VIDEO GAME: Pistol Whip (2019)

Pistol Whip Year: 2019 Rating: T Time Played: 4+ hours While Beat Saber likely convinced many people to jump into owning a Virtual Reality (VR) headset, it should be noted that it is hardly the only music rhythm game out there. Now, imagine if you mashed the rhythm game portion of Beat Saber with the polygon-person shoot-'em-up action of SUPERHOT. The result is Pistol Whip, a full-body workout with great songs and visceral reactions to being shot (and shooting your enemies). With so much free content released for this game, you'd almost be stupid to not get it—even if you already own Beat Saber. Before some of the later updates, Pistol Whip had the same problem most VR music rhythm games have: boring or repetitive backgrounds. Each song would play, and you'd only focus on the beats you need to hit to progress to the end of the level. However, with the "western" and "sci-fi" updates, there's at least some variety in the scenery as...
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VIDEO GAME: Walkabout Mini Golf (2020)

Walkabout Mini Golf Year: 2020 Rating: E Time Played: 4+ hours It's funny how Virtual Reality (VR) can encapsulate both the most banal things (a la Job Simulator) and the most fantastic (a la Moss) almost in the same breath. The prime example of this fusion is in Walkabout Mini Golf. Most people have played mini golf, but few have done so on a space station or in a haunted castle. Sure, some better real-world courses work hard to bring that sense of fantasy, but rarely for more than a hole or two. In Walkabout Mini Golf, the gameplay feels fantastic. Mini golf in VR like this is fun, even if you have to sit through an entire course worth of holes in a particular theme (like a Pirate Island or Arizona). Sometimes, the physics might feel a little frustrating when trying to get a precise shot; but overall, the golf doesn't feel any worse than the golf mini-game from Wii Sports—which is a compliment....
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VIDEO GAME: Virtual Virtual Reality (2019)

Virtual Virtual RealityYear: 2019Rating: TTime Played: ~3 hours The one qualm I have with many VR games is how many of them fail to include any kind of story into their gameplay. It's mostly, "Here's this thing you can do in an immersive environment," and that's it. The ones that have a story (like Shadow Point or Moss) sometimes don't lean into the VR nearly as much—mostly being games that could be played in first- or third-person without VR. Virtual Virtual Reality, though, is the best of both worlds, combining VR interactions with a great story. Placed somewhere between the meta Accounting+ and interactivity of Job Simulator, Virtual Virtual Reality takes the Portal approach to gradual storytelling. There are a lot of parallels that are hard to miss here. At its core, this game's story revolves around a cheery yet malevolent AI who tries to get the player to perform odd jobs for a variety of requestors. However, when you peel back...
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VIDEO GAME: Accounting+ (2017)

Accounting+ Year: 2017 Rating: M Time Played: ~2 hours A lot of VR games lean into the gimmick by providing an immersive and interactive experience. Sometimes, this experience is through stereoscopic 3D, which is easily achieved in a VR headset. Other times, these games use the medium to place the user in settings that are not possible in real life. For the most part, though, each VR game sticks to a single concept or setting. Accounting+ is hard to describe because it goes in so many directions, each of which relies on the "meta" nature of virtual reality to work. There isn't a lot of cohesion between the different "levels" of Accounting+, other than interacting with the characters and environment to find the next VR headset to warp into the next world. As a comedic game, it has its funny moments if you can get past some of its more crass humor. Other portions are a bit gruesome as well, depending on how cartoony the...
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VIDEO GAME: Vader Immortal (2019)

Vader Immortal Year: 2019 Rating: T Time Played: ~3 hours One perk of virtual reality is the ability to experience universes different from our own. The ability to interact with the Star Wars universe fulfills the dreams of many who want to feel what it’s like to shoot a blaster or wield a lightsaber. In Vader Immortal, you get to experience exploring Mustafar while also using the Force in a few key moments. While the story is relatively shallow—far too shallow to split into three parts—it’s disappointing that this experience suffers from somewhat janky VR controls. For a Star Wars game, the setting and characters are definitely the selling points of this experience. VR’s immersive nature made me feel like I was really there, even if the environment didn’t always react to my Force powers as consistently as I would have liked. What is most telling about Vader Immortal is that the lightsaber dojo (which is unlocked with only one part of this three-part game) is the most...
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VIDEO GAME: Tetris Effect (2018)

Tetris Effect Year: 2018 Rating: E Time Played: ~10 hours While most virtual reality games attempt to immerse the player in an interactive environment, Tetris Effect is best played sitting completely still. Tetris is Tetris, but Tetris Effect takes this classic formula and adds just enough new mechanics to it for the entire game to feel fresh and engaging. I've played this game both on my PC and on my Oculus Quest, and I have to say that I prefer the Quest version because of how immersive it is. There are no distractions. It's just you and Tetris. Since I recently trained myself on Tetris 99, I still found some levels in Tetris Effect's story mode to be quite difficult. Of course, as a single-player game, Tetris Effect had little to offer past this story mode. That was until they added the "Connected" mode that introduced online multiplayer. The 3-versus-1 mode is some of the most innovative Tetris I've ever played. With the multiplayer aspect...
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VIDEO GAME: Moss (2018)

MossYear: 2018Rating: ETime Played: ~4 hours As gaming advances into an era with an option for virtual reality, I'm glad to see some games embrace this technology in ways to bridge the gap between traditional gaming and VR gaming. For example, it's too easy to merely adapt a first-person shooter like SUPERHOT into the VR space since the platform is basically made for the first-person perspective. But what about platformers? Adventure games? Moss shows how games in these genres can still work in virtual reality while also making the interactivity of the medium part of the gameplay. I have to say there's a bit of a challenge in controlling the player character while also using these controllers to modify the environment. This multitasking takes some time to get used to but ultimately is interesting enough to not be completely frustrating. Sometimes, the next step in a particular room isn't readily apparent, which led me to look up the solution to advance the...
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VIDEO GAME: SUPERHOT VR (2016)

SUPERHOT VRYear: 2016Rating: TTime Played: 2 hours The concept: time moves when you do. The challenge: survive. I had already played a few hours of the regular SUPERHOT game on my PC, but SUPERHOT VR is an experience on a whole other level. Sure, there's not as much of a plot in this version of the game (they are two entirely different games), but it's compensated for by being one of the most immersive experiences I've had on my Oculus Quest. In fact, it's likely one of the titles that caused me to get the Quest at all. What's interesting about this quasi first-person shooter is how it's more like a puzzle game than anything else. When you have to figure out the best way to avoid being "reset" in each scene, you start to think strategically about where you are and what items are nearby to use. Sure, the violence of gunning down humanoid shapes is lessened by them being bright...
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MOVIE: Hardcore Henry (2015)

Hardcore Henry Year: 2015 Rating: R Length: 96 minutes / 1.60 hours When the trailer for this movie came out, I had high hopes for this “conceptual” idea. With the increased popularity and proliferation of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, I could see a film like this doing well in an immersive environment like VR. After all, the whole film is from the first-person Point of View (POV), so anyone wearing the VR headset would feel almost as if they were experiencing the movie from the main character’s perspective. Granted, this film was not created for VR headsets, and after seeing it, I’m kind of glad that it wasn’t. Hopefully, future filmmakers can take the lessons from this film and create better movies that could use the format to its best advantage. Up until now, the only time you’d see something in a first-person POV is in a video game. In fact, most “first-person shooters” (FPS) are “filmed” in this fashion to immerse the player in the...
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