Every year is the biggest year for virtual reality. It seems more developers are delving into VR to explore the medium, hone their techniques and find out what works and what doesn’t. Virtual reality fans walk a similar path; every achievement in this burgeoning medium sets a new bar, and a new expectation of something greater as a result.

Now, a little under four years since the big names in hardware released their first generation consumer headsets, we live in a time when a number of VR games have actually approached the best that any gaming platform has to offer. And although this next decade is slated to include big titles from established studios, next-gen hardware built by the biggest in manufacturing, and experiences that teeter on complete photorealism, it’s these formative steps that are defining what’s fun, meaningful, and technically possible.

In our third annual Game of the Year Awards, we again celebrate those VR games—those stories that can only be told through the act of suspending your disbelief and immersing yourself in another world, head-first.

Without further ado, Road to VR’s 2019 Game of the Year Award winners:


Asgard’s Wrath

Developer: Sanzaru Games

Available On: Oculus (Rift)

Release Date: October 10th, 2019

Sanzaru Games and Oculus Studios brought Asgard’s Wrath to life as a part of the Oculus initiative to fund less, but bigger titles for the Rift platform. And outside of some PC-to-VR ports, it doesn’t get bigger than this melee-focused action RPG, which puts you squarely in a world that’s surprisingly alive, and boasts a depth in gameplay and visuals that make it truly something to behold. There’s little filler in the 30+ hour adventure, but even if you go for the meatiest bits, you’re looking at very least a hearty helping of gameplay that should last you well into the double digits.

While this Norse-inspired adventure doesn’t occupy an open world, it feels impressively large in scope as you traverse the game’s many layers, including moments when you need to either be god-sized or mortal-sized to solve puzzles and engage in epic combat, and when you have to control your chimeric animal pals to act as both keys to specific puzzles or order around as essential combat partners.

The game’s gestural-based combat takes some time to massage into muscle memory, but once you get down the basic moves of parrying, blocking, and countering, the game really starts to take flight. And when you begin matching those moves with more difficult enemies, many of which have their own combat styles, you’ll quickly learn that Asgard’s Wrath demands nothing short of precision (i.e. no wildly waggling your controller).

How much you like the puzzles or combat is basically subjective, but one thing that’s positively undeniable is the game’s visual finesse. Although object interaction wasn’t notable, Sanzaru expertly showcases its attention to detail as one of the key pillars of immersion. Textures, character animations, level design, all of these things are impressively realized, making it one of those games that begs for your attention long after you complete its twisty-turny story.


Pistol Whip

Developer: Cloudhead Games

Available On: Steam (Index, Vive, Rift, WMR), Viveport, Oculus (RiftQuest)

Release Date: November 7th, 2019

Wary of other rhythm games in the wake of Beat Saber (2018) hype? You shouldn’t be, as Cloudhead Games thrusts into the genre with its addictive and mightily impressive title Pistol Whip.

Pistol Whip successfully marries rhythm and shooting, and gets mega style points in the process, as it draws on things like the John Wick film series and Equilibrium (2002) for inspiration. You might also describe it as a fun mashup between Superhot VR (2017), Beat Saber, and Smash Hit (2015).

Like any good arcade game, cognitive load is high in Pistol Whip. You’re tasked with returning fire and dodging incoming bullets from scores of enemies—approaching the sort of flow state you achieve in a bullet hell game, except you’re using your whole upper body to physically flow to the beat. Its bass-heavy music goes particularly well with the punchy tones of your gunshots.

The more you fire on-beat, the more points you get, forcing you to not only shoot accurately, but to feel the music and really immerse yourself in the cool, stylized world. The song library is still a little on the low side, but it doesn’t stop the game’s replayability from being both extremely high and ultimately super satisfying.


Blood & Truth

Developer: PlayStation London Studio

Available On: PlayStation (PSVR)

Release Date: March 28th, 2019

PlayStation London Studio heard loud and clear from players of PlayStation VR Worlds (2016), the studio’s PSVR launch title, that VR needed more of the narrative-driven action teased by the ‘London Heist’ mini-game. And in Blood & Truth, the studio delivered, full stop.

Blood & Truth is the fully fleshed out vision that ‘London Heist’ deserved. Set in the midst of two warring crime families, the game takes players on an action-packed journey with strong gun and shooting mechanics, richly detailed environments, and action set pieces made to make you feel like you’re the star of your own action movie. With a smart approach to locomotion (which lets players focus on the fun) and thoughtful details (like the ability to twirl pistols around your finger for extra flair) the game manages to hit a consistently satisfying note throughout.

We also really enjoyed the scene where the player sneaks into a modern art museum, which London Studio used as a genius way to pepper the game with some rather unique VR moments that otherwise would have lacked context.

Blood & Truth is an impressively crafted experience that is not only expertly designed around the limitations of the aging PSVR, but even manages to raise the technical bar for character rendering and performances on any VR platform even against much more powerful PC hardware.

SEE ALSO
‘Blood & Truth’ Behind-the-Scenes – Insights & Artwork from Sony's London Studio

Star Wars: Vader Immortal – Episode I

Developer: ILMxLab

Available On: Oculus (Quest, Rift)

Release Date: May 21, 2019

Note: VR games which were available on other VR platforms in previous years were not considered for our Quest Game of the Year award.

From the earliest days of VR you can people talking about how cool it would be to wield a lightsaber. And as VR matured over the years that talk slowly moved toward wanting a full-blown VR game in the Star War universe. There were teases… oh there were teases. ILMxLab itself put out the 10 minute Trials on Tatooine back in 2016, but it only made one thing clear: this wasn’t enough.

That project, along with other pioneering VR work by ILMxLab, like Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The VOID, finally culminated in Star Wars: Vader Immortal – Episode I, the first of a three-part narrative adventure on Oculus Quest.

Not only is Vader Immortal – Episode I (and the two following episodes) likely the most successful fusion to date of consumer VR and one of the worlds biggest media franchises, it’s also a stunning proof that you don’t need high-end computing power for an engaging and immersive experience.

For players taking their first steps into VR with Quest, Vader Immortal – Episode I is an ideal opening act that strikes a great balance between narrative and gameplay. Though this singular episode doesn’t run very long, it takes players on a thoughtfully crafted journey that sells the feeling of actually being part of the Star Wars story.

And for the more hardcore gamers that can’t quite get enough Vader Immortal – Episode I‘s ‘lightsaber dojo’ offers up wave-based combat which is challenging and engaging enough to easily triple the time spend in the campaign portion of the game. And as the first part of a trilogy, Episode II Episode III are already available for players to continue the story.


Design Awards


Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted

Developer: Steel Wool Studios

Available On: Steam (Vive, Rift, Index, Windows VR), Oculus (Rift), PlayStation (PSVR)

Release Date: May 28th, 2019

Five Nights at Freddy’s took the Internet by storm back in 2014 with its memorable jump scares and bizarre re-imagining of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant/arcade attraction. Now, Steel Wool Studios has rebuilt the game from the ground-up as a Freddy Fazbear-brand VR experience, which includes a number of minigames in addition to the good ol’ classic task of evading the deadly animatronics from your curiously unsafe control room.

Object interaction is well designed in Five Nights at Freddy’s VR, which helps ground you in the world, and it’s really well polished on the graphical side as well. One big part of what makes FNAF VR great though is sound design, as you’re forced to not only look at the CRT monitors to see where each of the monstrous creations could be lurking, but you also have to listen for them clanking around. Ambient noises such as spinning fans and flickering lights really crank up the fear factor as you frantically pick apart what’s an important sound and what’s simply background filler. The lack of sound is even worse, as any FNAF fan can attest to.

Taking a big screaming Freddy to your face when you eventually fail to correctly manage resources is about 100 times scarier in VR; you simply can’t look away. You’d be forgiven if you’d rather watch someone else play from the comfort of your couch and a security blanket than actually dive in head-first based on how immersive and scary Five Nights at Freddy’s VR truly is.


Stormland

Developer: Insomniac Games

Available On: Oculus (Rift)

Release Date: November 14th, 2019

Stormland, like most great VR games, is very much designed around its locomotion. While all too many VR games have players slowly (and boorishly) walking from A to B, Stormland makes moving around part of the game’s core fun.

This is achieved first with an expansive world. The game is set in a world where floating islands jet out of a sea of clouds. The disparate islands are a marvel to look at as the sun strikes them just right, and knowing that they are real places that you can actually travel to makes them that much more alluring.

Second, Stormland makes its movement between important gameplay spaces fun by making it interesting and different from the typical locomotion. When you set foot onto the cloud sea, you immediately kick into speedy slipstream which has you jetting around at high speeds. While we’d normally expect this kind of quick movement in VR could make players dizzy, developer Insomniac Games realized that trying fast locomotion to broad body movements goes a long way to helping players remain comfortable. And so when you slipstream along the clouds, you keep your arms pointed outward in a superman pose and steer based on the direction they face.

Third, Stormland mixes and mashes locomotion schemes to give players freedom. Slipstreaming gets you from island to island quickly, but what do you do when you get there and find that the precipice is hundreds of feet overhead? Nearly everything in the game can be climbed with a laser that projects to nearby objects from the palm of your hands, and you can even grab a wall and ‘fling’ yourself for some extremely quick cliff scaling. And once you’re up there, you can glide naturally through the air to land on unsuspecting opponents or even cruise toward your next island destination.

With these gesture-driven locomotion schemes working together effectively, Stormland gives players a thrilling freedom of movement that’s unsurpassed in other titles. We hope (and expect) to see future VR titles borrow heavily from the foundation of excellent locomotion that Insomniac built into the game.

SEE ALSO
‘Stormland’ Behind-the-scenes – Insights & Artwork from Insomniac Games

No Man’s Sky (VR mode)

Developer: Hello Games

Available OnSteam (Vive, Rift, Windows VR), PlayStation (PSVR)

Release Date: August 14th, 2019 (VR mode)

PC-to-VR ports aren’t “perfect” for a number of reasons. It can come down to the limitations of aging game engines, a misunderstanding of what makes VR great, or the basic lack of time investment to fully realize a true VR version. Here, No Many’s Sky bucks the trend by presenting a fun and fully-playable VR mode, which thankfully came to all users this summer for free as a part of the base game on PC or PlayStation 4.

The VR mode is basically exactly what you’d imagine from No Man’s Sky in VR; blasting off into space is magical, exploring planets is awe inspiring, riding around in exovehicles is really awesome. It also looks great too, as the rich and vibrant universe demands even more inspection from the immersive viewpoint of a VR headset. That’s not to say we didn’t have our gripes with No Man’s Sky’s VR mode, as it largely ports over the same 2D inventory scheme as in the flatscreen version, and suffers from some clunk around the edges, the latter of which seems to have gotten better over the course of the last few updates.

But what really attracts us to No Man’s Sky is the utter vastness of the universe. The game is rife with opportunities to become a pirate, trader, fighter, bounty hunter, farmer—so much so that every quality-of-life update seems to tip the balance in favor of staying in the VR headset as opposed to just firing the game up on a flatscreen—the true mark of a great VR adaptation.


Until You Fall

Developer: Schell Games

Available On: Oculus (Rift), Steam (Index, Vive, Rift)

Release Date: August 27th, 2019 (Early Access)

Until You Fall might seem like an odd choice for an Excellence in UI accolade, but the game succeeds here by knowing what to avoid in the game as much as what to add to it.

This rogue-lite melee combat game does a lot well, but in the interface department it makes several especially smart choices. For one, Schell Games was smart enough to realize that—in a game where players would not be using weapons other than their own—the ability to drop your weapons would merely add useless clunk to the game. Instead, weapons are summoned into players hands whenever they squeeze the grip buttons. This not only serves as a supremely efficient version of a ‘holster’, but it also feels really bad-ass to manifest your blades in the palm of your hand just before diving head first into a fight.

What’s more, when players aren’t holding their weapons, their hands become useful for other critical game tasks. Turning your palm upright reveals a menu of stats which speaks specifically to the weapon assigned to that hand. The menu floats above your hand, making it easy to optimally position, and disappears when you don’t need it any longer.

The game has also pioneered a very satisfying ‘crushing’ interaction which serves as a very engaging way to make important choices and selections. At the end of each room you get to pick between three different power-ups. When you decide which one you want, you reach out and grab it and continue to squeeze your grab trigger until you crush the power-up and consume its energy. With the addition of haptics and sound effects, it feels great every time, so it’s no wonder that we also see this same interaction used back in the forge for selecting and upgrading weapons.

And then there’s the game’s block and attack indicators. When enemies are attacking you you’ll see blue 2D block indicators appear showing you where to place your sword to block the attack. Although these can look and feel ‘arcadey’, their function outweighs any visual concerns; knowing when to block and where is part of the way that Until You Fall manages to set a deliberate and satisfying combat pace. Equally ‘arcadey’ but important and satisfying are the attack indicators. Once you break through the opponents shield you’ll get the opportunity to start a combo. In a combo you can dish out tremendous damage, but only if you strike along the indicated line in quick succession. Here too, great haptic and audio feedback make this feel awesome and satisfying.


Boneworks

Developer: Stress Level Zero

Available On: Steam (Index, Vive, Rift, WMR)

Release Date: December 10th, 2019

Boneworks is a prime example of how independent developers who have the freedom to take risks can make huge contributions to their field. With two VR titles previously already under their belt, Stress Level Zero set out to make a no-compromise physically simulated VR experience.

By making nearly everything in the game physical and interactive, Boneworks delivers on player’s expectations of agency in a way that often goes far beyond its contemporaries. In the game, just about every object, enemy, and weapon is physically interactive, leading to moments where novel ideas—like, say, using a coffee mug as a melee weapon—actually work.

While the heavy emphasis on physics can be frustrating and wonky at times, it’s hard not to feel a sense of added embodiment when your ideas about what’s possible in the game world are satisfied in a realistic fashion. Things as simple as being able to push enemies away from you with the barrel of your gun—or as morbid as stabbing through multiple enemies simultaneously with a claymore—show a glimpse of the rich interactivity that is the ultimate goal of VR.

For its part, Boneworks is a flag in the ground which represents perhaps the most interactive physics sandbox seen in VR to date, and a proof point that glimpses the immersive benefits which come from more realistic virtual interactions.


Wolves in the Walls

Developer: Fable Studio

Available On: Oculus (Rift)

Release Date: May 17th, 2019

Wolves in the Walls started out in life as an Oculus Story Studios project, although Facebook shuttered its first-party VR studio before the experience could be finished. It would have been a real shame if this highly immersive and well-realized retelling of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s eponymous children’s book wasn’t completed as a result. Thankfully, some ex-Story Studio veterans created Fable Studio and picked up the mantle to finish what Oculus had started.

Releasing its final chapter in November, the end result culminated in an intriguing and engaging story that centers around eight year-old Lucy, whose wild imagination has her convinced that wolves live in the walls of her home.

One of the biggest takeaways from Wolves in the Walls was how much digital humans can provide a sort of emotional immersion that will no doubt play a fundamental role in the VR games and stories of tomorrow. As cartoony as she was, it feels like Fable Studio really made it impossible to disappoint little Lucy. You’re her only friend and ally, and it’s too cold-hearted a prospect to break that trust, even just to see what happens if you don’t pay attention to her when she reaches out for assurance. In so doing, Wolves in the Walls shows off Pixar-level character design, which comes part and parcel with a rich color palette, cohesive set design, and a depth of animation expertise—all of which makes you genuinely feel like you’ve jumped into the pages of the book.

Fable Studio based their VR experience on a solid source material, but drawing you into that story would have been fruitless if you couldn’t connect with Lucy on some level. Here, she’s a real enough person to make you care about where the story ultimately goes, leaving you with a solid moment of self-reflection on your own ‘wolves in the walls’ once the credits roll.


Note: Games eligible for Road to VR‘s Game of the Year Award must be available to the public on or before December 13th, 2019 to allow for ample deliberation. Games must also natively support the target platform as to ensure full operability.

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  • JesuSaveSouls

    That to me is a unbiased selection. Boneworks is probably the best and you can’t forget nostos.

    • doutatsu

      You can and should forget Nostos. Its VR implementation has been a huge disappointment and a huge train wreck. A quick look at steam reviews tells the whole story. While 2D mode is alright, VR is a huge pass. It has potential and perhaps it will get better, but not in another year or more

    • D-_-RAiL

      Boneworks does a lot of cool things with physics but as far as Game of the Year Asgards Wrath is one of the best games to come out this year on any platform.

    • Virtual Reality Gamer

      Nostos was by far the worse VR game of 2019.

  • Alextended
  • jasonmartino

    Wolves in the Walls and Until You Fall blew me away!

  • Ad

    Boneworks and Pistol Whip should be switched. Pistol Whip isn’t that good and everyone I showed it to didn’t get why it was considered a rhythm game on the same level as Beat Saber. Either way Boneworks was fundamentally ground breaking in so many ways.

    • DanDei

      I don’t get the praise for Pistol Whip either. I refunded it close to the 2 hour mark. I didn’t like much of the music which I know is more a matter of personal taste. But even my most disliked tracks of the original 10 Beat Saber maps offered enough fun gameplay to return and get better. Pistol Whip’s replay value eludes me. The levels all look way too similar, there is little variation where, how and which enemies show up. After the fourth map and my first go with the game I already felt exhausted. Not physically but rather bored with it.

      • Ad

        There are a lot of holes. Enemies in front of you should be ones you physically hit, but most of them shoot bullets at you which is awkward to avoid and defeats the purpose, dodging bullets isn’t on a schedule because you can shoot enemies before they shoot you, the music absolutely is too similar whereas beat saber custom maps manage to capture almost any genre, crouching in Pistol Whip is basically cheating as it breaks the flow and dodges most bullets, enemies with armor don’t feel like they fit the beat, the guns’ sights feel inadequate yet they’re supposed to work for deadeye, and on and on.

        • Sven Viking

          You message here possibly answers my questions above.

          Enemies with armour can’t fail to fit the beat because it’s the player’s shots that are supposed to fit the beat, not enemies (though enemy spawn timing attempts to make it easier for you). If you’re shooting the enemies on the beat before they shoot you, that’s great, it just means you’re playing well. If you’re shooting them as soon as you see them, that’s fine too (the game can be played as an easy rail shooter rather than a rhythm game if preferred), but you’ll earn low points for the shot.

          Bullets are supposed to be dodged my moving your head. Moving your head downwards is just as valid as moving it sideways, and a good squats-based workout after playing for a while.

          One thing Pistol Whip does do a bad job of, in my opinion, is explaining how scoring works and how it’s intended to be played. The scoring system is explained here:
          https://bsaber.com/pistol-whip-scoring-guide/

          And the end result should be something similar to these:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sIUHht9CrI
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z4GGc1zYXg

          • Ad

            Playing the game as a rail shooter defeats the purpose and makes it a far worse game than any of these lists suggest.

          • Sven Viking

            Yeah, so play it as a rhythm game as intended and go for high scores. The power is in your hands.

    • dogtato

      I honestly think pistol whip is more groundbreaking. It’s a clever game design, not at all obvious.

      Boneworks is a shooter with a lot of physics. It’s cool on paper that i can pick up every chair and clipboard, and climb, and hit enemies with a brick. In practice it’s kind of unfun to deal with a physics engine for every little thing. A lot of the game is spent awkwardly moving things around. Also it can make someone who never gets motion sick (me) start to sweat and feel queasy.

      • Ad

        PW is a rhythm wave shooter that they themselves say is entirely based on John Wick. That’s not that clever or original.

        Boneworks’ biggest issues come from the limitations of current VR. But it still manages to break through them and they found creative solutions to a lot of these things that previously were thought to not be possible. Also everyone acknowledges that Boneworks will leave a huge legacy while it’s not certain that Pistol Whip even has a future with modding being up in the air and Beat Saber pitting out 360 levels.

        • NooYawker

          What is in boneworks that previously were thought not to be possible?

          • Ad

            The entire physics and interactions scheme? The entire foundation of the game with a full campaign on top of it? What in Pistol Whip wasn’t thought to be possible?

          • NooYawker

            Physics is in many games, the physics in Boneworks is incredibly overrated AND it’s janky as hell. The physics is not realistic at all.

          • Ad

            Other games feel less janky because they just rip out whatever they like. That’s not better physics. And I don’t see how there’s a game with more realistic physics.

          • NooYawker

            The physics is not anymore realistic than say job or vacation simulator. And the climbing mechanics is terrible. I have Boneworks and I’ve played it so your delusions aren’t going to sway me.

        • tiberius99

          “Pistol Whip isn’t clever or original, because it is based on John Wick”… that’s like saying that GTA 3 wasn’t clever or
          original, just because Sam Houser cited Heat & Sopranos as an
          inspiration.

          And people have been drinking the cool-aid, if they think that Boneworks is groundbreaking & that it will leave a huge legacy.

          I do wonder how large your library of VR games is…

          • Ad

            I have a lot of VR games, but I just don’t see any way that Pistol Whip beats Boneworks.

    • Immersive Computing

      Pistol Whip shows Cloudhead games mastery of VR development. It seems simple on the surface, but as you get into it there’s a lot more going on. It also gives me one of strongest feeling of presence with its physicality, flow and awesome music.

      On the Index at 144hz with a single controller is a hell of an experience. The new “High Priestess” level shows there is more to come yet with a very different style especially the “pistol Whip” sections.

      Definitely my “Game of the year”

      • Ad

        I played pistol whip on my index at 144 but honestly the novelty wore off after the first session. The music, the script that breaks right away if you shoot an enemy before they’re supposed to shoot you, breaking the game by crouching, I didn’t find it that compelling or the rhythm very strong.

        • Sven Viking

          Normally when you shoot an enemy before they shoot you, they… die. Is there some bug that occurs in special circumstances?

          Similarly, normally crouching means the enemies shoot at your head in the same way they shoot at your head when standing. What type of crouching is necessary to break the game?

          • Ad

            The bullets enemies fire are part of the rhythm of the game, so shooting them early throws it off, and dodging bullets is the better rhythm mechanic.

          • Sven Viking

            If you like dodging bullets you don’t need to shoot the enemies, but shooting enemies and not being hit by bullets is the only scoring mechanism. If going for high scores, shooting enemies on the beat but before they fire is just efficient play.

          • Sven Viking

            (Killing enemies with the beat and not being hit by bullets, rather.) My point is just that there’s no reward for dodging bullets, and you’re not intended to let all the enemies fire unless you’re bad at shooting or just like dodging bullets. There are many cases where the only way to stop enemies firing would be by failing to keep shots to the beat and getting penalised for it, though.

    • NooYawker

      This bullshit about Boneworks being groundbraking, or revolutionary or how so many
      people are saying it’s the most amazing physics in any game EVER needs to stop. Seriously. It makes
      me think this might be the very first VR game you’ve ever played. I mean has anyone played any climbing games or shooting games before?? Boneworks is a unpolished entertaining puzzle game with some shooting. That’s it.

      • Ad

        What games are you playing? I play Pavlov, Onward, the Climb, H3, what are you talking about?

        • NooYawker

          The climbing mechanics is exponentially better in climby as is the gun mechanics in Pavlov.

          • Ad

            Pavlov has okay gunplay, I prefer Onward. And Climbey likely does, but neither games combines so many elements so well and is this physical or real.

  • aasdfa

    [boneworks] “While the heavy emphasis on physics can be frustrating and wonky at times, it’s hard not to feel a sense of added embodiment when your ideas about what’s possible in the game world are satisfied in a realistic fashion. ”

    -sums up my experience very well!! well put

    • Indeed! It’s great to see what you intend to have happen physically happen, even when it’s a pain and doesn’t always work the way you intended.

  • ShiftyInc

    Would not call the devs of Bonework indies, since they are owned by Valve and are working on the Half Life game.

    • kuhpunkt

      What the fuck are you talking about? They aren’t owned by Valve and they aren’t working on HL.

    • Popin

      Care to share where you got your inside information that Stress Level Zero is owned by Valve, and that they are working on Half-Life: Alyx?

      I think you might be drawing some invalid conclusions.

    • Hivemind9000

      You’re confusing them with Campo Santo – the team that made Firewatch.

    • NooYawker

      Stop listening to VNN, that guy is completely full of shit.

  • Best and most on point ‘best of’ list I’ve seen so far… except for Vader Immortal. What a huge on-rails disappointment. Quest winner should have been Red Matter for the amazing port from Rift

  • nejihiashi88

    no excellence in multiplayer ?

  • I agree with everything, even if some awards seem invented just to give a prize to a game, like “excellence in indie development”… what does it mean? :D

    BTW, you haven’t given a prize to the best game for the Vive Focus Plus, and the award should go to our HitMotion: Reloaded :D

  • alboradasa

    So how come there are only four games in your entire archive with a lower review score than Boneworks?

    • benz145

      What?

      • alboradasa

        So how come there are only four games in your entire archive with a lower review score than Boneworks?

        • benz145

          There are many more than four games in our review archives with a score lower than Boneworks. Even if this was the case, what’s your point?

          • alboradasa

            My point is that giving a score to a game quantifies its worth in relation to other games. I just took the time to go through the archive in full – I counted 9 games with a score lower than 3 stars. In an archive of over 100 reviews. Which implies that Boneworks is one of the worst VR games you’ve reviewed, within the bottom 10%. Yet you reward it as one of the games of the year. That makes no sense to me.

  • Ace of Spades

    Guys, a question.

    I have Oculus S almost from day one, still in a box [waiting to do some room refurnishing before i install it]

    Do you know if most games have Sit Down option? Basically I want to play VR games on my ass, I have fun just using my hands and my head, i dont want to stand up.

    • Bob Smith

      Any game that lets you move around with the controllers–and almost all do–should theoretically be playable in a seated position. Possible complications would be height-related–if your seated position is supposed to represent your standing height, then any objects you need to pick up off the ground in the VR environment might be underneath your actual floor and thus unreachable–or you could be simply too short in the game world to reach things above you. There are plenty of VR games–mostly on the Rift–designed for seated play, and any cockpit style game of course is fine, but VR is primarily designed for standing.

    • Mirality

      If you look at the tags on any game it will tell you whether it’s intended for standing or seated play (or “room scale”, which is standing and moving around in a larger area).

      Every game I own I play seated, mostly because my room isn’t large enough to get the chair out of the way. There are a few games that I’d like to play but are standing or room-scale only, but most support seated play just fine.

      Many games will automatically figure out if you’re seated or standing (while most others have a menu option to let you tell it) and adjust accordingly. It’s pretty rare nowadays to need to do things like fudge the floor height setting, which used to be needed for some games so that objects didn’t get placed below your real floor level.

      • Ace of Spades

        Thanks, I also have space issues, but mostly i just dont find standing or jumping or whatever as having fun, i want to enjoy a game and that means relaxing on my chair

        • Mirality

          There’s a few games (like Beat Saber) that are designed to be played in short bursts as a kind of workout that is also fun. Those sorts of games tend to be standing games.

          (Though even Beat Saber has options to disable the things that are difficult to do when seated, so you can still play it like that, though it’s not really the intended experience.)

          • Ace of Spades

            I dont play that kind of games like beat saber, superhot all that not for me.
            I got VR for AAA big experiences, i want to enjoy some virtual world, to play games with story and see interesting things.
            The new half life will be fun, also i made a list of AAA games that came out in 2019 and before and that will come in future.
            Lone Echo, Arktika.1, Red Matter, Asgard’s Wrath, Stormland maybe even No Mans Sky, some space games [I already got them on steam, dont remember all names], some horror games.

            I never played MMO games, not my cup of tea, but if someone makes AAA VR MMO with insane realistic graphics, dark fantasy, something like that can be fun.
            Or maybe Dark Souls in VR, i can only hope.

          • Mirality

            You sound like me. :) I never bought Beat Saber for much the same reasons. Of your list, I’ve played and enjoyed Lone Echo, Asgard’s Wrath, and No Man’s Sky. They’re all good for different reasons.

            LE is a 8-10 hour single-player campaign with excellent locomotion (and a sequel coming out this year, that I’m looking forward to).
            AW is a ~40 hour RPG with great visuals and a fun story. I wasn’t personally that into the combat mechanics but it’s all parry/counterattack stuff and you can dial it up or down to match your mood, which I regard as a good thing. :)
            NMS is open-ended, so it’s good to play when you have nothing else to do. It’s hard to beat just flying around a bit, either just doing some exploring or shooting pirates if you’re in the mood.

            AW is currently my favourite VR game, although LE held that spot until then.

          • Ace of Spades

            What about Skyrim and Fallout4 VR [with mods of course] I also got them day one.
            Then I got Doom VR and I just got Cyberpilot on sale [I heard these games dont have native Oculus support but they work, Zenimax hates Facebook]

            I haven’t played a single PC VR game but already have 83 on Steam, 10 are not games, but free interactive movies, so about 70ish proper games.
            Before that i used PSVR on PS4PRo, it was amazing on one side, real RGB OLED looks good but low resolution and the gamepad that tracks with camera suck for sure.

          • Mirality

            I have SkyrimVR. It’s decent (with mods of course) but it’s still mostly the same old Skyrim, just with a bit more “being there”. If you’ve played a lot of flat Skyrim then the novelty might wear out quickly. If you haven’t, it’ll probably last a lot longer.

            SkyrimVR controls aren’t particularly great either (mostly since you have a lot less buttons than on a controller or keyboard). Although if you get one of the voice recognition mods going, that can add quite a lot of utility — both for immersive casting shouts and to quickly equip spells and weapons without going through the menus, or to open some of the menus you don’t have mapped to a button. Or you can probably give up and use a regular controller instead of motion controls, but I never tried that. (One of the voice mods lets you speak dialogue lines as well, which is amazing.)

            I haven’t played the others. I dislike the idea of having to buy the VR versions of games I already own the flat versions of, when there’s not all that much difference between them.

          • Ardra Diva

            interestingly enough, Skyrim VR was the first VR thing I ever tried (and I’ve tried many) that made me nauseous. Very disappointing.

    • Eric Langecker

      star trek bridge crew, elite dangerous, pokerstars vr, dirt rally 2.0, x rebirth & the talos principle are my go to games when i play seated. also, technically not “games”, mission iss, google earth vr and universe sanbox are a great experience

      • Ace of Spades

        Thanks for the lost, I have most of them, but isnt star trek is multi user game or can be played solo? I also own Elite and Dirt Rally 2.0

        I heard that the new walking dead is both great [got very positive reviews] and by default is seated game with crouch button

  • Luke

    some great choices, but i had to comment on Pistol Whip as I had high hopes for it… it doesn’t have a good rhythm mechanic (you dont have to time anything) or decent gunplay (auto aim and bland weapons). Most disappointingly it doesnt seem to benefit from combining these two aspects. i was really looking forward to it but its the disappointment of the year with Nostos and Espire

  • AtariBaby

    New to VR. It’s interesting that now in summer 2020, the only games I really hear talked about from this list are boneworks and to a lesser degree, until you fall, and to a much lesser degree, Vader immortal. Why is that?