Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow does an admirable job of translating the storied series into VR for the first time. While it does suffer from some stumbling blocks that tarnish an otherwise golden example of VR-native design, the latter half of the game seems to tread water, offering up reused levels and an ending that probably won't work for anyone.

Deadpool VR isn't some cheap knockoff: this is the real deal, thanks to expert voice acting from Neil Patrick Harris and phenomenal script writing to match. While combat can be somewhat repetitive, the level of gameplay variation always keeps you guessing, even if the narrative is on the tropey and mostly dispensable side. Despite it flaws, the merc with a mouth makes any dull spot that much more fun and engaging.

Reach is a fun game with generally great VR fundamentals. But a few odd choices to the game's overall design keep it from reaching its full potential. While the game's running and jumping movement feels great overall, it unfortunately doesn't synergize well with the combat. Combat itself is fun but doesn't evolve enough over the course of the game. And while Reach is mostly comfortable, a few key areas of the game involving rotating puzzles are likely to make a significant number of players feel uneasy or outright uncomfortable.

Star Wars: Beyond Victory - A Mixed Reality Playset has the production value of some of ILM's greatest virtual reality games, but seems to fumble with the reason for why it actually needs mixed reality in the first place. While a two-hour story mode nails the Star Wars feel and packs emotional punch in VR, its limited MR gameplay keeps it from reaching lightspeed.

We were hoping Titan Isles would have evolved the Windlands 2 formula, which expertly balanced exploration via grappling hook-based parkour and immersive shooting mechanics to awesome effect. Instead, the game veers hard into arcade 'bullet hell' territory, which has cheapened some of the magic at the expense of more baddies and bigger bosses. Still, a mature locomotion system places Titan Isles as one of the most competent bullet hell-style shooters out there, although distinctly one that is no more than the sum of its parts.

Zombie Army VR faithfully brings the storied franchise to VR for the first time, serving up enough zombies to shake a Tommy gun at. There are less zombies than you'd think, but good enough variety to keep you on your toes. While the game makes an honest effort at translating the franchise to VR, its pacing in the later levels pushes the boundaries of immersive actions, revealing its flatscreen roots. While zombies are fun to go 'splat', boss battles left a lot on the table, feeling more like same-y summoner types that would let the zombie minions do all the work.

The Midnight Walk is visually distinct and creates effective contrast between a Burtonesque 'grotesque' style and small moments of beauty thanks to strong lighting and composition. It's nice that players are given the option to experience the game's unique world up close and personal in VR. But beyond being a very cool immersive tour of someone's artwork, the basic gameplay doesn't feel particularly native to VR and the poetic narrative didn't resonate with me in a meaningful way. This walk might not be for everyone, but inside the headset is the best way to experience it if you love the style.

Alien: Rogue Incursion is the first VR-native game in the Aliens franchise, blending action-packed combat and exploration with an authentic cinematic atmosphere. While its intense encounters and immersive environments shine, the repetitive alien battles and punishing save system can dampen the overall experience.

Skydance's Behemoth combines satisfying physics-based combat, immersive visuals, and dynamic mechanics to deliver a standout VR action-adventure experience, though its predictable story and occasionally artificial-feeling AI detract slightly from its otherwise polished execution. The game's intense Behemoth battles and well-woven locomotion mechanics combine for an impressive showcase of how a deft hand at VR-native design can elevate even mediocre narratives to monstrous heights.

Wall Town Wonders offers a charming, visually captivating experience as you manage a tiny, bustling town spread across your real-world walls. Gameplay however feels underdeveloped, which limits appeal beyond brief, casual sessions. The concept and visual execution are definite highpoints, although some may struggle to sustain interest in the long term.

Metro Awakening succeeds in capturing the gritty, post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the Metro series in VR, with a focus on scavenging, sneaking, and shooting. The visual presentation was clearly given equal attention in the standalone and tethered versions of the game, without one feeling like it overtly compromised the other. The weapons stand out for their solid interactions, intriguing designs, and overall gunplay. Metro Exodus creates a strong foundation in its early stages, with compelling combat and scavenging mechanics. Unfortunately it falters in the second half with a lackluster story and a lack of gameplay variety. The atmosphere is tense and immersive, even if we're left wanting a bit ono environmental interactivity.

Batman: Arkham Shadow delivers an engaging VR experience that captures the essence of the Arkham series by understanding the core formula and deeply adapting it for VR. The game offers well-executed movement, light puzzles, and innovative VR melee combat. The narrative, though not without impressive voice acting and world-building, suffers from painfully slow pacing and direction, ultimately diminishing immersion. The game turns out to be surprisingly comfortable considering the significant amount of artificial locomotion.

Starship Home brings a fun and quirky mishmash of casual ship management and sci-fi plant gardening, and does it so well in mixed reality that it stands on even playing field with generations of VR games. With modular ship components, Starship Home admirably breaks away from the usual MR gimmick and gives you plenty of reasons to stick around and trek through the universe, happily gardening all the way.

Cyan's remake of iconic late '90s puzzle-adventure RIVEN is better than the point-and-click classic in a lot of ways, although VR support feels a little rough around the edges to be truly native. Still, Riven is such a clever and beautiful game that middling VR support only slightly tarnishes what now feels like a modern entry alongside the studio's most recent titles.

SOUL COVENANT hoped to adapt the series' hallmark melee combat and colossal monsters into a VR-native experience, but its obsessive adherence to repetitive wave-based missions and cumbersome narrative make it feel more like it has two feet firmly planted in the flatscreen era, and not the immersive, first-person anime-inspired game many were hoping for.

Stranger Things VR is basically only for fans of the show who don't mind a four-hour recap of the past two seasons set to some admittedly excellent surrealist art, which deftly nails the nightmarish vibe of the Upside Down. Although there are hints of engaging mechanics at the beginning, none of them come to a satisfying conclusion, positioning Stranger Things VR as more of an extended commercial than a story truly worth telling.

Executing fast and artful kill combos is basically the reason for Bulletstorm to exist in the first place, but sadly the VR version doesn't deliver the same flow state as the original, making it feel more tedious and less fluid overall. Combine that with some very iffy visuals, which feel demonstrably worse in VR than on flatscreen, and you have a game that's not only uglier than the original, but less fun overall.

Arizona Sunshine 2 is a decent zombie romp with all the usual elements, plus your dog friend, Buddy. Though sometimes clunkily animated, having an NPC companion that generally feels helpful and interactive adds a new flavor rarely seen in VR. While weapon handling and feel is above average, the clunkiness of the holster and inventory system is unfortunate considering there are many better examples to draw from. The game's pacing is fairly slow but gets more interesting in the last third. With a pleasing number of interactive items and details, Arizona Sunshine 2 gets a big boost to fun thanks to its cross-platform co-op which lets friends enjoy the zombie apocalypse together.

LEGO Bricktales isn't the complete VR digitalization of the LEGO-building experience we might have hoped for, but it does present well-designed puzzles and plenty of light adventuring opportunities in the game's undeniably charming lego-filled world. Although the kid-friendly story is a bit of a snooze, the star of the show is definitely the lego puzzles where Bricktales makes up for the lack of 1:1 lego tactility with smart brick-building design. Despite being ported from flatscreen, puzzle solving feels suitably native to VR.

Synapse gives players an incredible feeling of telekinetic power that's undeniably cool and fun, and also adapts some of the best mechanics from nDreams' last game, Fracked. But Synapse follows a now familiar pattern for the developer: unique and well-built VR mechanics that are unfortunately paired with middling game design that lacks enemy, weapon, level, and scenario variety. While the game asks players to beat a 'full run' three times to reveal its full narrative, you'll have seen most of what the game has to offer not long after your first completion. As a roguelite, Synapse is missing that compelling feeling that makes you want to try new strategies as you play over and over.

Pixel Ripped 1978 is another love letter to the bygone era of classic gaming as it resurrects a handful of Atari classics under the full auspices of the iconic brand. While its first-person RPG focus is a little underbaked, it's hard to knock such a charming buffet of novelty that pays heartfelt homage to gaming's second console age.

Firmament offers up another substantial slice of patently difficult puzzling that fits right in line with Cyan Worlds' other hit titles, although its VR implementation feels like an afterthought. It's undeniably a good and beautiful game, but less so across the board when played in VR.

The sequel to the beloved Fisherman's Tale puzzle adventure is here, offering up more of everything, including new mechanics that make the basis for a wider selection of iterative puzzles. Set to a backdrop of an emotionally complex story, Another Fisherman's Tale feels like it's struck a better balance between its bigger themes and characteristic storybook narrative style, making it feel like a full-featured film instead of the charming, yet simplistic short we had with the original.

You're not getting the full-fat Resident Evil level of scares or production value, especially at a runtime of less than four hours, although Propagation: Paradise Hotel manages to offer up some terrifying thrills just the same. While I wish the narrative were stronger, and functional bits were more polished, it certainly departs from the namesake's waves hooter roots while setting up a sequel that might just be worth waiting for.

While not as photorealistic or high budget as Valve's Half-Life: Alyx, this VR-native shooter does its best impression of a 'AAA' game. Vertigo 2 isn't just bigger and weirder than the original at around 10 hours of campaign gameplay, but it's also full of so much heart and good humor that you'd swear the core dev team was much more substantial than just a single dude. The wild and lovably convoluted story may not add up, but you probably won't care since it's such a great and undeniably smart game.

There's no denying the underlying game is fantastic, as Not For Broadcast confronts you with moral quandaries as you slowly become a well-oiled cog in a dystopian propaganda machine. While the game's binary button pushing wasn't as VR-native as we would have liked, the base game translates extremely well to VR, feeling decidedly more at home on VR headsets than on flatscreen monitors.

Favorably comparing a VR roguelike to 'In Death' is fairly high praise already, however The Light Brigade seems to do an even better job of enticing you back for more as you make successive attempts at conquering the dark forces that have removed light from the fantasy universe. The game's WWII-era weapons make for welcome and familiar additions while adding a measurable level of realism which manages to aid immersion far beyond what a plainer entry in the genre might. The game's color palette is a bit too muddy, making for not-so-awesome visual contrast, but that's small potatoes when looking at the bigger picture.

Horizon Call of the Mountain takes players on a fun adventure throughout a breathtaking world, showcasing some of the best graphics you'll find anywhere in VR. Beyond the epic vistas, the game's smaller details—like rich foliage, an array of climbing gadgets, and interactive props—make Call of the Mountain a very immersive game. It's a joy to see the sci-fi beasts of the Horizon world up close in VR, and their excellent animations and sound effects make them thoroughly believable. While combat could be a bit more fluid and climbing could have more interesting challenges, as a whole the game offers up a satisfying dose of VR native gameplay. Beyond the great environmental art, Call of the Mountain's characters are also impressively rendered, though unfortunately they're not involved or developed enough to make them memorable.