There has never been a time when more virtual reality games and experiments were in development. VR is finally here (if off to a bit of a slow start due to the price of the headsets), and less than a year after the consumer releases of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift there are lot of great games to play. We’ve chosen a selection of our favorites, which we’ll continue to update as we experience more new dimensions throughout 2017.
Thumper
Developer: Drool
Link: Official site
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift
Already a great rhythm hell game in flatspace, Thumper is even more trance-inducing in VR. It’s not very mechanically complicated—tap to the beat and slide around corners, at least at first—but it’s brutal. As James put it, Thumper is “a psychedelic journey through impossible geometry and a crunchy, slippery, overwhelmingly oppressive force.” In VR, it becomes a waking sound nightmare I should want to escape, but don’t. —Tyler Wilde
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Chronos
Developer: Gunfire Games
Link: Official site
Compatibility: Oculus Rift
Chronos is one of the finest examples of an existing genre being imported into VR and gaining an immense boost of immersion in the process. As I wrote in my review: “This is a tried-and-true action RPG in the Zelda vein, with timing-heavy combat and puzzle solving that feel more than a little familiar. But Chronos did something for me that Zelda never could. That no game I’ve ever played on a monitor or TV has ever done for me. Even when I’m utterly absorbed in a game’s world, I don’t feel like I’ve been transported inside my monitor. But that’s what it feels like to play Chronos in VR. I was there, and I didn’t want that experience to end.”
This is a meaty 15 hour adventure, with an interconnected (and often beautiful) world to explore and demanding, timing-based combat to learn. It’s all a bit simplified compared to an RPG like Dark Souls, but the experience of playing in VR makes every minute engaging. Of the Oculus Rift launch lineup, this is the only one I’d call an absolute can’t miss. —Wes Fenlon
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It helps that Elite’s flying model is so impressively detailed. The ships feel weighty and realistic, and how they handle varies between models. Flying a Hauler, a chunky entry level trading ship, is a very different experience to buzzing around in an Eagle fighter or a Cobra. In VR, this distinctiveness is even more pronounced. Make sure you play with headphones, because the sound design really helps sell the illusion: especially the engine sounds.
Elite: Dangerous is something of a pioneer when it comes to making comfortable, convincing virtual reality experiences. Many other games have included native support for VR headsets since its release, but none have surpassed it. It’s a rare example of a game that you’ll actually want to play for long periods of time in VR, rather than just as a novelty. Watch out, though: it’s a game where you spend a lot of time spinning to figure out where you’re going, and coming back to the static, non-rotating real world can have a strange dizzying effect if you’ve been playing for a long time. —Andy Kelly
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Developer: Steel Crate Games
Link: Humble Store
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift
Keep Talking is the most family-friendly bomb disarming sim you can play today. Family friendly because some participants aren’t expected to play the videogame portion of the game at all, required instead to flip through a thick physical bomb disarmament instruction manual (that you need to print off yourself), screaming out directions while a lone player frantically flips and studies a virtual explosive device. The VR component isn’t the most immersive experience out there, but isolating yourself in a room with a complex bomb puzzle goes a long way in developing tension. It’s also a nice way to prevent cheaters from sneaking a peek at the manual themselves. And if you don’t have a VR headset, you can still play with a good old-fashioned monitor. Everybody wins (if they don’t explode). —James Davenport
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Hover Junkers
Developer: Stress Level Zero
Link: Steam page
Compatibility: HTC Vive
Hover Junkers has my favorite solution to VR movement so far. Think of it as a full-body cover shooter, where you’re dodging and ducking behind corrugated metal and hunks of wood, but with mobile cover. With one hand, you steer your floating junker, which glides smoothly over the air in whatever direction you point, while the rest of your body crawls around the deck, popping up to shoot at other players.
Aiming is tricky at first, but you get used to it, and I really love how reloading is an active, cartoony analog to the real thing. With the pistol, for instance, pressing down on the Vive controller’s trackpad pops open the cylinder. Circling the trackpad with your thumb plunks in bullets, and then flicking your wrist snaps it shut. It’s not hard, but when you’re close to a kill and close to death yourself it’s a frantic thing done sat on your carpet, slamming the cylinder shut way harder than you have to in the panicked moment.
The problem with Hover Junkers is that it’s multiplayer-only and there are often few other players online, if any. I still think it’s great, though, so hopefully the population picks up as more people buy Vives this year. —Tyler Wilde
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Job Simulator
Developer: Owlchemy Labs
Link: Official site
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift (with Touch)
As a pack-in with the HTC Vive, Job Simulator is a delightful introduction to the simple pleasure of waving your arms around in VR and interacting with your environment. It’s satisfying to find just how many things are stuffed into its office cubicle or kitchen, and there are often great one-liners or slapstick jokes to reward your experimentation. It’s all over too soon, and won’t be the kind of game you go back to again and again, but it’s definitely one to pull out every time someone’s curious about why VR is so cool. Job Simulator will put a smile on their face. —Wes Fenlon
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Fantastic Contraption
Developer: Northway Games
Link: Steam page
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift (with Touch)
Fantastic Contraption gives you the seemingly simple task of “make this pink blob move to that pink box” and then drops it into VR with you at the center. It’s a machine building puzzle game, but the machines are as big as you are tall. With a pile of sticks, rotating cylinders, and whole heap of creativity, you have to build contraptions that can navigate turns, turns, walls, and a lot more to get that pink blob to where it wants to go.
What’s so impressive about Fantastic Contraption is how intuitive the controls are. It’s easy to assemble your machine because it’s essentially just connecting dots, and modifying objects works exactly how you’d expect. Want this piece to be longer? Stretch it out. Want that wheel to spin the other way? Just turn it around. Don’t need that connector anymore? Throw it over your shoulder and it’s gone. The challenge never comes from the execution of an idea, but coming up with that idea in the first place.
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And wait until you get caught in your first storm. The way the raindrops streak across your side windows as you pick up speed is a tiny little effect, but an effective one. It makes you really feel like you’re in motion. Small things like this can be just as important as the big stuff when it comes to making a VR experience feel convincing. The illusion is even stronger if you play the game with a force feedback steering wheel, though it’s not essential to enjoy the simulation: just a nice optional extra.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 boasts an enormous recreation of Europe, including Britain and Scandinavia, but the majority of it is made up of grey motorways. Still, there is some impressive scenery out there in the game world, which looks extra cool in VR. Norway is the prettiest location of the lot, with picturesque valleys, lakes, and forests to make your drive a more interesting. In a strange way, the fact it’s so grounded in reality makes it somehow more convincing than a game like Elite, because you don’t have to use your imagination as much. You might scoff at the very idea of playing a truck simulator, never mind in VR, but seriously—give this one a chance. —Andy Kelly
The Gallery Episode 1: Call of Starseed
Developer: Cloudhead Games
Link: Steam page
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift
It seemed like a no-brainer that first-person adventure games in the Myst vein would be perfect for VR. Apparently, it was a no-brainer, because Obduction and The Gallery are two of the best VR games. The first episode of The Gallery transports you to a moody island at night, with little clue what’s going on but plenty of atmosphere to pull you in. Walking around in real space to explore corners of the environment, and then picking up objects by reaching out and grabbing them, is… well, it’s almost real.
This kind of VR experience is made or broken by the fidelity of the world and how believable it feels to be there, and some small touches in The Gallery help sell the effect. The lighting, the ability to hold a sheet of paper up to your face and read it, the little environmental touches like roman candles you can pick up and fire off. These are all the things that pulled me into the first hour of The Gallery, and at that point its mystery started to channel into an intriguing story with a sci-fi bent. It’s the first episodic game I’ve played in VR, and likely the first I’ll play through to the end. —Wes Fenlon
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So far, Space Pirate Trainer is the only “just one more” VR game I’ve played. If it took quarters, I’d already have blown a month’s lunch money on it. —Wes Fenlon
Eve: Valkyrie
Developer: CCP
Link: Official site
Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, OSVR
Our review of Eve: Valkyrie touches on what’s great, and what’s not so great, about CCP’s space dogfighter. The spectacle of these battles can be truly awe-inspiring, and it delivers those moments—when you lock missiles on an enemy and fire, then do a banking turn around the hull of a battleship, coming up around it upside-down to put another enemy in your crosshairs—where it feels unlike anything you’ve ever played on a screen. You probably have the churning stomach to prove it.
Those moments unfortunately come alongside a molasses-paced upgrade system for unlocking ship parts and new ship classes, a very light campaign mode, and a UI that does its best to bury information in confusing menus.
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It’s also an opportunity for fans of the movie to explore its locations up close. One mission takes place aboard the derelict ship where the crew of the Nostromo sealed their fates, and it looks incredible. Gazing up at the famous ‘pilot’, you feel like you’re there on set. Even if you can’t stomach sharing a room with the alien, it’s worth trying Isolation in VR just to experience this legendary sci-fi set as an explorable 3D space. Horror games are an obvious choice for VR developers. The tech is perfect for making you feel claustrophobic, which is an important reaction when it comes to making an effective horror game. But it won’t be for everyone, and even people who can deal with scary games will find themselves tested when they’re plugged into an Oculus Rift. The Creative Assembly kept Isolation’s VR mode hidden away, but they should have polished it up and made it a real feature. —Andy Kelly
Source: PC Gamer