I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy And The Liar

There are few seated VR games that I would recommend more than this, with great acting, a fun script and brain-teasing puzzles. Live the life of a super spy - who never moves from one spot - you’ll either have a blast, or get blasted.

I Expect You To Die 2’s half dozen hours is easily one of the best ways to introduce somebody to VR. It’s funny, well written, nausea free, and incredibly engaging at every turn. Regardless of which VR headset you have, this one needs to be in your library -- it’s a must have.

From a fantastic opening credits scene performed by Puddles Pity Party to its final exciting moments, I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar delivers exactly what fans of the first game have come to expect - a campy spy adventure with increasingly deadly stakes, dramatically elaborate puzzles, and lots of physics objects to pretend to eat or simply throw across the room. For anyone with a fondness for James Bond stories or 1950's noir - and access to a VR headset - The Spy and the Liar is a fantastic choice.

The smart, funny Bond-inspired writing, the meticulous attention to detail, the masterful use of Oculus’s VR controls, and the well-designed missions had me … well, glued to my seat the entire time. It may not change much from the original, but I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar once again delivers a thoroughly-enjoyable VR experience from start to finish.

I Expect You to Die 2 may be more of the same, but it's a good slice of fun, espionage-flavored action that again tasks you with disarming cleverly-designed and deadly puzzles provided by the evil Bond-style Zoraxis corporation. While object interaction isn't the game's strong suit, the sequel offers up a good number of varied levels packed with truly intriguing puzzles, oftentimes containing multiple ways to die that always feel like the joke's on you.

In many regards, I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar is a good continuation of what made the first game special: great level design, a funny spy story, and great pick-up-and-play gameplay. It doesn't do much to evolve in any meaningful way, but it doesn't need to. The great, albeit short, stages are a lot of fun to solve, but they can be frustrating to repeat as you trial-and-error your way through to the final credits. If you loved the first game, this one is sure to please.

Making fantastic use of the VR medium, I Expect You To Die 2 picks up where the original left off, in the most literal sense possible. Sure, it may not be treading any new ground and is somewhat on the brief side, but even when viewing it as an expansion to the original, it still offers a stellar experience for all comers. Rest assured, that mission isn't firing any blanks.

I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar hasn’t come to reinvent the wheel and it didn’t need to, what was required was achieved; an entertaining puzzler that you can’t put down. An extra couple of levels would’ve been nice with the possibility of a handy nudge in the right direction yet they’re only minor quibbles. If you’re looking for a VR puzzler that really pushes the technology then this isn’t it, I Expect You To Die 2 is all about playing to the masses and that’s no bad thing either.

I Expect You To Die 2 is a clever, surprising, and fun escape room-style puzzle game that’s certainly worth exploring. You’ll need to stomach a lot of restarts to see it through to the end, but its best interactive moments and its focus on comfort and ease of access make doing so worth dying over and over again for. Regardless, once I’d unraveled everything there was to see across the three-hour campaign, I was left without much to do except hope that an actual spy came along and flashed my memory, Men In Black-style, so I could play the whole thing again with fresh eyes.