January 2019 = VR

Holy moley Angelina Jolie in a kimono no obi! I recently finished up Horizon: Zero Dawn, which required me to sprint through a ~5 hour main quest line on Ultra Hard New Game +. It was nice to get the story all at once instead of spacing it out over dozens of machine-hunting and sidequests.

Finishing a AAA title always gives me satisfaction and the most first world problem dilemma: what do I play next? This usually results in a week of avid tv or movie streaming while I mull over what game I'm going to complete next. This time while I do that, I get to spend time with my latest acquisition: PS VR. This system is better than I could have imagined. 

I'm gonna getcha!

Virtual Reality is one of those things where doing something mundane like throwing a tennis ball between your hands provides much more entertainment than the real thing. I usually think about the physics and programming involved to do these everyday things realistically and it sends my mind spinning. Growing up, we saw wireframes and random geometric objects that were usually supposed to convey hacking in 3d or a war simulator. Most recently, in Black Panther, that Vibranium-sand that opened the movie with a legend that turned out to be a real Wakandan invention. Err, I guess that was AR (augmented reality), but it was an interactive digital model, so nyah. Anyway, the real VR product is loads better. It's really hard to convey in words and 2d pictures the thrill of solving puzzles by physically moving your body to get a better vantage point, or dodging attacks or even tilting virtual objects and moving your face closer to see details. The gameplay doesn't need to be complex to be enjoyable in VR if you're like me and are wowed by the tech itself.

CoD: Jackal Assault doesn't even let you
do pilot controls...F MINUS

There are at least 200 PS VR titles of varying quality. I don't do horror, so that cuts out half of the selection, and that leaves puzzle games with almost no art direction. Low polygon count and tech specs don't necessarily mean the game has to look ugly; an art director coordinates that stuff. Then there are the must have VR titles: Astrobot: Rescue Mission, The Playroom and Beat Saber.

The Playroom VR is free to download and comes with a set of multiplayer games and even has a trophy list! In one of the titles, the VR headset player is a monster who is stomping through town (the player headbuts obstacles) while up to 4 controller players run for their lives across the city. The tables turn when they get to a platform and huck items at the monster's face. In another title, the VR player is supposed to aim their flashlight on ghosts to scare them away while whoever's looking at the TV can describe where the ghosts are. And that's another thing: all of the titles I've played have a TV display at the same time the VR person is in the headset, which enables multiplayer and gives observers more to watch than a fool with a glowing face.

Then we get to Astrobot: Rescue Mission, which sets the standard for VR. JapanStudio has created a family-friendly cute Mario alternative. This game plays like any of the 3d Mario games, except with VR enhancements like perspective puzzles and hidden items that will have to constantly looking around. The graphics are solid, the colors are bright, the music is good, and the game is stable. I haven't seen any glitches and the game is incredibly user-friendly. This game has really, REALLY cool boss fights and my wife and I are trying to space out our sessions so that we can savor the experience.

I bought this rig after playing Beat Saber, which is the other killer app for PSVR. In the headset, you are dodging walls and slicing boxes with dual light sabers to cool electronic beats. Anyone watching you will see that you're dancing, and it's quite amazing to see two genres that emerge from the same actions, depending on perspective. It's like a horror movie that's a comedy if narrated from a different character's perspective.


Other than VR, I wrapped up a few smaller developer title and started playing a game that's been missing for 10 years: Onrush. Onrush is the new Burnout. This is a car game that forgoes racing and instead encourages you to destroy other drivers to win. OnRush captures the sense of speed really well, and there is no racing in it: instead, there are objectives like hitting targets to prolong a countdown, keep speed inside a zone while fending off attackers, or knocking opponents into traffic and other wholesome ideas. Onrush was one of the free PS+ games in December 2018, and is fun as hell!