Phantom: Covert Ops should be commended for its innovative core design. The 'tactical kayak' may sound contrived but it really works and brings something very unique to VR. While it feels natural to steer with your paddle and manage your inventory as you glide across the waterways, it's the higher-level gameplay and storytelling that's missing depth and detail. Though it's nice to have the addition of Free Play (where you get to select your own loadout) and Challenges (where you test your mettle in kayaking and shooting), we would have much preferred to see these beats carefully woven into the core gameplay than tacked on as padding. [Tested with Oculus Rift S]

Into the Radius presents a large world that's about as dangerous as it is fascinating. While paying homage to the Soviet sci-fi classics Roadside Picnic and Stalker, the game easily provides 20+ hours of wasteland stalking and enemy encounters in an engrossing and well fleshed-out world. The game's attention to detail and immersive depth is shallowed somewhat by finicky object interaction and less than polished visuals that really should feel as solid as the game's ethos.

Budget Cuts 2 takes the series in a slightly different direction, as it puts more emphasis on straight-forward storytelling and conventional action. That said, it still offers up a nice slice of adrenaline-soaked fun, as you plan your way around instant death, but it may leave you wistful for the first's patently fresh outlook on life.

Larcenauts is a technically well made game with strong art direction, great performance, and a sense of progression with eight characters to unlock, each with different loadouts and customizations. In its launch state the gameplay feels more like a run-and-gun free-for-all than a team-based hero shooter, and it may take a balance pass (or two) to get things closer to the latter. While Larcenauts has the breadth of mechanics that you'd hope to see in a hero shooter, it's missing an immersive hook due to minimal VR-specific interactions. The developer has promised that more immersive interactions will be added down the line, but it's a shame they aren't part of the game from the get-to.

Creating and casting magical spells in VR is an awesome experience that I didn't ever get tired of, but if a sequel is in the works, finer character animation and more locomotion options should be on the docket to turn up the immersion factor.

The Gallery: Call of the Starseed is a first-person adventure that sets up the series, featuring a slow downturn into the truly extraordinary. Despite a few gripes, the game ultimately shines with gorgeous cinematics, realistic voice acting, and competent set design, making for a fun, albeit brief dip into one of the first VR games to feature motion controls. Teleportation and object interaction show its age—something we hope improves in the upcoming sequel.

Wilson's Heart is a visually-stunning adventure offering a host of expertly-crafted immersive environments, complete with realistic characters and competent voice acting. A thin sheen of '40s campiness coats what turns out to be a horrifying and surreal nightmare world. While puzzles are interesting and varied, the game disappointingly suffers from inconsistent object interaction and lack-luster monster battles. [Tested with Oculus Touch]

Drop Dead is an adept Gear VR port for Oculus Touch, and feels more at home on the tethered headset with a gun in your hands instead of the Gear's gaze-shooting gameplay style. The storyline and art direction are self-aware in their cheesiness, and while graphics aren't incredible, the game is good at getting your heart pumping with the thought of swarms of zombies coming at your face. Glaring technical flaws aside, it's a fun shooter that's easy to pick up, but hard to put down. [Reviewed with Oculus Touch]

Espire 1: VR Operative excels in delivering some familiar stealth combat in a new, more immersive package, albeit with a few hiccups along the way. In addition to its superhuman acrobatics, you may find Espire 1 a serviceable Metal Gear-style game, although it is still somewhat rough around the edges due to stupid AI, a standard but forgettable story, and a general lack of haptics and solid world geometry that might otherwise have sent this high-flying stealth combat game yet higher.

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.

Although it's not "Mirror's Edge in VR," STRIDE takes some of the most visible influences from the game and nearly perfects them in VR. Offering a few humble arcade-style modes where the action plays out, the free running shooter serves up high-flying thrills that are importantly comfortable to the user. There's some learning curve to finesse the game's parkour locomotion and arcade shooting, and it's not without issue, but otherwise this Quest port is a good example of modern VR design implemented to make flatscreen-style action fast and accessible to VR users.

Demeo is a very solid tabletop game that hits the mark on balance, difficulty, and polish, but in its quest to offer up a more true-to-life tabletop game experience, it doesn't focus enough on leveraging VR mechanics to bring players more into the action.

Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son may not feature the most engaging gameplay, or technically precise controls, however it delivers a hearty helping of genuine sincerity that definitely sticks with you. Tedium plays a fair part here, which can grate on your nerves, although it's definitely fitting considering the source material.

End Space isn’t the best VR space combat game I’ve played. It lacks the polish of similar games like House of the Dying Sun and doesn’t have multiplayer dogfights like EVE: Valkyrie, but what it lacks in professional touch it more than makes up for with ambition and a strong core design principle. Fans of space combat that are yearning for a single player affair on PSVR (or Gear VR) should definitely check this one out.

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.

At best, the campaign mode is a guided way to learn the game's range of unique mechs before digging into multiplayer, but if you're only here for the campaign then you'll probably be disappointed at its poorly executed story and characters, and the significant pacing issues that come along with them. While the game's campaign elements don't deliver, Vox Machinae creates a totally unique and immersive mech experience that really makes you feel like you're controlling a giant robot.

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.

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.

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.

Ruinsmagus is a definite treat for anime fans, as it serves up a thick slice of art and narrative inspired by some of the greats. The game's battle system is mostly efficacious, although it's hindered by a bad inventory management system. Its penchant to adhering to some flatscreen traditions is also a sore spot that makes it feel mechanical, and about as repetitive as its dungeons.

ROM: Extraction is an interesting new twist on the wave shooter genre with its multiple bouncy exploding orbs and tactical bullet time feature. With only a single environment, single pistol, and no coop multiplayer (coming in 2017), you'll be relegated to competing against the leaderboard for the time being. 'ROM' could use a shine-up with more weapons and greater enemy variety to keep things interesting. [Tested with HTC Vive, Oculus Touch]

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.

Although Star Wars Vader Immortal - Episode III is meant to be an exciting conclusion to the series, with massive robot battles, escapes down cavernous tunnels, and duels to the death, it's hard to feel too excited when these experiences crash head-first into its paint-by-numbers locomotion scheme and general lack of player-to-character interaction, which effectively muffles what should have been a resounding and climactic finish. It still however serves up one of the most visually stunning VR experiences to date, although its flaws ultimately compound in the third episode, making it somewhere between good and great.

With one foot thrust into the present and one foot invariably still stuck in the past design-wise, Vertigo Remastered is not entirely polished to a mirror sheen, but it's a gem worth experiencing just the same. It does an admirable job of serving up a good degree of variety, fun set pieces, and an all around interesting experience that, despite pervasive physics-based bugginess, may be worth your time.

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.

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.

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.

Seeking Dawn is a VR sci-fi shooter with an ambitious list of features on top of its single or multiplayer campaign mission: weapon crafting, base defense, resource management, and survival elements. While all of these are certainly present, some feel shoehorned in for the sake of making a full length game. At its core though, it's a standard sci-fi shooter brought to life in VR, and done so with enough care and attention that would make it a really fun experience if it weren't for the crafting drudgery.