitness with the Quest: The Cons
• VR Fitness: Bring on the Games: Beat Saber, BoxVR, Synth Riders, Dance Central, Sports Scramble, Ninja Legends, The Thrill of the Fight, Pistol Whip, Guided Tai Chi.

Fifty percent of Americans resolve to exercise more every new year. You may have been one of them – I’ve definitely been one of them. So if we all know how good exercise is for us, why aren’t we all already exercising for at least 30 minutes a day 5 days per week?

The Oculus Quest is a fun way to get in shape, whether you’re traveling or stuck inside. 

Well, I can’t speak for you. I don’t know you. But I know me, and I’ll tell you what has always stood in my way: 

Why Don’t We Just Do What’s Good for Us?

For me, the pattern has always been the same: I’d resolve to exercise more. I’d then take steps to make it happen: join a gym, download an app, create a YouTube playlist, or join a class. I’d buy gym clothes, sneakers, yoga mats, etc… I’d go for 2 weeks, a month or even a few months…then, one day I’d be too tired or just not feel like it. So I wouldn’t go. One day would turn into two, and then a week. Finally, I’d face reality: I wasn’t going to start up again. 

Truthfully, these new healthy habits were hard to stick to because I was trying to talk myself into doing something I didn’t actually enjoy. I could lie to myself all I wanted, but deep down, I knew the truth. I just didn’t want to work out. It was boring. Because I didn’t enjoy what I was doing, I just didn’t want to do it again. You can only force yourself to do something for so long before your willpower runs out and you find better ways to spend your time. 

That’s not to say there weren’t some fun ways to workout, like dance or kickboxing classes, but they presented problems of their own. First, there wasn’t any guarantee that the classes I wanted to take were anywhere close to me, geographically. These classes were expensive, ranging from 10-50 dollars per class, and even if I could find a class I wanted to take in my area, they often didn’t fit around my schedule.

Another obstacle that really got in my way: my own shyness. The gym and group exercise environments can be intimidating, especially when you’re just getting started. I felt exposed and self-conscious. I was intimidated by the people who’s skill levels were so far above my own. They didn’t seem to get winded as quickly and didn’t make my mistakes. Knowing that no one was judging me and that most people were probably just as self-conscious as I am, didn’t change how I felt when I went.

VR Fitness with the Quest: The Pros

I didn’t buy the Oculus Quest as a piece of fitness equipment. I bought it because it was a standalone VR headset…and I thought it was cool as hell. It didn’t take long for me to see that when I bought the Quest, I was also buying myself one of the best pieces of fitness equipment available. Here’s why:

1. It removes excuses. Too cold to go outside? You don’t have to. Get home too late to go to the gym? It’s available 24 hours per day. Snow on the ground? Too cold? Too hot? Just don’t feel like going anywhere? Stuck inside because of a government-mandated quarantine? No travel required. You don’t even need to leave your bedroom. Feeling under the weather and not up to your usual workout? Play for a short while in beginner mode just to move around a little — and when you’re done, you can just take the headset off and go right back to bed (as long as this is cool with your doctor). You don’t need to find a babysitter. You don’t need sneakers. You don’t even really need gym clothes. There have been a few times that I’ve worked out in my pajamas because I was too lazy to put my workout clothes on. Those pajamas went right in the laundry basket after, but I’ve done it. 
   
   
2. You don’t need a ton of space. As long as you have enough space to keep your legs shoulder length apart and enough space to swing your arms in a wide arc, that’s enough room to play 95% of the games that include fitness benefits.
   
   
3. It’s portable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been chugging along with a daily exercise routine, only to have a trip come up and completely de-rail me. Hotel gyms are the worst. Since I’ve had my Quest, I’ve had to go on a few trips that included hotel rooms of varying sizes. Each time, I was able to get in my regular work out, without setting foot in the hotel’s gym. I did buy an Oculus Quest Travel Case for this purpose. This turned out to be a serious advantage. Being able to stick to my routine when I was away made it a lot easier to continue my routines when I got back home. 
   
   
4. It’s versatile. Sometimes, when you’re working out, that’s your whole purpose: exercise for the sake of it. When you’re feeling very motivated, that’s enough. Personally, my motivation to keep fit waxes and wanes. I make myself a little deal every morning: I put that headset on for a preset amount of time: usually, 30 minutes working out and 5 minutes for a cool down. During that time, I can play any game I want to, as long as it involves moving around. Some days, I spend 30 minutes playing one game –but that’s not usually how it goes. Today, for example, I did some rhythm boxing, played 2 games of tennis, danced to 2 songs in a nightclub, and cooled down with a session of Tai Chi. The day before, I spent 20 minutes killing Ninjas and 10 minutes playing Beat Sabers. Compare that to when I used to go to the gym: 35 minutes on the elliptical while watching Netflix on my phone, followed by 10 minutes of stretching. Sometimes I’d venture into the weight lifting section and pretend to know how to use the machines.
   
   
5. It’s as challenging as you need it to be. Most of the “fitness genre” games on the Quest have skill levels to choose from or have progressive campaigns where you can slowly progress through a storyline or set of challenges. Beat Saber, for example, has 5 solo play levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, and Expert+. This may not seem, at first, like a huge advantage unless you put this in perspective. I remember walking into a Zumba class for the first (and last) time. I love dancing, but having never done a Zumba class before, trying to follow along was exhausting. By the end, I was a sweaty, dehydrated, embarrassed mess of a girl. Maybe I would have improved as time went on, but because my very first class was so far above my skill level (extreme beginner), the immense challenge of catching up felt insurmountable. The potential feelings of embarrassment outweighed my desire to return. So I didn’t. When you’re playing games in VR, those games can meet you wherever your skill presently is. You might start out as a beginner, but as you get more advanced, you can choose to adjust the difficulty and intensity of your work out. Advancing through the various levels at your own pace might also encourage you to keep going. An actual judgment-free zone.
   
   
6. It’s fun. The Oculus Quest is, first and foremost, a gaming system. The apps you can use to exercise, with only a few exceptions, were designed not as workout routines, but as games. If games aren’t fun, you won’t play, or at least you won’t play for very long. Games are designed to be enjoyable. Games are designed to be rewarding. Most of all, games are designed to give you non-judgmental feedback to help you improve based on your experience and keep you coming back for more. When you’re “working out” with the Oculus Quest, you’re not exercising for the sake of it anymore. While you might get fit while playing, that’s not the designer’s objective, but a side bonus, to them at least. To you, it’s a huge advantage. If your brain doesn’t consider an action rewarding, it’s not going to want to do that action again. If you’re bored while doing math or feel self-conscious for making mistakes, how often are you going to want to do math?  If you’re bored on the elliptical machine, how motivated are you going to be the next day to get on the elliptical? You might do it anyway because you want the eventual results, but it gets harder and harder to force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy that doesn’t have an immediate benefit. If you feel like working out is something you HAVE to do, it’s a chore. If working out is a chore, you’ll have a hard time making it a regular habit. If you log onto your Quest to have fun, you’re going to do it again and again. It’s a lot easier to stick to something when it’s fun. 
   
   
7. It’s Effective. None of the advantages above mean anything if working out on the Oculus Quest doesn’t actually confer any real fitness benefit. But it does. I have been planning on writing a fitness feature for 6DOF Reviews for several months. During that time, I committed to using the Oculus quest as my primary workout equipment. Since I made that commitment, I have also been careful to track my calorie burn and my progress. I wasn’t disappointed. According to my Fitbit, depending on my level of intensity, in 30 minutes, I could expect to burn about 200-300 calories. Running, by the way, burns about 270 calories in a half-hour (per 10-minute mile). All the benefits of running without having to actually run? Sign me up. What were my results you ask? Within 16 weeks of using the Quest as my primary exercising equipment, I lost 30lbs and 6 inches off my waist.

“Wow, all that sounds awesome. But it sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”

VR Fitness with the Quest: The Cons

You caught me. There are some downsides:

1. You’re unlikely to get a strength workout. I have yet to find a game that makes sit-ups fun. You can get some muscle tone, but the muscle tone is the same as you would get pumping your arms during a run, shadow boxing, performing squats, or lunges. Still, so far, I have yet to see any VR workouts involving your abdominal core. Before I log in each day, I do three sets of planks at one minute each. That seems to do the trick for a full-body workout. 
   
   
2. The design flaws of the Quest hardware are more prominent when you’re doing vigorous activity. The Oculus Quest is the first of its generation of standalone virtual reality headsets. The device was groundbreaking…unfortunately, it’s also a heavy load to wear on your face. Almost as soon as the headset went on sale, third-party sellers started selling hardware mods to get around the discomfort caused by the headset. In the first month that I owned the Oculus Quest, I felt like my cheeks were going to bruise from wearing it. I also found that the face pad irritated my skin, and I started to get pimples. The longer you wear the headset, the heavier and more irritating it feels. Don’t click away yet! Both issues are easily solved. The weight of the headset simply needs to be better distributed. I’m not one for modding hardware, but I made an exception. The first issue of weight distribution can be solved with a head strap or cushion – both of which are available for less than 30 dollars. As for the skin irritation of the face pad, VRcover makes a breathable, machine-washable cotton interface cover, that comes in sets of two and are under 20 dollars. Each solution takes about a minute to install on your hardware and won’t void the warranty. This article isn’t sponsored. But if you have discomfort when using your headset, I found these inexpensive workarounds solved those issues.  
   
   
3. This can get expensive, fast. Over several months, I purchased most of the games on the Quest that looked fun and involved physical activity. The games ranged in price from 9.99 to about 30 dollars. All in all, I spent around almost 200 dollars just on fitness games. I didn’t buy them all at once, but over several months – so I didn’t really feel that pain. I don’t feel as though I wasted my money since I use almost all of the games I purchased at least once per week…But the headset itself isn’t exactly cheap. So if you haven’t purchased the Quest yet, do your research. Make sure it’s an investment you’re willing to make. Would I suggest buying the Quest just for fitness? No, probably not. But the Quest isn’t just a piece of exercise equipment. It’s a full entertainment system and, in my opinion, well worth the purchase price. But I still suggest buying it from a retailer with a solid return policy in case you buy it, try it, and don’t like it. As for the games: The Oculus quest store has a few demo versions of games for free. Sports Scramble, Beat Saber, and Creed all have free demos. I suggest you download those and try them out before you purchase the full versions of those games. I’m going to quickly review some of the games below from a fitness perspective. We’ve reviewed most of them, and the reviews can help you decide which ones you want to try out.
   
   Still, you know yourself better than I ever could. The Oculus store has a good return policy: You can return a game within two weeks if you have played it for less than two hours (cumulatively). Once you’ve tried the demos, buy one game. Evaluate it. Decide if that is a game you will use: Is it fun? Is it challenging enough? Does it fit your personality? If not, return it and get your money back. You can always repurchase it later if you change your mind. 
   
   
4. It’s a little isolating. Playing games on the Quest is fun. Most of the fitness games include a “party mode” that lets you take turns with your real-world friends. Many have an online multiplayer/versus mode that allows you to challenge a stranger on the network or a friend from your friends’ list. Having said that, the Quest requires you to put on a headset that essentially blinds you to the real world for however long you choose to stay. Even if you have a friend or family member sitting right next to you, watching your progress on their phones or TV, you’re still alone in the world it creates for you. Non-VR systems have multiple controllers and multiple participants within one system. In contrast, the Quest is tied to only one user account and only allows one player at a time. This isn’t a feature I mind so much, but it is a limitation. 
   
   
5. If you want to see the benefits, you still have to stick with it, just like any other workout routine. I worked out today on my Quest, and I know I’ll use it tomorrow. I worked out when I was on the road. I worked out when I needed stress relief. I am calling it a “workout”– but really, I was playing games. I was trying to beat my top scores or trying to advance to the next level. I’m usually disappointed when my Fitbit timer vibrates and tells me I need to stop working out. Yes, I know it’s time to move on with my morning routine, or I’ll be late for work or my first class! I lost 30 lbs when the Quest was my ONLY form of exercise…But for me to actually see those benefits, I had to stick with it for a few months. I had to keep working out even after I got down to my goal weight to keep from regaining the weight or getting soft. The fact that I look forward to my daily workout routine doesn’t change the truth: If I didn’t exercise a few times each week, I wouldn’t achieve my fitness goals. To see the benefits of any workout routine, you’ll need to build yourself up to at least 30 minutes of exercise per day and as many days a week as you can. Your workout does not need to be all at one time, though! If you can only do 15-30 minutes in the morning and another 15-30 minutes in the evening, it still counts. One more thing to keep in mind: I was reviewing the Quest as a piece of fitness equipment, so I used it exclusively, but that’s not how you have to play it. If it’s nice out and you want to take a walk instead? Take a walk! Want to play on your Quest for 10 minutes, take a walk for 10 minutes, and then do 10 minutes of yoga? Go for it. The best workout routine is the one you can stick to.
   
   
6. You’ll have to stretch before and after. Just because your workout is virtual doesn’t mean you won’t get real sore muscles… I find that I need to stretch my forearms, my calves, and roll my shoulders, or they will tighten up. Be kind to your body: stretch it before any physical activity.
   
   
7. If losing weight is your goal, you’ll need to eat fewer calories than your body burns. There’s a saying(and I hate it): “You can’t outrun your fork.” Remember, most fitness tracking devices can be a little deceptive: fitness watches track total calories burnt during a workout but don’t take into account the calories you would have burned during that time if you hadn’t moved at all. Truthfully, I don’t believe that the body is a straightforward machine where if you eat less, you’ll always lose weight. Our bodies are incredibly complex systems, and there are many factors involved in weight loss, some of which have nothing to do with what you eat or how much you workout. These factors can make losing weight complicated, inconsistent, and slow. If you’re affected by one of these factors or think you might be, it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor and get a personalized assessment. Once you’re ready to do so, find a healthy eating plan that works for you. I personally chose WW. I liked their plan’s flexibility, reliance on scientific research, and peer support. Also, if you hit your weight loss goal and maintain your weight loss for six weeks, you can keep using their resources (for free!) to maintain your weight-loss.

VR Fitness: Bring On The Games!

Let’s get to the games! Note: this isn’t an exhaustive list. These mini fitness-game reviews are just the games that I personally enjoyed and gave me a consistent workout. 

Beat Saber 

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

Beat Saber is one of the few games on the Quest that has a free demo. When I first got my Quest, I was reluctant to spend too much money and was really happy to take advantage of any free content. Beat Saber has a great tutorial in their demo. The full version features a campaign mode and a solo play mode that allows you to practice individual songs with five difficulty levels for each. It also comes with some multiplayer and party mode features.

Recently, Beat Saber introduced the ability to personalize your experience by letting you choose custom colors and environments. They’ve also started to add a 360 gameplay experience to a bunch of songs, finally taking advantage of the Quest’s untethered nature. Outside community developers have also created downloadable, open-source, mods that allow the savvy player to upload their own music and create their own levels. For various reasons, I haven’t done this — and even so, I find Beat Saber a delight. 

Beat Saber is also a great way to uplift your mood and motivate you. Almost all of the music choices are up-beat, and whether we like it or not, music affects our emotions. Upbeat music will usually improve your mood. If you’re not in the mood for a workout, Beat Saber will usually get you in the mood to move. You’ll also be happier afterward, thanks to the endorphins your body produces in response to the physical activity.

Beat Saber has 5 levels for solo gameplay: easy, normal, hard, expert, and expert+. When I first started playing back in May of 2019, it took me about a half-hour to progress from easy to medium. It took me about a week to progress from medium to hard, and it took me two months to progress from hard to expert. Now, I’m finally playing at the expert+ level, and it is incredibly challenging. You’ll know you’re ready to progress to the next level of difficulty when you’ve started getting perfect scores on the songs you play. If the song seems to be too easy or you find your mind wandering while you’re in the middle of gameplay, that is a signal to move on to the next difficulty level. 

Why You May Not Love It

If you have a back injury or are prone to seizures, this game just isn’t for you. There is a lot of arm-waving, twisting and ducking and weaving. I mentioned the music is upbeat, and this is very true. But, except for the music packs that cost extra, you’ve probably never heard any of the songs, and the music may not be to your taste. There is a limited library (assuming you didn’t install the mods), so even if you did buy all the music packs — and this can make the game repetitive after a while. Beat Saber is also a bit on the pricy side (at around $30). This doesn’t include most of the DLC music packs from artists whose names you might actually recognize. The music packs range in price from 6-10 dollars each. They include artists like Panic at the Disco!, Monster Cat, Imagine Dragons, Green Day, and (coming next week) Timbaland.

BoxVR

Calorie Burn: 60-80 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love it

Box VR does precisely what it’s designed to do: it provides an effective workout. If you choose to, it will display your calorie burn on the screen as you work out(though the calorie burn is wildly inaccurate). As much as I hate the warehouse environments, I will say that the fact that there aren’t lights flashing everywhere does actually allow me to focus. Box VR does have some good qualities that most of the other fitness games don’t have. You can program your own playlists and pick from a pretty long list of included songs separated by genre. The game developers have only added to the available music list and have not charged once for access to new songs. I’ve never heard of any of these titles before, but some of the tunes are pretty catchy.  

As much as I don’t really like the design of this game, I frequently turn to it for my workouts. There’s an excellent reason for this: as much fun as working out in the Quest is, sometimes, in the morning, all I want to do is go back to sleep because I’m on autopilot and don’t want to think. Box VR allows you to set up and save your own playlists. The fewer steps I have to take to work out, the more likely I am to follow through. Also, because the playlists are set up to play one song right after the other, I don’t need to pause my workout to choose a new song- so I’m more likely to work out for the entire playlist. Frankly, I wish more of the music and rhythm games would add this feature.

I usually choose a 10-minute workout from one of my own playlists, or I try one of the day’s featured playlists. By the time I’m finished, I’m warmed up and ready to move on to a more entertaining game. There have been many days where I just wanted a guaranteed burn and did my entire work out in BoxVR, but with all the fun ways to work out in Quest, this one is only a part of my diet. 

Why You May Not Love It

So, I’m actually not a huge fan of this game. It’s as expensive as Beat Saber, but nowhere near as creative or well designed. You only have a choice of 3 scenes: a day warehouse, a twilight warehouse, and an environment vaguely reminiscent of generic 80s sci-fi movies or a Windows 95 screensaver. The game advertises itself as having trainer designed programs, but you never interact with the “trainers” at all. All you see are portraits of people in gym clothes next to one of the pre-programmed playlists. Presumably, that trainer “designed” that playlist. I don’t actually see much of a difference between those and the playlists I made up based on my own music taste. Seriously, how hard would it have been for the makers of this game to incorporate some kind of player interaction with the trainers they advertise? Even if it was just a voice-over or even some short videos demonstrating the proper form. I find the lack of variety in this game lazy. The low-res environments are lacking. As is the inability to modify the colors of your targets (you can choose between two color sets). The poor tutorial and the lack of safety information also feel a little lazy.

There is a “survivor” mode that hoped would add some additional challenge or feeling of gameplay. I was wrong. When you choose to play in survivor mode, you get ten “lives”. Whenever you make a mistake, you lose a life. You can regain your lost lives by consistently hitting your targets without missing any. You play until you lose all ten lives. Supposedly, the longer you play, the more challenging it becomes. This does sound fun, but it’s not. There is only one non-lyrical house music type soundtrack in survivor mode, and it loops….over…and over…and over. The gameplay doesn’t get more challenging every time the music restarts, though. Instead, the targets just accelerate until no human could possibly move fast enough to hit them. This also means that no matter how good you are, you will eventually fail, which also means there is no way to win.

Tip: the game NEVER tells you this for some reason, but when you’re punching, 99% of your body weight should go on your front foot. Your back foot should be used to pivot. This information is available on the Game Developers website, buried in a youtube tutorial by one of the trainers.

My other tip: you are bobbing, weaving and squatting a lot with this game, just make sure that when you bend your knees, you’re not letting your knees go out past your toes. 

Synth Riders

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

This is another music and rhythm game “hit the target” type game. Synth Riders has such an 80’s futuristic vibe to it that almost always puts me in a good mood. The primary reason I decided to make this a regular part of my work out was that each song provides at least some much needed lower bodywork. You do a lot of squatting in this game.

There are a bunch of environments to choose from, including the ability to have a random environment, and you can customize the colors of your targets. Again, I haven’t heard of any of the music’s artists — they all sound like 80’s synth-pop to me. Lucky for me: I love 80’s synth-pop.

Why You May Not Love It

Synth Riders can be a little bit …much. Unlike Beat Saber and Box VR, there is a risk with motion sickness here. In Synth riders, you’re on a moving platform. If you’re like me, the sensation of feeling like your moving in VR, without actually moving IRL, can lead to motion sickness. Synth Riders does, however, have a setting that allows you to change your scenery to a stationary one. This, however, makes the game a little less fun…I can’t quite figure out why. I’ll also point out that, even though I am prone to VR motion sickness, I never have actually gotten motion sickness playing this game…or even felt queasy (to my absolute delight).

Dance Central 

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It 

Dance Central is a dancing game (duh), rather than a “hit the target” game. It also happens to be one of the few games that can give you a whole-body workout. Dance Central was designed by Harmonix (creators of Guitar Hero and Rockband), so there are songs by several artists you’ll recognize…across several different genres.

You can completely customize your avatar from how you look to the clothes you wear. There are also a few game-like elements present in Dance Central that are absent from most of the other fitness type games I discuss here. There are 6 different characters you can choose to interact with and a storyline that progresses the more you play. There is also an adorable way to interact with the characters, and with the game using an in-game smartphone that you can customize with cases you earn in-game.

Why You May Not Love It

There are 6 scenes in Dance Central: the main entrance, the bar, the dance floor, the VIP room, the dressing room, and the practice room. For some reason, they have a balcony you can go on to, but it’s never been used in gameplay. In other words, it’s all modern style dance club — and by modern style, I mean mid 90’s. Frankly, when I go out, I prefer a hole in the wall with dim lighting, sticky floors, and independent musicians with ironic band names. If I ever went to a club like this IRL, it was because I was dragged by well-meaning friends who thought I needed to get out more. So the scenes here were a bit of a turn-off, at least for me. Also, the music, while mostly upbeat, which isn’t sooooooo bad, but can be a little on the grating side.

Unlike many of the games I’ve listed, this one actually does require a little bit of actual space to play, BoxVR and Beat Saber can be played in the Quest’s stationary mode pretty easily, but Dance Central requires some, though not a ton of, lateral movement. If you have the room, it’s great — if not, this isn’t the game for you. 

Ok, so I’ve gone through a lot of music and rhythm games– and these types of games aren’t for everyone. If you’re one of the people who doesn’t like them, I’ve got you covered:

Sports Scramble

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

So full disclosure, the only game that actually gives you an effective workout in Sports Scramble is the tennis game. If you have the room in your house, you can actually participate in a full-on tennis match complete with running and overhand serves. You can set it up to move around within a visual boundary (in the world). You’re also cheered on by a stadium full of adorable cartoons. I occasionally find myself waving to the crowd, pretending I’m Serena Williams.

Sports scramble has a demo mode, a challenge mode, a quickplay mode, and a party mode that allows you to challenge friends and strangers on the internet. You can customize your avatar and earn new gear. You can also turn off the “scramble” features, which constantly randomize elements of gameplay, turning your racket into a baseball bat, tennis balls into beach balls, etc. Now, when I first bought Sports Scramble, I went through its tutorial and “challenges”(which is like their campaign mode). I found that the best and most enjoyable workout for me was a traditional-rule tennis quick match (3 games) with scramble features toggled completely off. That being said, it’s pretty cool to buy one game and get a free bowling alley of your very own. The included baseball game was fun too, though not much of a workout.

Why You May Not Love It

So truthfully, as much as I love the sports part of this game, I HATE the scramble part of the game. Do you honestly think hitting a beach ball with a fish is going to somehow enhance your playing experience? Neither do I. This game is at the higher end of the cost spectrum and may not be worth it to you since only one sport out of three confers any physical benefits. Also, it’s on the campy side to the point of childishness. I don’t mind that so much, but you might. 

Racket: NX

Calorie burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

Racket: NX is a combination of Racquetball and pinball. You stand in the center of a giant geodesic dome and hit a ball of light with a racket. Racket NX has a long (and very challenging) campaign mode, consisting of several 5-7 minute rounds.

They’re all designed to help you improve your skills and keep gameplay interesting. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can challenge a friend or stranger to a game of racket tug-of-war. Racket: NX is a game that couldn’t exist in reality, has a great soundtrack built-in, and best of all, YOU CAN UPLOAD YOUR OWN MUSIC. 

Why You May Not Love It 

Unless you’re playing a multiplayer round, you’re completely isolated in the center of a geodesic dome. I found this game a little lonely, and after I progressed to a certain point, the rounds were so challenging that I got really discouraged after losing over and over and over…and because the environment didn’t really change, the gameplay didn’t change all that much either, and I found I couldn’t really play it for very long without getting bored. 

Ninja Legends

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

So, I’m 99% sure that Ninja Legends was not designed to be a fitness game. That doesn’t mean it isn’t one, though. Ninja legends is an adrenaline-filled game where you are constantly attacked by…you guessed it…ninjas. Lots and lots of ninjas who come at you from all sides. You start out with two katanas, but as you progress through the levels, you unlock more weapons. After just one level, you are panting from the exertion. Ninja Legends is a solid work out and a great way to take out your aggression in a novel setting.

Why You May Not Love It

Ninja Legends borders on the campy side. The gameplay doesn’t change, even as the levels get more challenging to beat. You’re placed in a slightly different scene at every level, and you have to kill ninjas that don’t vary much in physique or design. No cut scenes. Just a barebones storyline, written as a level description, to give you minimal context, and a BONG! Sound to let you know you’re about to be attacked. The intensity might annoy you more than it thrills you after a while. 

The Thrill of the Fight

Calorie burn: 80-100 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

First off, it’s cheap: only 10 dollars. But you get a lot for that 10 bucks. Like Rocky, you start at a crappy boxing gym, sparring and then working your way through progressively more difficult opponents in higher stakes matches. You fight each opponent for 3 rounds. Each boxing round lasts 3 minutes, with a minute in between for resting and recovery. I will tell you: I get VERY into this. I never thought of myself as a particularly aggressive person. I also admit that I never enjoyed 2D computer games where the only objective was to beat your opponent to a pulp by button mashing. However, when you’re doing the same thing with your own fists — suddenly you’re floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. I found myself dodging, weaving, guarding my body, and doing that weird fight dance that boxers do on TV….and loving every minute of it. When my 3 rounds are over, I know that I burned a ton of calories.

This is probably the only game on the quest I actually need to pause for a short water break between rounds. Also, by boxing with a fictional opponent, I’m sublimating some aggression I didn’t even know I had! Surprisingly, this has helped me control my stress levels during the day. When you hit someone that doesn’t exist, they can’t actually injure you. You can’t get arrested for assault. The Thrill of the Fight provides all the fun of hitting someone, and none of the consequences. 

Why You May Not Love It

For one thing, you DO need a large play area for this game. The developers of Thrill of the Fight really took advantage of the 6 degrees of freedom and 6.5×6.5 square foot play area recommendation. I BARELY have this. I live in a relatively small apartment, and there is one space in it that has juuuuuust that amount of space to move around without bumping into furniture. You can’t stay in one place when playing The Thrill of The fight. You move when your opponent moves. You lunge to punch — you back up when they come for you. The Oculus Guardian (the blue cage that appears to warn you when you are about to bump into a real-life boundary), doesn’t seem to be very sensitive when playing this game.

I remember once I was playing a particularly intense round when I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder. I lifted my visor (never a pleasant experience to be jarred back into the real world), to see my husband’s horrified face. I had been so into my match that I was about to slam into my kitchen sink. One more step and I would have had the wind knocked out of me by my own kitchen counter. Would the Quest’s guardian have caught me before I made contact? I honestly don’t know. The guardian didn’t light up to warn me where I was —but I wouldn’t be too surprised if I accidentally ended up punching a wall. I have heard of this happening to others. From that point on, I was more cautious about where I was stepping. I won’t lie: having to force myself to be aware of my external real-world surroundings, did take me out of it a little.

So, if you don’t actually have 6.5×6.5 feet to move around in your play area, I wouldn’t even bother buying The Thrill of the Fight. One more thing: the NPC spectators in the early rounds are downright creepy. They don’t have eyes. 

Pistol Whip

Calorie Burn: 60-80 Cal / 10 mins

I wasn’t planning on including Pistol Whip in this feature. Pistol Whip is a first-person shooter, a genre I don’t prefer. I also couldn’t have guessed that Pistol Whip could even be used as a workout. My editor suggested I review Pistol Whip from a fitness perspective as a part of this feature, as this is a game he uses for a lower body workout. I couldn’t imagine how a first-person shooter could be a consistent workout. After trying it, I hereby and humbly stand corrected on all counts. Pistol Whip is an excellent full-body workout. Even for someone like me, who doesn’t usually enjoy first-person shooters, Pistol Whip is a lot of fun. It’s a game I now intend to make a part of my regular workout routine each week. 

Why I Love It:

• Customizable Gear: You get a gun (or 2 guns!), choose a song from a small (but growing) list of EDM songs. Your job is simply to shoot or pistol whip (thus the title) the pixelated bad guys while dodging bullets and obstacles. I mostly chose to use two of the larger guns, and I dyed them pink! Using two guns did reduce my score somewhat but was preferable to having an idle arm at my side. I could have used it to cradle my shooting hand, which is proper form IRL, but with controllers that made little sense. You can choose from a variety of different guns, unlock new weapons, and customize your pistol’s design and color. Customization seems like this small thing, but to me, I find it helps make any game feel more personal.
  
  
• Discovering my Inner Lara: The combination of high-intensity music, combined with targeting, shooting, and dodging makes for an insane mood booster. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it’s a less frustrating, faster-moving version of Superhot with a soundtrack. Playing through a song in Pistol Whip activated my deeply buried survival instinct as I dodged every bullet! As in The Thrill of the Fight, this workout also helped me work through some deeply suppressed aggression. After playing, I felt better and, ironically, more peaceful, in the real world. When Doc Neale reviewed Pistol Whip for 6DOF Reviews, he said he felt like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. Personally, with my double guns, I felt more like Lara Croft.
  
  
• The Sneaky Burn at any Level: Pistol Whip is a sneaky workout. When I first started playing, I couldn’t help sort of bopping to the music as I assassinated bad guys and dodged bullets. Unconsciously, I ended up shooting and dodging with the beat of the music. Without intending to, I found myself picking song after song until I realized that I’d run through all of them in about 45 minutes. It was only after I took off my headset that I realized that I was utterly drenched in sweat. When I looked down at my Fitbit, I saw I’d burned more calories than I usually do with a more traditional fitness game like BoxVR or Beat Saber in the same time frame. I only bought the game a week ago, so I evaluated this game playing in Easy and Normal mode. I wasn’t ready to attempt playing at Hard. Even with the data right there, in front of me, even with the proof that Pistol Whip was a solid cardio workout – I had a hard time believing it! I didn’t feel like I’d exerted myself more; if anything, I felt like I’d done less. The natural movements I used to dodge and aim motivated me to move my entire body without being specifically dictated to do so and without much conscious thought.
  
  
• Freedom of Movement: There isn’t a dictated rhythm in Pistol Whip like there is in Beat Saber, BoxVR, or synth riders. Your movement isn’t choreographed as it is in Dance Central. You shoot where you want when you want, and you don’t lose points for misses, though if you get hit, you can die and have to start over(though you can choose to disable death, here). Each scene is custom-built for the song it accompanies, so each song gives you different playing experiences. Even though there are only ten songs available at the current time, each time you play through any one level would or could present a new challenge every time you play. 

Why You May Not Love It: 

• Possible Motion Sickness: One thing that made me nervous when I first started playing Pistol Whip was that levels automatically move forward, as though you’re on an invisible conveyor belt. Full Disclosure: I easily get motion sick. I had to take Dramamine to get through games like Journey of the Gods(which was worth it) and had to lay down for the rest of the day when I tried out Epic Roller Coasters (which totally wasn’t worth it). I appreciate it when game developers give those of us with weaker stomachs alternative forms of locomotion. Pistol Whip does not give you the option to remain still in-world. I will say that you should play a level or two for yourself to evaluate whether you will have issues with queasiness. To my delight, I did not personally get motion sick when I played.
  
  
• I Keep Getting Killed: Pistol Whip has three levels of difficulty: easy, normal, and hard. I only just started playing, and even normal was an insane workout and much more difficult than I would have anticipated. Several times, I died within the first minute of starting a level and had to start the whole thing over. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but when you have to start a level over and over and over again during a workout, it interrupts your flow. Ultimately, since my objective was to get in a workout while having fun and not necessarily to be the master of Pistol Whip, I opted to make myself immortal and engaged the no-fail modifier.
  
  
• Lack of Context:  Honestly, one thing I’d love to see in Pistol Whip after playing it for a short time is some kind of optional campaign or story mode that could help the player slowly work their way up from super beginner to a pistol-wielding dynamo. A story mode would also give me some context for WHY I’m killing these people. In a few of the levels, there are some “bad guys” who aren’t actually trying to kill you. They’re just kind of standing there and dancing. Even though the enemies are just shadowy, abstract, pixelated figures, I actually did sort of twinge at shooting someone who wasn’t trying to kill me. The fast-paced action and intentionally retro graphic design reminded me of my two favorite FPS from way back in the day: Wolfenstein 3D and Area 51. Those games didn’t have much of a story but did force you to progress through levels, and the context was clear just by the setting of the scene: you’re killing Nazis/space invaders and a good guy. The lack of context didn’t lessen the enjoyment gameplay for me. Still, the addition of even a pretextual reason for killing the shadowy figures who weren’t even trying to kill me would have been very welcome.
  
  
• Limited Song Choices… all of Which are EDM: In Pistol Whip, you have the option of choosing from ten different songs, each with its own matching scenery. The songs are each only about 5 minutes long, and those minutes fly by. There are only thirteen songs to choose from, and they’re all EDM. The limited music and scenery choices may mean you’ll get bored with this game over time since you’re mostly playing the same levels repeatedly. If you don’t like EDM (I don’t mind EDM in this context, but it’s far from my favorite type of music), you might find yourself avoiding gameplay just because of the music. Three of the songs have been added to Pistol Whip post-launch. I’ve been told that they plan on releasing a new level every month or so, which should keep things exciting and fresh. But if you don’t like EDM, more EDM songs won’t exactly enhance your playing experience. Custom track packs have been made by fans that match the tempo of existing ones, but adding them isn’t a very straightforward process. My sincere hope is that the developers add additional levels with music genres that aren’t EDM. 

I would suggest avoiding boredom with Pistol Whip by not making it your only workout on any given day. I’d suggest making Pistol Whip one more part of your routine. Play one or two songs each day or on alternating days to keep your workout interesting, if you’re the type to get bored quickly with repetition. I’d also suggest playing with the modifiers, as you become more adept, to give yourself a challenge and keep gameplay fresh.

Guided Tai Chi

Calorie burn: 20-40 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It 

So, Guided Tai Chi is not technically a fitness game, but I use this app at the end of every single workout. It makes a great cool down and helps me transition from an adrenaline-filled exercise back into the real world. There are about a hundred routines to choose from, and one routine only takes about 5 minutes. There are a shorter 3-minute “arcade” mode and an “around the world” mode that takes 60 minutes to complete.

You can choose from about 10 different relaxing scenes. You follow the movements of transparent Tai Chi masters. As you play through each routine, a calm disembodied voice guides you and reminds you to relax. 

Why You May Not Love It

I did say this wasn’t a fitness game, right? If anything, this is more of a mindfulness/meditation app and an intro to Tai Chi. It focuses on the relaxation aspect and not necessarily the martial arts aspect of Tai Chi. Guided Tai Chi does not increase in difficulty as you play, which I personally found a little disappointing. 

VR Fitness: Conclusion

There is a lot to love about using VR to get a cardio workout. It’s great for beginners, reduces your excuses; it’s portable, versatile, fun, and as effective as traditional cardiovascular activities. A Quest is also a great option when you don’t have access to a gym, or the elements prevent you from being outside. Like any other work out, you should still consult a physician to make sure you’re healthy enough for vigorous cardiovascular activity. However, the cost of the Quest, in addition to the games you’ll need to purchase, can get expensive. I personally suggest creating a workout routine that incorporates a few different games to keep the experience of working out entertaining.

TLDR: The Oculus Quest will give you an insanely fun and very effective workout that reduces your excuses and yields similar results to many traditional cardio workouts. You’ll have to use the same caution as you would with any other exercise routine. 

Sources for caloric burn information: https://vrhealth.institute/

Featured Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

OhShape falls squarely into the category of rhythm-based VR games. These usually let you follow some music and do stuff like swinging weapons from a galaxy far far away or swinging your fists while in beat. In OhShape, you have to make the right “shapes” to fit through holes in rapidly approaching virtual walls, pluck coins out of mid-air, and punch through barriers while ducking and strafing to avoid obstacles along the way. Sounds challenging? Well.. it is, and yes, there is a particular question that comes to mind – Can a virtual experience actually deliver a workout as satisfying as the real thing? 

OhLook! It’s got diamonds!

Enter the game lobby – well designed, almost minimal. I really liked the diamond-shaped buttons for the songs that you can choose from, and game options and various other things are neatly arranged in the lower area. OhShape provides a very clean look in the lobby and continues to do so in the game itself. This helps you to stay focused on the task at hand: working out!

To jump right in, you should play the guided tutorial to get familiar with your surroundings and get a general feel for the rhythm aspect of the game first. When you feel prepared enough to OhShape it up, take a good look around the lobby. The game lets you personalize your experience a great deal. You can set different speeds for the songs you wish to play and adapt the volume of both music and sound effects. There also is a very welcome no-fail option, so the game doesn’t stop and reset when you can‘t make the cut. To be honest – that happened to me often enough that I found that option useful! Playing on hard does stuff to you and your cardio that you wouldn’t believe, but we will get to that in a little while. You can choose from three difficulty levels; easy, medium, and hard. These affect the overall challenge, mostly by speeding up the cutout walls, coins, obstacles, and barriers being thrown at you. There is also a checkbox for smaller play areas. Once activated, OhShape can be played out in a fixed position without the need to strafe left and right. This is a great option for those who play in limited areas. The game really demands a lot of movement, so chances are you will knock over nearby stuff in your home when fully immersed. So be careful!

I like to get the most out of my workout and I’m lucky enough to have a large space available for play, so I didn’t use that option, but that meant I have to sidestep a lot. Not only are the coins spread further to the sides, but even in normal mode, there are three possible positions (left, center, right) for every obstacle, cutout, and barrier to be dealt with. These positions are also accompanied by floating obstacles that you will have to duck under. The game even throws some cutouts that can only be matched by squatting.

All in all, you will find a great variety of movements that you’ll have to match.

Movement? OH YEAH, lots of it!

The concept that sets OhShape apart from your run-of-the-mill rhythm-based game is, in fact, full-body movement, especially if you want to score high and really get sweating. This is achieved by the use of the virtual environment and especially enhanced by the untethered experience that the Quest provides. You will mostly gaze forward, but when coins fly to your left and right to be collected, or obstacles have to be evaded, you’ll need to look around the runway you’re standing on.

OhShape carefully tracks your hands and head, while you get into various shapes to match the cutouts flying towards you. Your hands are displayed in bright sporty gloves, so you can easily punch through the barriers right at the sweet spot and pick up coins in time. It doesn’t matter if you make fists or keep a straight hand when fulfilling hand-based tasks, so you don’t need to wear yourself out by making tight fists all the time. Your starting position is displayed as a fixed baseplate with footprints so you always have a reference to your starting position on the track.

OhShape looking OhWow!

I already mentioned that I instantly fell in love with the no-frills look of the lobby and was pleasantly surprised to find that OhShape stays true to that aesthetic in-game. While being polished enough to get its concept across, the track you are standing on isn’t as detailed as in other rhythm-games like Beat Saber or Pistol Whip. You don’t really need that, though – you won’t have enough time to look around and be amazed by animated gizmos while trying to fit through the rapidly approaching cutout walls! These really are the centerpiece of the game, and OhBoy, these will get you dancing without even noticing! 

All tasks have different colors, so you can pre-plan what to do next. This actually helps a lot when playing on hard, because you can kind of autopilot through some sections.

The cutout walls that you have to fit through are greenish, and your actual tracked shape is displayed as a shadow on these walls. That way, you can estimate if you will make the shape in time or if you have to make quick adjustments to your pose in order to fit. Obstacles (to evade with a squat or a sidestep or a squatted sidestep) are yellow. Barriers to punch through are red, and sweet spots to punch through single-handedly or with both fists, are clearly highlighted with circles. Sometimes, I got irritated when I missed a hit or crashed into an obstacle because the warning flashes are also red, but I adapted to that quickly enough. The coins with their glowing golden polygon style did remind me of Super Mario, I have to say, and I caught myself jumping up like everybody’s favorite plumber to reach some of the higher coins. A completely unnecessary exercise, and due to the game’s speed, only possible when playing on easy, but it felt good anyway.

Let’s talk music, shall we?

OhShape comes with 11 rather short songs to choose from, and you can find a few additional songs in the Extras section. I suppose there are still more to come with future updates, and they could be longer or perhaps loopable, so you’d be able to work out for longer. Playlists would be a perfect addition to plan your workouts around and to plan for specific durations. To make the most of OhShape, you can also load up some of your own music, but there’s a small hitch – OhShape won’t generate custom tracks for the songs automatically. Instead, you’ll have to install the OhShape Editor from their website at ohshapes.com on a Windows PC to match up a workout track with your music. 

The preloaded songs are exclusively made for OhShape and are mostly quite catchy. In the long run, it would help if OhShape could score some better-known artists to provide more music. Personally, I don’t think that’s relevant to the fitness aspect of the game. Still, it could help to grow the community tremendously.

Immersion is great in OhShape, and I forgot my surroundings completely while playing. The track designs for the preloaded songs are excellent and get you into the groove immediately. If you use headphones on your Quest, the music itself and audio feedback of OhShape are also greatly enhanced.

OhShape will get you OhDancing! 

You can also use readily available tracks provided by the community. These mostly consisted of popular songs pre-matched to a workout track designed by community contributors. Track intensity and choreography design quality always depend on the time spent designing the tracks, though! I especially recommend Eye of the tiger, Gangnam Style, and YMCA. Try them! Although these three songs are not personal music favorites, they fit my OhShape exercise routine perfectly. The community did an outstanding job there – thank you, guys!

On the whole, OhShape ran smoothly on my Quest – all the graphic elements are well-thought-out and make sense in their entirety.

Why is OhShape advertised as a game? 

OhShape really is more than just a game… it’s a full-fledged workout and is, therefore, an exercise experience! There are a lot of rhythm games out there that we all love and enjoy in VR, but as of yet, most developers don’t emphasize the fitness aspects of their games. Why not take a hint from the real craze around YUR Fitness, which was built only to tend to these very needs? Create a real health benefit and implement a simple statistics routine that lets the user, at least, estimate calories burned and maybe track the time spent working out!

OhShape just needs simple planning options and maybe a stopwatch to time workouts! Right now, I keep track of my OhShape workouts with a fitness tracker set to aerobics as the tracked activity, just so I can monitor the fitness benefits. 

OhSustainable or OhShort?

The songs already included in OhShape are played through in maybe an hour, on the easier levels. At first glance, it’s a relatively short game, but once you have opened up to the fitness aspect, your motivation will increase exponentially. Naturally, I didn’t like all the songs provided, so I picked some favorites. I always play three cycles of each song before I move on to the next one. I also try to avoid the easy mode and make sure to include at least one song in hard mode per cycle. That’s where OhShapes’ core strength lies. It’s an intense workout, and I fully plan to spend a lot of time playing it. Not so much as a game, but as a fitness experience.

With custom songs available to set up your own tracks, and with others provided by the community, the potential variety is unlimited, so, like Beat Saber, OhShape is well worth the money in terms of longevity. An option to allow for procedural track design would be fantastic, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that easy to implement.

OhShape is for rhythm games, what Chance the Rapper was for hip-hop. 

Yes, I really mean that – it’s a fresh take on an already well-established genre. The concept really works and engages you not only in terms of hand-eye-coordination but through your whole body. The concept, the controls, and the combination of tasks all combine to keep you busy. 

Marketing OhShape as a fitness experience could help a lot in attracting the fitness crowd and not just gamers on the hunt for leaderboard domination. In OhShape, I find that I compete with myself as I do in most serious workouts, so, yes, a global leaderboard is nice to have – but a statistics summary would be very welcome! Focusing on the workout aspects might need some minor changes in the game options which could give OhShape more depth and versatility without sacrificing any of the gaming aspects.

Come on, Odder Lab.. take a leap!

Summing It OhUp!

OhShape is a well-designed rhythm game that comes the closest yet to being a serious fitness experience in VR. If you are not afraid of breaking a sweat while moving all over the place and are looking to use custom songs in your workout routines, your $19.99 will be well spent. Despite some minor flaws, I give it a double thumbs-up!

It doesn’t take a huge amount of journalistic nouse or perception to take one look at Pistol Whip and come up with comparisons to John Wick, SuperHot and Beat Saber. In many ways, it feels like the developers, Cloudhead Games, are practically baiting me to do just that. It’s one of those titles that will be constantly referred to in terms of being a mashup of other games and films. ‘It’s Mrs Doubtfire meets Das Boot!’ That kind of thing. However, you won’t find that sort of lazy comparison here, oh my no. I’m also resisting making constant wanky allusions to Japanese crime films you won’t have heard of, either – no matter how much they want me to.

JOHN SLICK

By this point, VR is becoming primarily the premier consumer electronics method of pretending you’re Keanu Reeves. Of all titles available on the Quest, Pistol Whip gets closest yet. It wants you to feel like you’re starring in a cool, stylish action film. The opening screen of the game stands you in front of a pulsating cinema box office, gun in hand. You shoot a poster, and a sexy voice breathes ‘Pistol Whip’ at you; almost an offer, or an invitation. Rather like Left 4 Dead, the levels are presented as film posters, all of different identities and flavours. There’s an aluminium briefcase to your left containing different handguns to pick from. To select something, you shoot it. You shoot everything. It’s the perfect hors d’ouevre for what’s to come.

RESERVOIR DROOGS

The game plays out like an on-rails shooter. No, wait, stop! Come back. If like me you lived through the earlier days of VR or even just the Quest’s launch library, then you’ll probably be about sick of that particular genre. Pistol Whip is different. It doesn’t want just to give you bad guys to shoot; it intends to choreograph you doing it. The levels are recognisable urban environments, rendered in a distinctive limited palette. The almost-neon, glitchy, aesthetic is a triumph, allowing the imagination to run riot. The waves of sharp-suited villains rushing the player are carefully sequenced to the music – shoot them accurately on the beat and not only will your score skyrocket, but you will edge ever closer to full Keanu-rvana.

The more levels you play, and the higher up the difficulty levels you get, you’ll discover the intricacies contained in the initially simple gameplay. As you shoot and reload to the music, dodging bullets and scenery, waiting for the perfect beat to cap a fool, you will appreciate the way that Pistol Whip is training you to be a bullet ballerina, the antagonist in a pitch-perfect dance of death. For all of the inevitable comparisons to countless other films and games that I could draw for this title, it’s Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver that I often think of most. Whilst the action in that film centres on cars rather than guns, the careful and perfect timing of music to on-screen antics is definitely similar, and a joy to be part of. This is demonstrated perfectly by the use of the titular pistol whip. The rare occasions when a gangster fool stumbles close enough for you to smack him with the butt of your gun are perfectly judged, like a hi-hat hit in the middle of a drum solo. 

By default, there’s an aim-assist active which is designed to help you shoot accurately without worrying too much about looking down the sights. This might seem like heresy, but believe me, it’s pretty much necessary given the pace of the game. When you’re in there, ducking and weaving and trying to shoot on target and on time, you’ll be glad it’s there. There is an option to turn the assist off, but be warned. It will not only hand your ass to you but will also mince it with some fresh herbs first.

DUAL HAND LUKE

If there’s one thing that feels slightly unusual at first, it’s that your non-shooting hand is useless. Unless you have the dual-wield modifier active, that gives you a pistol in each hand (and reduces your score), the other controller is redundant. I find myself gripping the ‘gun’ in both hands, with the other hand underneath for support, like in them fancy films. (Either that or using the redundant arm to flail out while shooting like RoboCop – also valid). I did have a brainwave while playing that the unused controller could be used to activate Dead-Eye (non-assist) mode on the fly. Bringing up the non-dominant hand to support the butt of the gun could enable a non-assisted aiming mode for higher scoring, a bit like scoping in a flat FPS. Delightfully, I suggested this to the developers, and they thought it was a good idea and that they may consider implementing it in future. So bonus points to them for recognising my budding design genius. 

RHYME CRISIS

The game puts a heavy emphasis on the rhythm-action nature of the gameplay. This makes it unique, in a way that belies all of the influences it wears on the sleeves of its sharply-tailored black jacket. While other devs are falling over themselves trying to reconcile and capitalise on the massive success of Beat Saber, Cloudhead Games have taken a step back, donned some shades and picked up a Glock before running headlong at a different target. The confidence, exuberance, and style of Pistol Whip are quite breathtaking. If there’s one thing that does frustrate slightly, it’s that the game’s music is very much standard EDM/electronica of the type that every rhythm game of this generation is using. It’s varied and brilliantly utilised, but different genres would be so welcome. There’s a lot of Tarantino DNA in Pistol Whip. It would be the final cherry on the cake if the game utilised a similarly playful and eclectic approach to music selection to accompany its precision action.

Can you tell that the game is so good that I’ve been forced to nitpick?

The only other caveat I’d really offer is that the game is very active. If you’re not used to jumping, leaning and dodging for long periods, you’ll definitely feel it in your legs for a few days after your first session in the game. Not necessarily a bad thing by any means, but worth mentioning before you give your gran (or your editor) the headset and tell her to blast away.

RELOAD!

There are ten levels in the game; ten different music tracks and unique environments to run through. Technically you can ‘complete’ the game in less than an hour, if you’re a big wuss and put everything on easy and breeze your way through. But that would be massively missing the point and the appeal. The challenge is considerable, and even on Normal difficulty, you’ll be more than breaking a sweat. You’ll want to beat your score, find cooler ways to best specific sequences, see how you fair on higher difficulties, or try dual-wielding your way through the levels like Harvey Keitel with a bus to catch. There are modifiers and options a-plenty to both tailor the game to your play style and provide additional challenges once you think you’re approaching mastery. It’s also one of those show-off titles you’ll want to share with friends and family, and I will wager a fair few of them will end up putting a Quest at the top of their Christmas lists as a result.

THE BASICS

Synth Riders follows a similar concept to the other music/beat-based VR games on the market now. You have a red and blue “ball” (one per hand); Before you are orbs you must blast through to a triumphant victory. Be alert as you’re gliding through each level. You may have to combine both hands for certain orbs or duck and dodge obstacles in your path.

HOW IT PLAYS

The concept is simple: Glide through the “level,” Hit orbs to the beat, dodge obstacles. Similar in style to games such as Beat Saber, this is not a foreign idea. But despite multiple “skins” or maps, and many songs to choose from, it all feels relatively the same throughout. Somehow every level feels the same and feels repetitive after a while.

FEEDBACK

Every game needs to give you a certain sense of accomplishment to be enjoyable for long periods. This accomplishment is what keeps you going and going, trying the level over and over and over again until you finally complete it perfectly. That “ahh” moment is something I am always searching for in a game. For me, I have a hard time finding that in Synth Riders.

In my opinion, for a game in this genre to work well, it needs top-notch level development. What do I mean by this? If I can look back at Beat Saber for a moment; What is it about this game that everyone loves? Beat Saber is the Guitar Hero of VR. It gives you the feeling that you are actually “drumming” to the beat. When you miss, you get an audible disappointment because you are missing that “thump” that you get when you hit the right block at the right time. That is what makes the game so rewarding. When you hit the blocks just right, you feel as if you are the one making the song progress. You become the musician at that moment. For me, that feeling is missing in a big way for Synth Riders.

As you are riding through the level and hitting the orbs, it never feels like they quite line up with the beats, and you never really believe that you are driving the song. It feels more like you are just along for the ride. If you miss an orb or don’t hit it just right, there is no real feedback, and therefore, no real sense of how well or badly you are doing at each level. I don’t think this makes Synth Riders a lousy experience, but for me, I can’t get behind it if I can’t feel that sense of accomplishment after each level.

More on that later..

A game for a different type of player

I’m aware there are multiple types of gamers out there. As I previously stated, I need instant feedback. I need to know how I am doing at any given moment, and I need to “feel” that I am driving the progression of the game. Others are more laidback and want more of an experience rather than a serious game. And that is precisely how I would classify Synth Riders. If you want a game that allows you to lose a little focus and enjoy your surroundings and the beautiful music, this is the game for you.

HOW IT LOOKS

Synth Riders have nailed the graphics. You genuinely feel like you just fell into Tron. Bright neon colors are all around you as you surf through vibrant digital landscapes surrounded by everything from mountains to skyscrapers to complex wireframes. I never once noticed a stutter or graphics tearing or any other glitch that would take me out of the moment. The developers have done a great job optimizing this game.

GLORIOUS BASS AND CUSTOMIZATION

The tracks are the big selling point of the game, in my opinion. In my playthroughs, I didn’t hear a single track that I didn’t like. Pro tip: I recommend playing with headphones or earbuds to take full advantage of the immersion and the buttery bass-filled tracks. As I mentioned earlier, one downside is the lack of feedback when hitting (or missing) the orbs in your path. A large part of this feedback is, of course, controller feedback, but audio feedback is just as valuable. Unfortunately, I feel this is lacking substantially throughout the game. The good thing is, this is an easy fix should the developers wish to fix it in a future update.

[Since the initial review, we have had a conversation with the Devs in which they acknowledge the feedback issues mentioned above and have plans in future updates to add these requested features. Thanks, Kluge Interactive!]

CUSTOMIZABLE TRACKS

Something really great about Synth Riders is its native beat editor! It has an official editor that they have built and open-sourced and you can simply drag-and-drop a beatmap and a song you want to play to your Quest! The easiest way to start with custom songs is to look at the guidelines that come with the editor. You should also join the Synth Riders’ Discord and Synth Riders Mod discord. They are two very supportive and loyal groups of VR and Synth Riders enthusiasts who will provide lots of useful tips and answer any questions you might have.

LOTS OF POSSIBILITIES

With multiple maps, over 25 songs on release, various difficulty levels, and the ability to upload custom song maps, Synth Riders should have a long shelf life with plenty of ways to replay each level. This plus any changes or alternate game modes the devs might add in the future make this game a strong contender for anyone who wants a game they can keep coming back to.

LAST WORDS

I believe Synth Riders a great experience, but for me, not necessarily a great game. If you want a visually beautiful adventure that is stuffed full of nostalgia and buttery smooth EDM and doesn’t take itself too seriously, then this might just be the experience for you. If you are looking for a competitive game with a real sense of feedback and accomplishment, you may want to look elsewhere.

Their punches don’t actually hurt, of course, but the constant ducking and weaving necessary to get the best of them is far more demanding than what’s required in other VR games. Knockout League even helpfully includes a calorie counter, so that you know precisely how many slices of pizza you’ve worked off with each grueling match-up.

Virtual Reality Punch-Out!!

Knockout League’s biggest plus, if you’re an old-school gamer from the NES and SNES days, is its more-than-passing resemblance to Punch-Out!!, the classic 2-D boxing game. Knockout League shares Punch-Out!!’s emphasis on funny, cartoonish combatants, each with an amusing backstory and dramatic tells, so you know when to block, dodge, or throw a punch.

For example, you’ll face off against a pirate captain named Scurvy Jones, who fights with a hook and sword. His pet parrot (who is also his trainer) will telegraph Jones’s punches with a squawk and swipe of his wings. You’ll also fight a dapper British octopus named Sir Octopunch, whose mustache twitches before each tentacle volley or ink-spray. The character design and animation on these boxers are all top-notch, bringing them to life in an up-close and very charming fashion.

Float Like a Butterfly

You’ll have to be light on your feet to keep up with Knockout League’s cartoon opponents. While the first few opponents can be brute-forced, later fights require you to make drastic ducks and dodges in addition to swinging at the exact right moment. Like real boxing, Knockout League becomes a physical and mental trial that can quickly leave you exhausted. VR fitness fanatics take note— this is a great game to add to your VR exercise routine.

Precision fighting will also earn you a high score on the game’s online leaderboards. A variety of warm-up exercises like the speed bag, heavy bag, and focus-mitts sparring with your virtual trainer will give you more to do than just beat up other boxers. One exciting training mode is Reflex Alley, where targets will launch at you from pitching machines. This mode forces you to move fast and smack them away with the correct glove.

Below the Belt

It’s hard to complain about the very minor drawbacks of Knockout League since the core game is so delightful. The arenas you fight in, for example, are cast in complete darkness, with no virtual spectators to slow down the frame-rate. As a result, the cheering crowd can only be heard and not seen, which does make the experience feel a little less immersive.

With nine opponents, the game offers a substantial challenge and even a chance for replay value with a grudge match mode, achievements, and the aforementioned high score leaderboards. Still, I’d like to see even more new boxers in future updates. With Sir Octopunch setting the standard for weirdness, the possibilities for new and unusual fighters seem limitless.

Compared to the Creed demo that comes pre-installed on your Oculus Quest, Knockout League looks less realistic but delivers a much better overall gameplay experience. In Creed (at least the demo— I haven’t played the full game) you can strike more freely, but are constantly, distractingly thrown into a third-person view by staggering punches. While your hits in Knockout League only connect when they’re supposed to, the result is more fun and immersive than its Rocky-themed competitor in the Quest Store.

Judge’s Scorecard

Due to its intense, physical nature, Knockout League isn’t made for those who like to play their games slowly and passively. It’s designed to get your heartbeat thumping, your arms swinging, and your feet moving, wrapped up in a goofy, good-natured presentation. A promising sign for the future of VR sports games, Knockout League will transport you to a tough, ‘toony arena. You’ll break a sweat. Just try not to break anything else.

You’re standing near the edge of a cliff above a gently flowing river. Above you is a clear blue sky. In the distance, a waterfall cascades down a steep granite slope. Birds chirp around you as gentle music plays. On either side of you and in front of you, Tai Chi masters are encouraging you to mirror their slow, controlled moves. You do, almost exactly. The four of you move in perfect synchronization as a woman’s disembodied voice reminds you to control your movements and relax. All too soon, your time together is done. You feel relaxed and balanced.  This is how I start and end most days thanks to Guided Tai Chi. 

Guided Tai Chi is not a full-on Tai Chi tutorial designed to turn every player into a Tai Chi master. Likely, a real Tai Chi enthusiast would find this app lacking, as it focuses on the relaxation and meditation aspect of Tai Chi, rather than Tai Chi a martial art. The entry bar is relatively low, and the instructions are easy to follow. To play, all you do is select a five-minute “Flow” guided program or three-minute “Arcade” challenge. 

The Five-Minute Flow

In the guided program, you select from a long list of inspirationally titled programs and the scene you want to practice in, then you’re transported to the relaxing setting of your choice to begin your session. 

Your hands are represented by two orbs. Your left hand is a black orb, and your right hand is a white orb. Your goal is to keep these orbs in the center of their circles as they move. There are thin black and white tracks that the circles will follow, so you have an idea of what to expect. 

Helping you through the motions are two footprints on the ground to show you where to place your feet. You also have transparent Tai Chi masters on either side of you and in front of you to imitate. You’ll also see a timer counting down your session and a transparent image of the footprints as an additional guide in case you don’t want to look down. None of the moves require much coordination or balance, except for one that requires you to lift one leg for a few seconds. You do have the option not to see the foot guides, but I find them useful. 

One frustrating aspect of the guided program is that the transparent masters are all facing forward, and they’re only somewhat transparent, which makes it a little challenging to see precise hand movements. Of course, you can look to the side to see this detail, but keeping turning my head from side to side was a little distracting. 

As you follow the movements of the transparent masters, soft spa-type music plays, and a disembodied woman’s voice gives you encouragement, affirmations, and advice. As the session comes to a close, the woman’s voice thanks you. I thought that was a nice touch. 

One five minute session is very relaxing and almost feels too short. If you do more than three sessions, your arms will start to burn. If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can choose to do a sixty-minute “world tour,” which consists of 12 random five-minute programs and scenes, which feels to me to be too much. I found myself wishing there were a few 10-15 minute continuous programs to choose from, just for a little more variety. 

Arcade Challenges

The developers of Guided Tai Chi are aware that their app is being used on a VR gaming system and added the arcade mode as a little mini-game. Here, you can pick your three-minute challenge and your scenery (or choose the random option), but as an added bonus you also get to select from a list of slightly more upbeat, rhythmic music. 

See Also

Best of the Quest | The Newbie Guide

By Omar Kamel

In Features

Once you make your selections, you are again transported to the scene you chose, but there are no masters to follow and no nice lady to encourage you kindly. Your goal is once again to keep your orbs in the corresponding circle as they move, but this time you’re playing for points. Every few seconds, points are added to your overall score, which is pictured right next to the timer. The longer you keep your orbs in the circles, you’re rewarded with a points multiplier that increases every 10 seconds or so. The points multiplier appears in the center of your orb so you can keep track of it as you play. This function is quite sensitive: if your orb veers out of the center of the transparent circle for even a second, bye-bye multiplier. 

At the end of the short three-minute challenge, you see your score relative to other players. I’m not sure if the game is stroking my ego or if I’m somehow a Tai Chi natural, but I usually come in the top three most of the time. 

I do enjoy this mini-game within Guided Tai Chi. The length was just right, and it requires a lot of focus. I really only found that I had two small gripes. The first was that the multipliers were different for each hand, so if your left hand messed up and you lost your multiplier, each hand would show the score pop up, and their multipliers increase at separate times. Maybe I have OCD, but this drove me nuts. More than a few times I found myself deliberately tanking the other orb just so both spheres would score simultaneously OR I would just restart the challenge altogether. What? Don’t look at me like that! I’m competitive, even when I’m trying to relax. 

The other thing that bothered me is that the points for each hand would pop-up next to your orbs every few seconds. I found this distracting, and sometimes losing that focus would reduce my ability to keep my hands moving in line with their respective paths. 

Longevity

Guided Tai Chi is more of an app than a game, even though it does have the one game-like setting. This isn’t a game you’ll get addicted to and need to play for long hours at a time. But it is incredibly relaxing, almost like a meditation quick fix. I find myself using Guided Tai Chi every day for just that reason. 

I usually start and end each VR session with one or two of the hundred guided programs. After sweating with Beat Saber or slaughtering Ninjas in Ninja Legends, its a great way to wind down and transition back to the real world. There have also been times when I’ve been incredibly stressed out and found myself putting on my headset ONLY to do a session of Tai Chi. 

While there is a wide variety of programs, I have to say that there isn’t much variation between them. There are only 20 different hand motions, and there is no real skill level progression, which the more I play, the more I want. If anything, Guided Tai Chi made me interested in finding a local real-world class to explore the martial art of Tai Chi for a bit more challenge. 

The Scenery

Eventually, users might find the limited number of scenes tedious: there are only about ten. There is some playful variety. There is a delightful underwater setting where you are placed at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by cute cartoony sea creatures. There is one scene where you are placed on the giant chessboard in central park. Personally, I would have liked to see some nighttime or twilight scenes, especially when I was playing in the evening. 

While these scenes are undoubtedly beautiful, they also vary in artistic quality. Some aspects of the scenes are very realistic. The skies and running water are so well rendered that they are almost like photographs. Other elements are more cartoonish and obviously computer-generated. The grass on the mountain tops or in the gardens, for example, are rendered in angular, unnatural straight lines. There were just one or two grass objects drawn and then copied repeatedly. While I don’t think I would have minded consistent cartoon quality scenes, the disparity between the realistic elements and the poorly rendered ones becomes painfully apparent when they are juxtaposed in the same scene and takes me out of it just a little bit. 

A Gentle Workout

No experience is required to try Guided Tai Chi. While you may become more adept in the balance and control, the app as it is right now is limited in terms of skill progression and might become too simple over time. 

All that being said, there is an unexpected benefit of the game: The strength workout. The slow, controlled motion in Guided Tai Chi is similar to isometric holds. This benefit becomes a lot more evident if you do more than two five-minute sessions in a sitting. If you actually make it through the world tour, you’ll actually sweat from the effort. If you do at least two short programs four or five days per week, you will notice some new muscular definition. I wasn’t expecting that to happen, but it was a pleasant surprise. 

[Editors Note: It does feel a bit weird to do Tai Chi with both your hands tightly held around the controllers rather than open and relaxed. The easiest way around this – is to use one of the controller grips available for the Quest (the Mamut grips, the AMVR grips – which we favor, or the Orzero grips), any of which would allow you to play with open hands while retaining full tracking – it’s also a great way to support our site with no additional cost to yourself!]

Conclusion

Guided Tai Chi simultaneously encourages you to move and to relax. Beginning and ending your time with a short five-minute Flow session is a great way to transition from virtual reality back to the real world and give your body and mind a break from some of the adrenaline-fueled adventures and vice versa. This app really shows the potential for a class-based fitness game, like Yoga or even a proper Karate class, even if Oculus doesn’t yet track foot placement. 

Game Play

Racket: NX markets itself as a combination of racquetball and pinball. I feel like that’s a little too simplistic. For one thing, the arena is a giant geodesic globe. You stand in the center, like the charming snowman in the center of a giant hexagonal snowglobe. The graphics are immersive. You feel like you’re in a giant futuristic arena, even if your play space is only a few square feet. 

Thankfully, there isn’t a lot of lateral movements on your end. I was grateful for this. I don’t have a ton of room in my apartment and having to move even a few feet in any direction would end in me slamming into something, guardian be damned. However, the arena is a 360° play space. Consequently, you are turning around quite a bit during gameplay. 

There are pinball elements to the game, like gutters, bumpers, and stoppers, but they’re more tributes inspired by pinball rather than anything that really gives you the feeling that you’re in a pinball machine. You never lose the ball, you only have the one racket (as opposed to multiple controls), and it lacks the whimsy of a pinball game and gives off a more intense feeling.

Your goal of the game is to hit all the targets before your time runs out. Your time is determined by an energy bar located near the bottom of the dome. If you hit boosters in the arena (represented as blue + signs), your time increases. If you hit the red-power draining hexes (that look like space invaders), your energy decreases, as does your time.  

In the Solo Mode Campaign, There are four levels (basics, advanced, hardcore, insane) each containing 5 challenges, increasing in difficulty as you progress. The targets eventually start snaking around the arena and become a lot harder to hit; bumpers/stoppers are introduced that prevent you from hitting at certain angles; the number of boosters in each wave decreases, etc. Each challenge has several “waves” to complete before you pass. The faster you clear all the targets in each wave of the challenge, the higher your score. Simple enough? Not so fast.

The Physics

The physics in Racket: NX are internally consistent, but not earthly. The ball only appears to adhere to some of the rules that apply to the rest of us. The ball never stops moving unless time in the arena has also stopped. The ball never just falls to the ground, but it will always eventually come back to where you are, standing in the center of the arena…from no matter where it is. 

If you hit the ball, it might bounce off the walls of the dome…or it might travel across the dome, sticking to it as if controlled by magnets. However, this isn’t consistent, sometimes you might hit the ball gently, and the ball will ricochet several times, but you also might hit the ball quite hard, or rather, use a lot of force in your swing, since the ball isn’t actually there, and the ball will simply bounce off once. 

The ball will go where you hit it, but the aiming in Racket: NX is very strange and not like any other racket sport I’ve ever played. There’s a sweet spot on the racket, and if you aim with that spot on the racket, the ball will go where you hit it. Otherwise? Good luck. This takes some getting used to. Because the physics of the racket and the ball are so unlike anything you would find in reality, it does somewhat dampen the illusion. 

One handy tool you are given is the ability to press the trigger of your controller and draw the ball to you from wherever it is in the arena. This helps when you accidentally send your ball flying into an energy-draining red-hex, or if you don’t have a lot of energy left and need to send your ball into a few boosters. This is also insanely helpful during multiplayer gameplay, as you have to take turns and you don’t want your one shot to be missed because you can’t locate your ball.

At first, I admit I was annoyed when my energy drained before I beat a level. But as the days passed, I became grateful that I did in fact, have a time limit. It would be far too easy to lose track of time hitting that glowing ball all over the place and just keep playing until I cleared all the targets…and be late to work.

Multiplayer

There are two multiplayer modes: competitive and friendly. After playing both, the only difference appears to be who you’re playing against: a friend from your list or a stranger the game picks out for you. I will say that competitive multiplayer gameplay is not so smooth. The game froze often, and often my opponent or I will get booted out of the game. When they get booted, I win by default, and I’m not about to complain about that, except I didn’t get to play that person and have to re-start the multiplayer mode find someone new to play with.

See Also

Best of the Quest | The Newbie Guide

By Omar Kamel

In Features

There is no way to practice for multiplayer competition. I was utterly blindsided the first time I entered a multiplayer game. I didn’t know what the objective was or what the rules were. I didn’t know that I was only to hit the ball when it turned my color. I didn’t know how to win, how not to lose, or what could make my opponent lose. I had to guess, and that’s a flaw the designers could quickly fix, though the general concept is buried in a text-only tutorial area. I’d like to see a multiplayer practice game, an AI opponent would add a lot to the game if I didn’t feel like having to interact with a real person.

I was hoping for some kind of co-op mode from the friendly multiplayer mode, but nope: It’s just a friendly competition. In multiplayer, you and your opponent take turns hitting the ball into the walls, and whoever reaches the high score first wins the set. Whoever wins the most out of 3 rounds wins the match. I have to admit, I feel like multiplayer could be done a little better. For one thing, you get one shot at your ball at a turn. If that ball goes into the wall before you’ve had a chance to hit it when it changes to your color: no turn. When you’re not the only one in the arena, the ball can get hard to keep track of. Watching others play in multiplayer did help me become a better player myself, and I did learn how to use the tractor-beam control more strategically.

The competitive mode of multiplayer comes with the same risks as challenging any stranger on the internet: sometimes, you can get creeps and jackasses as your opponents. Sometimes the skills aren’t equally matched. Sometimes they’re much better than you and vice versa. Personally, I would have liked more options with the multiplayer mode. I think having team challenges would have added an enjoyable experience…maybe something akin to tennis doubles? 

Arcade Mode

Finally, you can go into Arcade Mode at any time. Arcade Mode has two subsets: Zen and Classic. The classic mode starts off simple and increases in difficulty with each wave. The waves are infinite, and you can keep playing until your energy runs out. The further you get, the harder your game becomes. Eventually, the session will get difficult enough for you, and you lose. Again, I don’t see this as a bad thing. I could play this game for hours and still be entertained. But this also means there is no winning in classic arcade mode. No matter what, eventually you lose, which felt a little crushing.

Racket Zen

That being said, if you want just to practice or don’t want to die at all, Racket: NX has you covered. Zen mode gives you immortality until you decide you’re finished. In Zen mode, every target, booster or energy drainer you hit turns into a pink lotus blossom. Personally, I took out some of my anger and aimed at those stupid red hexes quite a bit since I knew they couldn’t kill me in Zen mode. It is, however, tough to stay angry with upbeat music pumping into your ears and lotus blossoms everywhere.

When you decide you have had enough in Zen mode, you’re surrounded by Lotus blossoms and treated to an ancient proverb. I’m not sure what the point of that is, but I have to say, I don’t mind it.

Longevity

If you look at Racket: NX purely as a VR sport, this game has excellent longevity potential. It offers the same appeal as racquetball. The rules and gameplay are relatively consistent. The game comes with an upbeat soundtrack of its own, but you can also add your own music, which could make for a reasonably good workout, at least as for one arm. 

I think that the main thing that could keep many players coming back is the fitness aspect. You do get a great workout in Racket: NX. My iWatch will often buzz while I’m playing and ask me if I’m doing an indoor run. I still don’t know how I feel about sweating so much in my headset, but the fact that I’m working up a good sweat can only bode well. Of course, you could spend weeks just making it through the Solo Campaign playing each level several times before you even pass or repeatedly play the same level simply improve your score once you do pass. Even after you’ve played through the entire campaign, the arcade modes give you a new experience each time.

Multiplayer will always give you a different experience each time, as every player has a different style, as well.

But there are some drawbacks. For one, the game is relatively static. While the gameplay increases in difficulty, unless you’re playing one other opponent, you’re always standing in the middle of an arena, hitting a ball by yourself. You can’t customize your Character (which appears to be either a red or blue robot), your racket, your ball, or the arena, which eventually feels a little monotonous because the main gameplay is solitary. 

Even if you’re playing for fitness, once you’ve mastered the game, playing can feel more like being in a tennis court hitting balls with a ball machine–a machine with upbeat music, but a machine no less. One significant advantage of playing a virtual sport, as opposed to a real one, is the infinite possibility for variety. I think just being able to change some colors would be a nice change.  

There is strategy involved, but it’s limited in scope. Once you’ve mastered hitting the ball where you want it to go (which admittedly can take a long while because of the wonky internal physics), the most involved strategy is merely staying alive long enough to finish a level, and even that becomes a bit easier. Each game goes for about 3-10 minutes, and that’s a good thing because, after that, it can and does get repetitive. 

Conclusion

Racket: NX really shows the potential of VR to create sports that simply couldn’t exist in the real world. It’s a fun experience, a great way to bond with friends, and an excellent way to work up a good sweat in the comfort of your own home. The gameplay can get repetitive, and over time I found myself popping in for only a swift round, losing in about 10 minutes, and going about my day without the desire to return until I was ready to work up a good sweat the next day.

The Basics

Instead of the frantic wall-jumping of Sairento, Ninja Legends roots you in one room-scale environment to fight waves of enemies. This means you have to let your enemies approach you, then dispatch them with a hearty swing of your dual katanas (and other gratifying weapons). The stronger your swing, the more damage you’ll inflict, so you can’t just wiggle your controller around dispassionately and expect to survive.

The enemy animations and character models aren’t compelling, but Ninja Legends has an enjoyable trick that it performs over and over: Critical hits slice enemies clean through. This allows you to lop off a limb or the top of an enemy’s skull like in the ultra-violent flicks Kill Bill: Volume 1 or Ninja Scroll. Each wave gives you repeated opportunities to slice and dice. It’s like Fruit Ninja, but with people.

You have the option to turn down the gore and dismemberment in the settings, but why would you? Throw in blocking with your sword and swatting away ninja stars, and it’s a lot of fun. Add the variety of weapons introduced as you progress through the various environments, and Ninja Legends’ bloody combat becomes a devilish delight.

Gameplay

Dual katanas are the default weapons when you start the game, and they’re the most consistently fun to use. Eventually, you’ll earn razor-sharp claws, heavy gauntlets, a long and short sword combination, and two staffs— one blunt, one bladed. These let you flail your arms in new ways, although you’ll miss out on the slicing action with the blunt weapons. Nunchucks are a notable omission, but we’re hoping for a game expansion or update in the future.

When you slaughter enough enemy ninjas, you’ll receive magical blue orbs that power up your special attacks. Some let you summon a bow and arrow or a fireball out of your hands. Others give you a Mortal Kombat-style spear and chain so you can yell “get over here!” at your unfortunate foes. It’s a cool way to change up your attacks. There is also a special attack where you will instantly warp next to enemies for a slow-motion, up-close slice, but this spell doesn’t feel quite as mystical as the rest.

Tying together the waves of foes is a simple text-based story about a rival ninja clan stealing your secret scrolls. You’ll also face a handful of bosses who have devastating magical powers of their own. These bosses are so overpowered compared to the predictable ninja lackeys that you may have to reduce the difficulty.

Longevity

Ninja Legends offers 18 different environments, and with four difficulty levels, it’s easy to find an enjoyable level of intensity. Each difficulty level and environment also offers its own online leaderboards for added replay value. And finally, unlockable secrets like Big Head mode provide a unique bonus when the slashing action starts to wear out.

My principal complaint about Ninja Legends’ scoring system is that unlike in Robo Recall, you can’t see your points tally up as you play. This prevents you from tracking your attempt at a high score. You have to rely on a screen at the end of the level to tell you how many critical hits you’ve successfully pulled off.

Last Words

Like Beat Saber or Racket: NX, Ninja Legends is an energetic, active VR game that may leave you feeling fatigued. Unlike those other games, it’s also got visceral, bloody combat. The slicing can become a bit repetitive, and it’s not a graphical powerhouse, but with its intuitive fighting system, Ninja Legends is a worthwhile purchase for fans of the genre.