One of the most underrated parts of gaming is virtual reality. The hardware has developed rapidly and developers are figuring out what works and what doesn’t. That has led to games that play less like tech demos and more like vibrant and deep experiences.
Armed with better know-how, projects nowadays have hooks meant to appeal to a broader audience. The medium has its own franchises such as “Asgard’s Wrath” and “Beat Saber” and it has also leaned on ports of other series such as “Resident Evil 4” and “Assassin’s Creed.” The last part is leveraging bigger franchises and building memorable games around them. Developers have worked on prized properties with star power such as “Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series” and now “Batman: Arkham Shadow.”
I dabbled in a few VR experiences over the holidays, and here are the ones that have stood out:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lin9VpzFUo“Sushi Ben” — Although it launched last year on the Meta Quest, this cozy game is worth playing as it makes its way to other platforms. It puts players in the role of a new resident of Kotobuki Town, a Japanese seaside village. As the protagonist, players have to help a local sushi restaurant and other townspeople resist the shady developers trying to buy up the local property. It’s a title full of minigames and local drama almost like “Stardew Valley” but it has more of an anime flair. It also launched on PlayStation VR2 this year.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9j3xpmd4ag“Metro Awakening” — The video game series based on author Dmitry Glukhovsky’s postapocalyptic books has quietly been one of the better first-person action titles over recent years. The setting of nuclear war survivors building a society in the Moscow subway is fascinating and the concepts of scarcity and survival drive the franchise’s gameplay. Vertigo Games adapts the formula established by 4A Games brilliantly into VR. The game feels natural to the medium as players fend off mutants and other factions as Dr. Serdar, who is trying to help his wife as he explores the Moscow tunnels with a gun, headlamp, gas mask and a hand crank generator. “Metro Awakening” is available on Meta Quest platforms and PlayStation VR2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqSddv4QbM“Alien: Rogue Incursion” — Survios has been making VR titles for years now, and it’s latest project brings players into this sci-fi horror universe. Its latest title puts players in the role of Zula Hendricks, an ex-colonial marine investigating LV-354. The project checks off all the box when it comes to fans’ desires for an “Aliens” virtual reality game. Players can pull out a motion detector to locate xenomorphs as they stalk players. They’ll have to sneak by the deadly adversaries often because ammo is scarce on Gemini Exoplanet Solutions’ black site. Despite being heavily armed, “Rogue Incursion” still makes players feel vulnerable and that only heightens the tension and scares. The VR titles is available now on PlayStation VR2 and next year on Meta Quest platforms.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbQt2DyuzCc“Triangle Strategy” — This port of the excellent Square Enix tactical role-playing game mostly works well on Meta Quest platforms. In these games, players control individual characters almost like chess pieces on a board. They each have their strengths, weaknesses and movement speed, and the goal of each level is to outmaneuver and defeat opponents. In VR, players can move around the map on foot or rotate it with the controllers, giving them a better sense of the troops and terrain. All of this makes the turn-based combat more visceral. The only drawback is how the port deals with cutscenes and other nonplayable moments. It’s just shown via a flat screen that’s sometimes hard to read. That’s a disappointment because developers could have put players into those scenes with more work.
