Breathedge is one of those games that does its best to honour past games of the genre whilst also blazing its own path. The ride through space sure is a fun one, though ultimately your mileage through the vacuum of space may vary. You are “Man”, the last known survivor of a galactic wreck. You are tasked with taking your grandfather’s ashes to his out-of-this-world funeral. Once your spaceship crashes you must begin to find supplies to survive and scour space to find a way back home.
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is about as wholesome a game as it gets. You play as young Alba, first taking steps as a toddler alongside her grandparents on a small island. You learn how to control Alba in this flashback sequence. There you learn how to walk, run, and take photos. At the end of each day, all Alba will need to do is shake her head in agreement or disagreement when asked a question. After the short tutorial sequence, you time jump and play as teenage Alba tasked with cleaning up the island. Along with clean-up, it is Alba’s mission to get enough signatures from neighbors to stop the building of a large tourist high rise.
The Climb 2 follows in the same steps, or ledges, of the previous title The Climb. The Climb was a great must-have title for the Quest platform, and The Climb 2 is no slouch either. There isn’t a story in The Climb 2 unless you count your own journey within each level. You climb up mountains, across rope ladders, hanging off skyscrapers, or jump from ledge to ledge, crafting your own story. The Climb 2 is focused on simulating heights and the gameplay mechanic of navigating through each of the five levels and the various paths within each that can vary in length, difficulty.
In Death: Unchained is a procedurally generated game for the Oculus Quest that originated on PCVR in 2018. Focusing on archery with a bow and then later a crossbow, you will work to kill enemies and navigate around various levels taking down hordes of enemies. In Death: Unchained makes you traverse through the world using a teleport mechanic as you shoot arrows at the ground. This allows you to zip towards or away from them while targeting or running away from battles. Traversing the levels can be a bit of a dance in ways as lining up your shots from a distance can be rewarding albeit difficult to accomplish.
Gnomes & Goblins is a passion project from executive producer Jon Favreau. In the game, you are surrounded by characters that resemble Grogu from the Mandalorian. The charm of Gnomes & Goblins can be seen and heard throughout the short run time in this creative cinematic experience. Gnomes & Goblins in VR melds exploration and adventure gameplay mechanics.
VR games oftentimes follow a certain trope like recreating something you can do in real life, throwing you into a zombie apocalypse, or giving you a gun. Lone Echo on Oculus Rift differs in standard VR gameplay and drops you into the body of an android dubbed, Jack, alongside Captain Olivia Rhodes on a mission on a space station near the rings of Saturn. The game starts out with you aiding Captain Rhodes in some basic tasks as you go through tutorial-like stages by teaching you how to use your IO-sensor, welding torch, repulsion traversal jets, and a rocket pack. In the opening act of the game, you will move around the space station accessing control ports and panels, turning dials and levers to complete small puzzle sections.
Vader Immortal Episodes I-III places you in the shoes of a smuggler aboard the Windfall after evading the Hutts with a shipment of spice. While jumping through hyperspace, you’re immediately taken captive by Darth Vader and held in his prison upon Mustafar. The VR experience found in Vader Immortal is similar in scope and scale to the Batman VR experience on PSVR. While going through Vader Immortal’s three episodes you more or less play through a short 90+ minute movie, where you teleport from point A to B while engaging in various puzzles and interactive areas within your ship, the castle above ground, and the lower portions of Mustafar, as you travel deeper within the depths of caverns and mines.
Down the Rabbit Hole is a familiar retelling of Alice in Wonderland’s tale of fantasy and intrigue, though this time in VR where you interact with the world in ‘third person god-mode’. The story starts off moving Alice through a house and searching for a key to open up a hatch in the floorboards. After you fall through the floor and down the rabbit hole, you are quickly greeted by the white rabbit. He tasks you with finding your way through to the party for the red queen and acquiring invitations along the way.
BoxVR brings together the rhythm of music and movement into a fitness gaming package that is one part color coordinated jabs, hooks, uppercuts, and blocks, along with leaning left, right, and squatting down. If you haven’t tried a fitness VR game or think that gaming and fitness shouldn’t be in the same sentence together, then you need to try BoxVR.
I would say that I am a simulation game aficionado of sorts, having played MudRunners before, as well as other games in the genre like Farming Simulator, Construction Simulator and EuroTruck Simulator. For some, the driving simulation style of games just never clicks. For others though, the gameplay is relaxing and enjoyable, despite frequently finding myself careening down a hill or tumbling over an embankment.