Virtual Reality Reviews

Arioch

Arioch
[VR] Golgot said:
GE looks fun, but I've got to admit the graphics drop looks like it hurts on Quest, compared to shiny chrome R2D2s & C3POs on PCVR etc. (But I think in part that just my fear of a mobile-VR-dominated marketplace for the next few years :/)
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I’ve had another hour in TftGE and I’m very impressed with what it’s achieved on the Quest. I’ve been going through some proper shootouts with different types of enemies and I’ve got access to all the different weapons now (I think), and the HL:A feel is definitely there, combined with a touch of Borderlands2 VR. The only ointment-fly at the moment is the aiming of guns, I have to aim down quite a bit unfortunately. There’s no proper sights either, but I guess they’re supposed to be a bit clumsy and random 😁

I really hope this gets a PC release with a lick of spit’n’polish like Vader: Immortal received. Hopefully before the expansion mentioned in the Main Menu releases early 2021?
 

Arioch

Arioch
[VR] Golgot said:
I'm still waiting on the Vader set to hit a price drop, then I'm def up for some Star Wars fun...
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In case you haven’t seen, there’s a Black Friday deal for all three episodes for £14.99, which is 37% off the normal price.

Sale ends tomorrow sometime. (Edit: 15 hours from this edit)
 
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Arioch

Arioch
I’ve just finished SW:TftGE this morning, exciting final battle against the baddie boss and then the bonus Jedi Temple story mission - very short but hopefully an indicator of future expansions. Lightsabers and Force powers are always fun, plus I got to talk to Frank Oz 😁
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Review: War Thunder

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aZJPzo209M&feature=youtu.be


Ok, with 24hrs under my belt in WT already somehow, I'm gonna go ahead and review it 😄

I'm really not feeling the bite of the P2W structure at the moment. Yes you do get one-shotted by guys periodically, and can get absolutely dominated by fighters with absurd speed, agility & DPS. The starter tiering gives you a decent soft entry to find your feet though, and I do feel like my freebie-earned vehicles can do their bit in the arcade matches. (And more importantly, are mainly fun to fly while doing it ;). Once you've unlocked an upgrade or two.)

The main selling points for me currently are:

The arcade modes:

These are all almost exclusively fun. I love the main war front objectives, where you normally find yourself doing a bit of everything throughout the match. Bombing runs, fighter interceptions, land strafing, defending objectives. Maybe even taking out a torpedo ship once you've unlocked more specialised stuff.

The 'capture the airfield' variants also invite some decent tactical decisions (including which ships from your roster you might sacrifice to seize an early airstrip), and a ton of low-flying dog-fighting. (With a bit of bonus, desperate airstrip bombing once you start running out of rides ;))

The only round I'm not super fond of is the 'hold the aerial location' one, purely because it plays out in a narrower, dog-fighting-alone, fashion.

The damage model throws some extra variety your way in every round as a rule, with a damaged wing to nurse or a faltering engine. And the ability to low fly through obstacles like trees means you'll see some spectacular plane disintegrations too ;).

Overall, despite the odd fist waved at an uber-fighter slicing me in half with one pass, I'm generally having a blast :)


The locations & environmental touches:

The new cloud tech, sea reflections, glancing sunlight, and varied locales, all really evoke a sense of place beautifully at times. And the maps themselves invite all kinds of ill-advised stunts and escape shenanigans. Great for all of the above online play, but also very chill to just cruise around in using the test flight mode :)

---

At some point I should totally try the single player campaigns. And the tanks and stuff. But I'm still happy as a pig in mud unlocking bizarre British planes of yester-year right now ;)

3.5(+)/5

EDIT: That P2W Bite:

Ok, nowwww I'm feeling it. So it seems that unlocking planes of a higher tier matches you with guys who have at least one plane unlocked to that level. When I accessed the top end Spitfire IIb (with lovely 20mm cannons), I suddenly found myself in a pool of guys who mainly had tricked out planes of that type in their roster...

That was a bit of a shock to the system. TTK is suddenly a lot quicker as all the big guns come to bear, enemies can close on you and gain position with greater ease, bombers can reach heights that you struggle with and lay down much stronger covering fire. It was a much bigger step up than when I moved into the '2.7' plane tier with my mid-range Spitfire etc. I've recalibrated, and settled back into small victories and improving my little fleet. And adopting strategies to fit. (My more lowly bombers are absolute floating ducks, so I at least make sure I tag along with a willing fighter, or vainly try and keep up with the shinier models ahead of me. And pairing up with my squad partner for fighter runs has suddenly become much more appealing!)

So there is a certain fairness to aspects of it, in that strategies are available (and if you do get a pimped out ship in your sights, you can still do similar damage). But the road to parity feels a lot longer now, and I can certainly see why someone might pay to speed some of it up...

EDIT2: That P2W Bite Gouge:

Ok yeah, I just have to lower the score. From tier 3.7 onwards the unlock rate slows pretty dramatically, and the 'lion' credits required to access and update the vehicles get mopped up by ever-increasing costs. The grind quite deliberately ramps up.

Add in the uber-craft for each tier that can only be unlocked via money (you will no them by their many guns and dancey-mobility), and the bonus ways to splash the case (make your pilot more bullet resistant, more aware of threats, more able to maintain performance over time etc)... and as fun as the game is, it finds too many ways to make you pay if you don't... pay ;)
 
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VR Golgot

VR Golgot
So straight after I write that review, I start getting absolutely one-shot-murdered, and games become much less enjoyable. I'm thinking: What is this, reviewers curse or something? 😁

Nope, I'd just gone up to the next difficulty pool, due to unlocking snazzy planes. (The top Spitfire's bonus 20mm cannons are pleasing :)). Once I figured that out and reset my expectations, was back in the swing of it ;)

The biggest change, aside from the higher proportion of rad fighters, is behavioural though. These guys actually intercept bombers as a regular habit. Bombing runs have gone from a lazy high drift towards a target, to a paranoid series of feints, that still mainly end in me falling in bits ;)
 
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Arioch

Arioch
[VR] Golgot said:
The 'not actual gameplay' caveat is mighty lost amongst the glimmer and glamour ;)
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Everything in that trailer was stuff I did in the game, and I think it’s a “captured in-engine, actual gameplay may differ” thing because it’s possible to miss Artoo talking with Threepio if you’re crouched behind a crate taking enemy fire, for example 🙂 I’d like to see how the Quest 2 compares to the original flavour Quest that I played on.

I loved the Jedi section - it’s got me back into playing the lightsaber dojo levels in Vader Immortal.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Arioch said:
Everything in that trailer was stuff I did in the game, and I think it’s a “captured in-engine, actual gameplay may differ” thing because it’s possible to miss Artoo talking with Threepio if you’re crouched behind a crate taking enemy fire, for example 🙂 I’d like to see how the Quest 2 compares to the original flavour Quest that I played on.

I loved the Jedi section - it’s got me back into playing the lightsaber dojo levels in Vader Immortal.
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But was there a scene of that quality? Even as a cut scene? (IE that brief 'You're tenacious' bit that it plays there. Not sure if it goes on the play further adverts after etc).

That snippet makes it look like proper PCVR tier graphics for live action etc is all. Which seems a bit sneaky ;)

It's all cool though. I think Q2 is good step on ultimately, especially with the tethering. (I just wish it could actually do that level of swish rendering with the onboard GPU etc. I'd get one in a flash ;))
 

Arioch

Arioch
[VR] Golgot said:
But was there a scene of that quality? Even as a cut scene? (IE that brief 'You're tenacious' bit that it plays there. Not sure if it goes on the play further adverts after etc).

That snippet makes it look like proper PCVR tier graphics for live action etc is all. Which seems a bit sneaky ;)

It's all cool though. I think Q2 is good step on ultimately, especially with the tethering. (I just wish it could actually do that level of swish rendering with the onboard GPU etc. I'd get one in a flash ;))
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Ah, I was looking at the Galaxy’s Edge trailer on their Twitter, not that “You’re tenacious” snippet. I must’ve pressed a different bit of the embedded link 😁

No, it didn’t have textures of that quality or shadows or particle effects. It does look like it does in the actual game trailer though:
Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AE9J5Vzneoo
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Cairton said:
Has anyone had recent experience of vorpx?
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Still haven't tried it. My understanding is the results are very variable. If the dev himself has set up a template then you get better results, but other than that you're left playing with values and hoping apparently. And ultimately if the game doesn't support VR natively it's always going to perform poorly and lack on the '3Dness'. (And of course the game design itself won't be adapted, so seated vehicle sims fare better than 1st person action games or whatever).

Some people enjoy using it to access large classic games though, either through a large curved screen, or via whatever 3D tinkering they can achieve. NB that you'll generally want to have your 'VR Legs' under you for nausea if playing something non-sim-y though.

(If you want a handy mod which makes a 2D game good though, I can definitely recommend lukeross's mod for GTA V though :))
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
First Look: Vengeful Rites

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Enjoyed the early tutorialising here. Kind of like a Vanishing Realms with more content. Nothing excels exactly, but it covers a lot of beats. The melee is above sword-spammy, but shy of complex, the magic gesture casting is all robust (if amusing/eccentric on the telekenesis). The bow doesn't seem the greatest, but gets the job done. Throw in basic climbing and physical puzzles, and it seems a decent cartoony adventure land. Will level up some more...
 

Cairton

Cairton
[VR] Golgot said:
Still haven't tried it. My understanding is the results are very variable. If the dev himself has set up a template then you get better results, but other than that you're left playing with values and hoping apparently. And ultimately if the game doesn't support VR natively it's always going to perform poorly and lack on the '3Dness'. (And of course the game design itself won't be adapted, so seated vehicle sims fare better than 1st person action games or whatever).

Some people enjoy using it to access large classic games though, either through a large curved screen, or via whatever 3D tinkering they can achieve. NB that you'll generally want to have your 'VR Legs' under you for nausea if playing something non-sim-y though.

(If you want a handy mod which makes a 2D game good though, I can definitely recommend lukeross's mod for GTA V though :))
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I came across one guy yesterday raving about how great cp2077 is using it. But there seems to be quite a range of opinions about it. I'm not too keen on spending £36 on something that may or may not work. It's just a pity that there's no demo and no refunds. That gives me the impression that the developer doesn't have a lot of confidence in his software. I'm sure that it wouldn't be too difficult for him to revoke the licence or give a temporary one.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Cairton said:
I came across one guy yesterday raving about how great cp2077 is using it. But there seems to be quite a range of opinions about it. I'm not too keen on spending £36 on something that may or may not work. It's just a pity that there's no demo and no refunds. That gives me the impression that the developer doesn't have a lot of confidence in his software. I'm sure that it wouldn't be too difficult for him to revoke the licence or give a temporary one.
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Some guys swear by it, but I've seen many other negative reports regarding quality and hassle. I think given you're new to VR you're probably fine leaving it for now while you've got the bigger 'AA' VR titles still to play. Especially if you don't have your VR legs potentially.

It's best to to think of it as a very hacky thing which extends the software you can access, but is much more akin to modding than standard gaming.

If you own GTA V already I'd def recommend the above mod though. It's very painless to use, and I found it a 'quality' way to experience what a modded classic game can be like, and a good place to get my VR Legs (because I was motivated to work through the nausea issues associated with smooth turning & canned animations etc).
 

Arioch

Arioch
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve tried VorpX - there’s been some performance patches since I last tried it - but based on that experience I’d say you’d need a fairly powerful computer and the willingness to spend a lot of time tinkering, and still accept you’ll end up with a less-than optimal VR game.

I’d only recommend it if you don’t mind a bit of jankiness and can afford the price.

I’ll probably give it another go when Odyssey drops to see if it’ll play with the on-foot stuff.
 

VR StarLightPL

VR StarLightPL
Also, Cyberpunk is not so great with VorpX. You're much better off playing it on as high settings as you can in 2d, and then maybe investing in VorpX for subsequent playthroughs. I have VR since 2016 and have always been put off by many reviews talking about amount of tinkering required, and more importantly "fakeness" of the 3d that VorpX creates. That said, there are games that do work well with it supposedly, for example Titanfall 2.

Related vid:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNSVy45mqoE
 

[VR] optimal_909

[VR] optimal_909
[VR] Golgot said:
Still haven't tried it. My understanding is the results are very variable. If the dev himself has set up a template then you get better results, but other than that you're left playing with values and hoping apparently. And ultimately if the game doesn't support VR natively it's always going to perform poorly and lack on the '3Dness'. (And of course the game design itself won't be adapted, so seated vehicle sims fare better than 1st person action games or whatever).

Some people enjoy using it to access large classic games though, either through a large curved screen, or via whatever 3D tinkering they can achieve. NB that you'll generally want to have your 'VR Legs' under you for nausea if playing something non-sim-y though.

(If you want a handy mod which makes a 2D game good though, I can definitely recommend lukeross's mod for GTA V though :))
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I am really toying with the thought of playing through GTAV in VR... :)
 
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