Aja on 15/6/2025 at 17:14
I played through Metro: Awakening this week, and for the most part I loved it. Reading Steam reviews you'd never know that it's polished and beautiful with great voice acting, a mature, well-written story, probably the best weapon handling I've ever experienced in VR, and a detailed, atmospheric soundscape. I'm kind of flabbergasted that it's sitting at Mixed. Makes me want to grab VR Gamers by the collar and give them a sobering shake. On the one hand, I get it: it's not flatscreen Metro. But by now we should be used to scaled-down VR versions of big titles, and as far as they go, this is at the top, alongside Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Rather than write an essay, I wanted to just point out a few things:
* The weapon handling is, as I said, incredibly good. Closest I would say is maybe Into the Radius, but when I went back to that game, I realized I liked Metro's a bit more. Grabbing clips and pulling slides always works like you expect, with good feedback. You can pull a clip halfway out to check if there's bullets in it, or partially rack a slide to check if a bullet is chambered. It feels so cool. They also nailed the weight, aiming, and sound/haptic feedback.
* Unlike the mainline Metro games (or at least 2033), enemies actually react to being hit (I assume they're using the excellent Arizona Sunshine IK tech here), and it makes shootouts so much more satisfying.
* Stealth works! I even detect hints of Thief in the types of barks enemies have (I swear one of them said "Must've been nothing"). It's not flawless, but you do have a lightgem on your wrist, and you can distract guards not only by throwing bottles but also spent magazines or health vials. I wasn't successful in stealthing my way through the entire game, but I believe it's possible (monster sections aside). The AI is fairly well tuned in that you can definitely hide in the dark but not with impunity.
* Gameplay wise there are a few different types (maybe stop reading if you're super spoiler averse): shootout/stealth sections with humans, monster shootouts, spider encounters, walk-n-talks, and railgun sections. A couple of these do get overused a bit, and by the end of the eight-hour campaign I was ready for it be done. But despite what the Steam reviews say, it's a minor blip on a mostly well-paced game, and the interesting story carries it along in spite of some repetitive mechanics. The human sections were the best; I could play an entire game of just that.
* There's a lot of attention to detail. Your gun glows red if you fire too fast. You can pour out vodka. When you walk into an open space, the sound gets deader, and when you move back to a corridor it becomes echoey. The devs clearly put a lot of effort in.
* I think it's a very nice looking game, with moody, contrasty lighting and well-designed environments. But I do take VR Gamers' point that it doesn't have as much variety as it maybe should. I've come to expect that in smaller-budget VR games, though, and I can't really knock the devs for staying in scope.
So Metro: highly recommended even if you're not a fan of the originals (or maybe especially if? Because I've never cared for them). If Vertigo Games is able to pass some of this knowledge to Maze Theory for their upcoming Thief game, I think it could actually be better than we're all expecting.
Thirith on 15/7/2025 at 07:01
Nice, thanks for the heads-up!
Aja on 8/8/2025 at 20:50
I have a couple more VR games I've been meaning to talk about. VR is a very niche space, devs generally don't sell too many copies, so if I can spread the word of a few good games to my TTLG friends, then I'm doing my part, I guess.
First is
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/2274200/Arken_Age/) Arken Age. It's made by a small Canadian dev, but its polish is outsized compared to its team. You play as some type of alien on a machine-jungle planet (I admit the story lost me), fighting enemy robots with swords and guns. Melee physics are finely tuned, guns feels good, and it looks great. Almost every interaction is VR in some way, like how you pull levers and drop ingots into the forge or fire the heat gun at the plant fruits to make health potions. Maybe the best thing they did is the climbing hooks, activated badassfully by flicking your wrists, that let you scale trees like a fiend. It could use a bit more variety in the environments, but I enjoyed the combat and searching for hidden collectibles, and the final boss is definitely one of the more impressive I've seen in VR.
I also played
Alien: Rogue Incursion. It's a little rougher around the edges, a little janky, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It doesn't have the level design or atmosphere of Alien Isolation, but it sometimes comes close, and the VR interactions, like rewiring panels and using the joystick to access the CRT terminals, were satisfying. I particularly, for some reason, enjoyed tossing my PDA into the little clicky slot to save. Good sound design and haptic feedback makes performing small tasks fun. Compared to Isolation it's much more of an action game, and you can expect a steady stream of aliens at most times, but I thought it was paced fairly well, and unlike Isolation it didn't have an extra five hours tacked on at the end. Also, the story was well written and acted; whod've thought? Boo for the cliffhanger ending, though. The pulse rifle has the (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz0UkvGU2qE) exact same weird sound effect from
Aliens. I'd say get it on sale.
Thirith on 25/9/2025 at 13:48
After Hitman got a pretty iffy VR implementation, they went and iterated on the concept, coming up with what seems to be a much better VR mode for PSVR2 - and they've now ported this onto PC. I'll definitely be wanting to check this out before long.
[video=youtube;iNoocHwugKM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNoocHwugKM[/video]
Renault on 3/10/2025 at 02:21
In case anyone here doesn't check out the Thief forums on a regular basis, they released a new gameplay video:
[video=youtube;hRpMnw70PXk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRpMnw70PXk[/video]
Aja on 31/10/2025 at 03:19
Historians will hopefully one day find this thread useful as a record of everything I saw with a big stupid headset strapped to face. The latest is
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/605830/Organ_Quarter/) Organ Quarter, a lovingly blatant homage to Silent Hill. You explore a grimy apartment complex and later a grimy town, shooting at grimy enemies with never quite enough grimy ammo. Graphics are simple and the interactions are basic but surprisingly unjanky, and it's got a cool map you can mark yourself. The soundtrack is (
https://anadale.bandcamp.com/track/bookofnone) really good. Took me about 7 hours, with a few boss fights and creepy dialogue that was also really good and well-acted. A couple of the puzzles were annoying, but who can't say the same about Silent Hill? And on PSVR2 the blacks were so dark that when I was using the flashlight I couldn't tell where the lenses ended and it felt truly immersive. I say get it when it's on sale.
Renault on 31/10/2025 at 20:10
Yeah, I really like Organ Quarter too, definitely a poor mans Silent Hill, but in a good way. And yes, I really dug the soundtrack too, almost worth the price of admission by itself. I'd love to put some of that into a Thief FM.
@Aja - Do you use your PSVR2 with your PC as well? I know there's an adapter available, but not sure how it all works, or if it works well. Was considering buying one as I've seen some cheap used versions on Ebay.
Svperstar on 1/11/2025 at 05:08
Quote Posted by Renault
@Aja - Do you use your PSVR2 with your PC as well? I know there's an adapter available, but not sure how it all works, or if it works well. Was considering buying one as I've seen some cheap used versions on Ebay.
I'm not Aja but I am PC only and the PSVR2 is my first VR headset and I love it. If you have the horsepower to run games at 120hz the experience is amazing, Alien Isolation grandmother mod for example feels like you are actually wearing a headlamp.
Sadly the Resident Evil 4 VR remake is NOT PC VR but the REframework mod lets you play all the other new RE games in VR with drag and drop install.
Glad I finally took the plunge.
Aja on 2/11/2025 at 03:56
Quote Posted by Renault
Yeah, I really like Organ Quarter too, definitely a poor mans Silent Hill, but in a good way. And yes, I really dug the soundtrack too, almost worth the price of admission by itself. I'd love to put some of that into a Thief FM.
@Aja - Do you use your PSVR2 with your PC as well? I know there's an adapter available, but not sure how it all works, or if it works well. Was considering buying one as I've seen some cheap used versions on Ebay.
No, I only have a Geforce 1060, which isn't compatible with the adapter. Someday I'll get a new gaming PC to play Alyx.
