Yupitergrad is the game that you get when you get a group of people who really want to make a game with swinging mechanics for VR that captures the feel of what it would be like to be Spider Man, but didn’t want to try and get the rights to using the Spider Man image at all. Instead, they really thought outside the box and invented their own alternate-history vision of a space-faring Soviet cosmonaut program where the way they figured out how to allow people to move around freely in Jupiter’s atmosphere was by attaching devices to both of your arms that turn your hands into suction cups attached to ropes and winches. Also, you have little jet boosters, but they’re only good for small movements in air and for moving around better underwater.

You are sent to Jupiter where there is a station that extracts gasses from the atmosphere and converts it into power. As might be expected, upon arrival, things aren’t working quite the way they’re supposed to be working. The station is in disrepair, nothing seems to be working correctly, and it seems that you are the only one around to do anything about it. What happened to the others? Who knows? They probably died trying to fix the problem, which, you will probably do a few times yourself along the way. I know I did.

The art style of Yupitergrad is very minimalistic, with surfaces being very uniformly colored in an almost cartoonish look. Blue surfaces are ones that your plunger hands are able to suction onto. There are other things that you can interact with using your plunger-guns. Yellow grates, for instance, are things that you can grapple and then pull to open, allowing you access to areas that are otherwise blocked. You can also push buttons with your suction cups.

Movement is done by alternating your arms to swing across the ceiling, attaching both cups at the same time and then pulling quickly to launch yourself very far and very fast. A combination of these two approaches is what you need to use to cross the various obstacles and puzzles that the game presents you with.

Playing in VR was quite fun and very immersive; however it did cause me to have a very strong motion-sickness type reaction that I am not used to experiencing with other VR games. I am not sure if it was just that the swinging motion caught me off guard and if I played more frequently I would get used to it, but that was my initial experience with the game as a word of warning to anyone who is prone to feeling motion-induced illness in VR games.

Aside from feeling a bit queasy, I did really enjoy the way you moved in the game, but got frustrated slightly when my character would clip with the geometry of the world and get stuck, even though I felt like I should be able to pull myself up and over an obstacle. This only happened occasionally, but it was enough to make me feel like it wasn’t as smooth as I hoped it would be.

Finding the rhythm of the swinging and learning how to control the winch of your arm by raising and lowering your arm, or by using the thumbsticks to pull the rope in or let it out to change the length of your swings was a bit of a learning curve, but after a while it began to feel very natural. I particularly enjoyed the double-stick and pull method (if that’s what it’s called…if not, that’s what it’s called now). It gives you a real sense of speed and excitement as you’re just flying through the air and then swinging again with all that momentum.

There is a campaign to the game which has a cool story that has you progressing through the station and fixing problems as you go. There is also an option to go back and replay levels to try and get fastest times with leaderboards and everything.

As far as first person swinging games go, I did enjoy Yupitergrad, particularly because it knows not to take itself seriously. Shooting suction cups at things, for some reason, never gets old. Having recently reviewed Cyber Hook, which is not a VR game (yet), I would say that this does not quite hit the same stride as Cyber Hook with regard to that feeling of speed and freedom, as most of the puzzles are in tunnels and more enclosed spaces than what you get in the other game. But, as I said before this game knows what it is and does that thing really, really well.

I remember when The Blair Witch Project came out in theaters in 1999. I remember the marketing campaign, leading up to the release, treating the movie as if it were a collection of found-videos put together revealing some horrific event that actually happened in the woods. I remember the feeling of unease and terror as the movie progressed, watching as the mystery of the Blair Witch slowly developed.

Something about the way that movie was told, with the “scary thing” never really being explained, really stuck with me. There was this sense of constant dread that permeated the movie. I can say, without a doubt, that the game does a fantastic job of putting that same sense of unrelenting, building terror into a video game. Playing in VR is altogether unnerving. They give you just enough of a life-line to allow you to keep convincing yourself that you’ll be alright, but creeping in the back of your mind, the whole time, is that little voice that keeps telling you that something…something is going to get you. You just don’t know what it will be, or how it will happen, or where it will come from.

Bullet is one of your main lifelines. Bullet is an awesome German Shepherd that accompanies you. It is cool to have a dog companion that you can have scout ahead, fetch things for you, follow the scent of the missing child you’re looking for, or just sit next to you so you can pet him and feel better about your situation. It is cool to have that, but they also make it a necessity, in the game. The character you play as, Ellis, suffers from some pretty serious PTSD and Bullet is one of the only things that keeps him level. If Bullet strays too far away for too long, or you get separated from him, you will begin to have an episode. The world around you will begin to shift and trick you in different ways. There will be sounds from that traumatic incident that, when you start playing, you’re not quite sure exactly what it was. But as you play, you’ll begin to learn more and more about that incident, all while exploring the forest as a member of the local search party trying to find a missing boy.

Blair Witch is an exploration game where you’re constantly on the hunt for clues. The clues you find might be helping you figure out what happened to the missing boy, or they might be clues to a bigger mystery that you begin to uncover as you roam the woods alone (except for Bullet). The game fits well into the established lore of the Blair Witch from the movies, with hints toward some of those past incidents being interwoven into your current situation as well.

Overall, I think that the tone of the game was really well-executed. I was on edge the entire time I played constantly having to remind myself that it was just a game. Being in VR makes that immersion even more intense than if it were being played on a screen. It’s harder to disengage from it if it gets to be too much. One of the only things that detracted from that total immersion, for me, was the fact that the graphics had to be somewhat flattened and simplified in order to maintain the smoother performance needed on the Oculus system. I think that this downgrade in graphics is something that most Oculus users will just understand is part of the package. What the game lacks in visual detail, however, I think it tries to make up for in added immersion. You can pet Bullet or play fetch with him using sticks that you find laying around the woods. The sound effects are spot on, making you feel like the woods go on forever around you, with the constant, eerie sounds of nature happening all around you.

Bullet is your constant companion. Like I said, he’s the thing that keeps you tied to whatever sanity you have left. But, there are times that the AI that governs Bullet goes a little screwy. When I first saw him, he was running in place with his head and shoulders clipped through the back end of a police car. There are times that he will glide or slide along the ground unnaturally, or sprint ahead at an unrealistic speed, or walk “through” you, which is really a strange sensation when you’re in VR. It seems like a small gripe, but like I said, Bullet is often your main focus in the game, so when he acts unnaturally and it draws you out of that sense of being fully immersed in the horror of the world around you, making it feel artificial, it can take away from the overall mood.

Ultimately, I think Blair Witch is a good horror game that seems to be suited really well to the VR environment. I can’t wait for the day that we don’t have to worry about graphical downgrades between versions, though, but right now I think it’s just a reality that VR users are going to have to accept as a tradeoff for the added level of immersion that you get for being able to be “in the game” versus playing it on the screen.

If you want to play a game that puts you in the forest where people have been disappearing for decades, with strange, eerie things happening all around you, or if you’re just a fan of the movies, I would recommend this game.

Rez Infinite was originally released for VR in 2016 on PC and Google Daydream. Originally, Rez was a game created for PlayStation 2 and Sega Dreamcast and released in 2001. Now, it is being released as a launch title for the Oculus Quest 2. I don’t recall ever playing the original Rez back in the day, but playing it on the Oculus I can say that this version has stayed faithful to the original version of the game. Now, it has been long enough since this game was originally created for the style to now be seen as truly “retro”.

The wireframe and simple geometric graphics immediately reminded me of the old arcade classics like the original Star Wars arcade and the gameplay was reminiscent of other rail shooters like Starfox 64. Now, take that gameplay and put it into a VR environment, with the world sliding past you all around and enemies coming at you from every direction. That’s what playing Rez Infinite on the Oculus is like.

One of the things that stands the experience of playing Rez Infinite apart from other rail-shooters is that destroying the enemies happens with the musical rhythm of the games incredibly cool techno soundtrack. So, as you skim along through vastly different and breathtaking 3d environments, you’ll be bopping your head along to the beat of the music as you blow up everything that comes at you, with every explosion and action adding to the depth and layers of the music.

The basic story of the game is that you are a hacker that is trying to blast your way through varying levels of cybersecurity in order to awaken an AI that is being overwhelmed by viruses. It’s pretty simple and minimalistic, and in the end, it doesn’t really matter all that much to the experience.

I enjoyed the visuals and music of the game, but where it fell flat for me was the shooting. Instead of aiming and shooting at enemies, you basically hold the shoot button down and paint your reticle across the enemies on screen. You can simultaneously lock on to up to 8 targets at once. Releasing the shoot button will then fire at all the targets you currently have locked on. Some targets require multiple hits in different areas, but it ends up kind of feeling like you’re just waggling your controller around with the button held down until you lock onto all the things you can.

My gut feeling is that the original gameplay, designed for interaction with a standard controller, was much more challenging than it is with the freedom of moving your hand around as quickly as you want, and that decreased sense of difficulty took something out of the enjoyment of the game for me. It felt like the shooting was lightweight and oversimplified and served as almost more of a distraction than anything from the visuals and audio sensory explosion of the game.

In the end, I can see why a game like this was a breakthrough when it originally released, almost 20 years ago. I can also see why it was an amazing experience for VR when it first released four years ago. However, I think that now, while it is still a solid experience and a fun homage to an earlier style of games imported into a VR environment, I think that it is beginning to feel a bit dated, moving from “breakthrough” to “retro classic” categories. I realize that it has won countless awards in the past, but so did Pac-Man and Pac-Man VR might be fun for some, but it just isn’t what I’m looking for in a VR game.

I have played a lot of survival games. A lot. And one thing that has always felt a little less-than-satisfying is melee combat. But, the first time that you take a rusty shiv and plunge it into the eyeball of an approaching zombie whose arms are flailing and teeth are chomping for you, and then you see that the shiv has gotten stuck in the skull, but the zombie is still coming at you so you have to shove harder against the blade to get it to pierce the skull and actually damage the brain…wow. And then, the knife is stuck inside the now-limp corpse of this bloody zombie, covering your hands and forearms with gore, so you reach out with your free hand and grab the zombie by the hair and push-pull the blade out of the head and toss the corpse aside, only to see three more moaning undead coming for you, knowing that your knife is damaged and probably won’t last through another fight. This is the kind of melee combat that you can expect from The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. It is brutal, terrifying, and gory.

Each kill feels like a challenge. There is a technique to it. I’ve lunged at zombies with my knife only to watch the blade skitter off the side of their head, leaving me exposed to their relentless attack. I’ve seen my knife hit them in the jaw or the neck, not hitting the all-important brain, forcing me to have to remove the weapon from a still-biting zombie, or abandon it entirely, leaving it sticking out of their body as they come at me, hungry for my flesh.

And then, on top of worrying about properly disposing of the ever-increasing hordes of zombies roaming the streets of New Orleans, you also have to worry about your health, your hunger, what time of day it is…and the bells. Oh god, the bells. Once a day, the bells ring in flooded New Orleans. And when that happens, you better hope you’re not wandering the streets. Droves of zombies will come out at that point and will be actively searching for living flesh, namely yours. Getting to safety after the bells ring is a terrifying prospect. Luckily, the bell ringing isn’t something that comes as a surprise. You wear a watch that you can check on your left wrist that is synchronized to the bells and will give you a little warning when it is getting close to that time of day when the bells are going to ring.

Another thing that the game captures really well is the weight of things. You can pick up a knife and swing it as fast as you want, but if you pick up an axe, you’ll find that even when you grip it with two hands, it has a heft behind it. Swinging the larger weapons feels powerful, but also it takes more thought because if you miss, you have to ready it again and that takes a lot more time and energy than with something smaller.

There are also ranged weapons like pistols, shotguns, bow and arrows, and more. Each of the weapons has its own unique characteristics that make them feel fun and different than the others. Shooting a bow, for example, has you placing the arrow on the string, then pulling back, aiming, and firing. The pistols allow you to fire one-handed or with the second hand supporting your aim. The reload mechanics are all really cool too. For example, the semi-auto pistol has you ejecting the magazine and sliding a new one in, followed by racking the slide, while the revolver has you ejecting the spent shells and then placing new bullets in the cylinder one at a time.

The way that you interact with the various inventory items you have is well-done also. You have two pockets, or holsters that you can attach knives, pistols, and other one-handed objects to that are on your thighs. Over your right shoulder is a slot to hang a larger weapon from, either a long rifle, shotgun, or two-handed melee weapon. Over your left shoulder is your backpack. You can just throw things over your shoulder to put things in the bag as you find them, you reach back and grab the bag off your back to go through your inventory and take things out that you might need. The bag also has an extra external slot to be able to carry one additional long item that doesn’t fit in the bag itself. Additionally, you also have a flashlight that is attached to your left chest pocket that you can either have switched on and attached, where it will basically just point straight ahead wherever you’re looking, or you can grab it and shine it around wherever you want. It will also dim and go out over time, but will recharge by shaking it, which is always eerie and fun when you’re in a dark basement with the moaning of zombies all around you. And finally, in your right chest pocket, you have your journal which is where you can track your mission progression, crafting recipes, character notes, and other things to help you keep organized.

Beyond combat, there are other survival elements that the game does a great job of building into the gameplay loop. Your character’s health is something that you have to work really hard to maintain. Through eating food or taking medicine, you will be able to bring your health and stamina back up. But, you have to be careful. Your health bar is more than just a track of hit points. You have a current health meter, but also a maximum health that can be degraded through poor health. I made the mistake of eating a Twinkie that I found on the road and it actually took maximum health away from me. Guess those things really do expire after a while.

As you explore the various parts of New Orleans, you will come across other survivors as well, some of them friendly and some not so much. The ones that are friendly will often have side quests to engage in that each have different rewards based on how you choose to complete them. In true Walking Dead fashion, many of the missions have a difficult choice to make, where it seems that neither option is a good one, but you are forced to make a choice anyway. Moral dilemmas are awesome, aren’t they?

While exploring the world, I did find that there are a few places where the scale of things seemed off. One early example is the blue mansion that you are sent to for one of the first quests to find a microphone for your radio. While exploring this house, I found that the furniture, doors and other things all seemed to be enormously oversized. The doors made me feel like I was a small child. And it wasn’t even that things were too high and I just had my settings off or something, everything was too big. The doorknobs were massive, for example. And this disparity in size really messed with my sense of depth in that space. Reaching out to grab a doorknob to open the door was awkward and I had to try a few times before I was able to actually grab it. I’m not sure if this is a problem that persists everywhere in the game, but I did particularly notice it in that location. While it was a bit off-putting, I still really enjoyed exploring that house and would not say that the scaling issues were enough for me to not enjoy the game.

The main storyline of the game does a really good job of guiding you through the various sections of the game and introducing you to the different mechanics that you’ll need to survive. However, the openness of the design is such that you can easily spend a lot of time just roaming the streets, scavenging for parts, and going back to your base (which is an old bus, by the way) to craft new weapons and other inventory items to continue surviving.

The scavenging and crafting aspects of the game are really engaging as well. There are so many different options and interesting combinations of gear that you can experiment with. You can even harvest zombie guts and cover yourself in them to hide your presence from the zombies instead of fighting them head-on. To craft recipes, you have to bring the random things you find in the world back to your base to recycle them for their component parts. An old shoe will give you bindings, for example, which is a scrap component that you need to craft other things. With these components, you have the ability to craft all the items you need to survive from weapons (melee and ranged) to medicine and food. Some recipes are not available at the start of the game and will need to be unlocked as you progress. In all, there are forty-five different craftable items for you to use.

I went into this game thinking that it would be a very simple zombie-killer game with an assortment of weapons that just focused on the gore-fest of smashing skulls. I was pleasantly surprised to find a rather deep and complex survival game with an interesting story and really engaging mechanics that kept me coming back for more. I highly recommend this game to VR users who are looking for something a little more involved than most of the games that are available right now. The only downside to this game on the Quest is that, from what I’ve seen of gameplay footage from the PC version, the graphics seem to have taken a pretty significant hit in order to perform well enough on the Quest. I will say, however, that even though the graphics are a little flat and cartoonish at times, I did not feel like it detracted from the enjoyment and immersiveness of the game on the whole.