Recent reviews by Phoenix_1

A refreshing shooter with very satisfying gunplay and great difficulty curve. There's almost a rhythm game to surviving well on harder difficulties, through tracking enemy animations and knowing timings, dodging when and where you need to while hitting weak spots. Doing well in a full operation on the highest difficulty is more fun than I've had with any other game in the last five years.

The game that taught me what immersion meant. Still an absolute blast to play this day, despite the older graphics.

Like Star Citizen but with releases

Way better than Satisfactory.

This is an amazing game. I was worried about Half-Life having the same feel to it in VR as it does in a traditional setting, but I shouldn't have been. Valve, true to their form, never missed a beat with this one. It's a fully-fledged Half-Life game and it feels like a Half-Life game, both mechanically and emotionally. The story and acting are great, and the gameplay is really enticing. It feels really good to be in the game, and Valve made a lot of creative additions to the gameplay that only VR would support. They really crafted the gameplay around the VR medium, rather than trying to force existing mechanics into that world. Numerous levels are as memorable as Ravenholm and it was really exciting to play from start to finish. When I completed the game I was really sad that there wasn't any more, but I think I'll probably just go play it again.

I recommend playing this on hard difficulty, if nothing else but to make the initial experience last longer. The higher difficulty also forces you to play more creatively, as ammo may be scarce. I really enjoyed all the opportunities, intended or otherwise, to use the world around me as a weapon and/or cover. Using random world props and the physics to achieve your goals to conserve ammo is just plain fun.

My only complaint about this game, which is fairly minor, is that you can't drop your weapon by simply opening your hand (using the Index controllers). I understand that doing so may make it easy to lose your weapon, but I'd like to have the option anyway. Too often I found myself naturally dropping it during a firefight (to then pick up a grenade or other item to hurl at the enemy), only to find that it was still there (and I had to use the specified controls to switch to an open palm instead). This broke the immersion somewhat for me.

Overall, this is a must-buy for anyone with a VR headset - and probably a reason to buy a headset if you don't have one, if you've got the funds.

GORN is essentially a gladiator simulator with the art and physics of Looney Tunes. Playing at higher difficulties can really get you sweating after short play periods. It's great for getting out aggression after a long hard day. The devs keep on adding features too, which is greatly appreciated. Wolverine claws are disgustingly satisfying.

The only downside to this game is that it does get a bit repetitive over time, and you can't help but exploit the predictable movements of the enemies after a while. That said, it's well worth the money and equally enjoyable to watch someone else play.

Tips:
1) This is a great party game, but I'd recommend not bothering with the party mode. This mode lets your guests play on controllers to go up against the person wearing the headset. While this concept is really good, the execution is pretty bad. The controls for the other players are just garbage. Maybe they'll fix that in a later update.

2) Have your more oblivious guests stand in the middle of your playspace and instruct them how to use their arms for locomotion, rather than their actual legs. I also put a pillow between their feet so they can be reminded not to move too much. This helps people not lunge straight at your TV or other people.

This is a great party game, but not something I'd play single player. For best results, get you and three good friends to play it with controllers. I say good friends because the game is a lot more fun if you're comfortable enough to ridicule and make fun of each other. It can lead to a lot of great laughs :)

The game itself is easy to learn and hard to master - you really have to plan things out and work together if you want to receive full points on later levels. The control scheme is simple and it's mostly about coordination and optimization. If you can parallelize tasks well, you'll do great.

Disclaimer: I received this game for free.

I played through the first world and a little bit of the second on my first run-through.

I recommend this platformer because of its unique yet forgiving control scheme. It has a fun dynamic gravity feel and the controls are somehow immediately intuitive even though the camera is always doing weird things.

It's not a particularly hard platformer but it does have some hurdles that will make you feel accomplished. I really dislike the platformers that seem to be nothing more than trial and error as you slowly uncover the exact button press sequence the developers had in mind. This isn't like that. There's an open world feel in the levels and enough margin of error in dodiging and such that you don't feel like you have to be 100% perfect to progress.

Overall I would say this is fun yet casual platformer based in a unique world. I'd certainly recommend at a sale price ($1-2), and would recommend it at full price ($5) if you were really into the genre.

Playing this game feels like playing paintball in real life - except you don't have to pay for time, guns, CO2, or ammo. It's highly addicting and team games can be quite fun. The fast-paced nature of the gunfights gets your adrenaline going. Games are usually 5 - 15 minutes long, which makes it an ideal game for short bursts of fun (or hours, if you'd like).

Hover Junkers is currently the best use of roomscale VR. Your hovercraft is the size of your play area, which you can walk around on (or rather, duck, jump, and run on) and then you can drive your craft to remote areas of the map. This means there's no need for a teleportation mechanic and thus the immersion is the fullest I've seen so far in a roomscale game.

Overall I feel like this is the best multiplayer experience on the Vive so far. There are some downsides, however:
-graphics can feel a bit glitchy at times. The aiming is fine, but sometimes models don't get removed when they should be or their physics break.
-there's a shooting range for practicing with guns, but not one for driving the hovercraft and upgrading your ship (which would be a great help for me when I'm trying to show off the game to newcomers)
-sometimes multiplayer can feel like a complete crapshoot, especially in FFA matches. They're just reall chaotic. Some new gamemodes that focus on strategy and teamplay would be nice.

Kudos for being the first lightsaber-esque VR game out, and for being relatively cheap. If this game were made for non-VR it'd probably be sold for 50 cents or less - I consider the additional $3.50 to be a VR-dev tip (which they greatly need, given that the number of VR owners is so insanely low compared to the rest of the market).

Anyway, with that in mind, I'm going to review this game as if it were 50 cents.

Pros:
The blades have a great Star Wars feel to them
The game is a fun thing to entertain a guest or yourself for a few minutes of down time

Cons:
Not enough content to make you play this game longer than 20 minutes or so.
Beatable in less than 10 minutes
Blade glow is far too bright
Way too easy (if the dev shrinks the hitboxes on the blades and increases the speed and frequency of lasers, this could be fixed)

Overall:
This game is short and easy, but also fun and relaxing. It's worth 50 cents, plus $3.50 VR tip. My main hope is that the developer makes it harder, which would keep me coming back for more.

Note: I beat the whole thing in less than 10 minutes. You probably will too. There isn't much content and it's extremely easy. I recommend playing only on legendary mode and leaving one of your sabers off. That makes it a bit harder, but it's still so easy I doubt many people will have trouble getting 100% deflections.