Road to VR's Scores

  • Games
For 154 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 11% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 Half-Life: Alyx
Lowest review score: 30 Gnomes & Goblins
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 83 out of 154
  2. Negative: 9 out of 154
159 game reviews
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A superb game; the promising result of tasking a group of clearly talented game designers and developers with building a game around a brand new medium like VR. The game expertly executes every idea it brings to the table. There's charm throughout, derived from excellent animation, art direction, FX and SFX, right down to the interactive credits sequence.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Torn is a single player adventure game that’s inspired by arguably the greatest sci-fi television of all time, The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. There’s much to like about Torn, but in the end it left me feeling, well, a bit torn.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    With strong gunplay, randomized objective locations, and unlocks to chase, Firewall Zero Hour has a distinct allure for those looking for FPS immersion.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Electronauts' greatest achievement is perhaps its ability to translate untrained musical creativity into something that sounds good while maintaining the feeling of really crafting something of your own. The experience overcomes a familiar musical barrier—the fear of playing something that sounds bad—which all too often keeps people from connecting with music from the creator's perspective. Fans of EDM will find Electronauts to be a totally unique way to experience and interact with music while expressing their inner groove, and those with more musical talent will find a surprisingly capable set of tools for mixing and performing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Marvel Powers United VR's high production value can't keep secret the game's true identity: unabashed wave shooting mechanics, bland enemies, and arcade gameplay that's more about points than fun or skill. If you were hoping that Powers United would make you feel like your favorite superhero, you'll be disappointed that the game offers no story, character development/progression, or meaningful exploration of the rich Marvel universe, and instead hinges around collecting outfits, poses, and props.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Budget Cuts is one of the smartest VR games to come out in recent memory, using a unique teleportation-portal system to let you stealthily zip around the sprawling, robot-filled office space like a knife-wielding Nightcrawler. There's so much to like about Budget Cuts, from it's humorous take on workplace automation to its adrenaline-filled action. It's safe to say Budget Cuts has lived up to its name in this full-length VR stealth game.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Downward Spiral: Horus Station presents a visually rich world in this shooter-meets-adventure game hybrid, but crucially fumbles both story and gunplay elements to a very middling overall effect. While gunplay is optional, I hasten to think that based on storytelling alone, that Downward Spiral just doesn't have the guts to be anything but a very beautiful, but unfortunately boring exercise in opening doors, pushing buttons, and retrieving keycards.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Red Matter showcases impressive worldbuilding, a knack for high degree of polish, and an engaging enough story to make this a single sitting game worth at very least three hours of your time. Puzzles aren't terribly difficult, but usually come to a satisfying enough resolution, and always feel necessary to the overall narrative. While the game's commander, a voice over guide, can grated on my nerves, it's an easy defect to ignore in the face of an overall excellent sci-fi thriller adventure.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Sacralith: The Archer's Tale marries expert-level visual polish with a clever and engaging bow shooting extravaganza to make what is clearly approaching AAA territory. The narrative, and characters within it, are also high on visual polish, and thanks to motion capture, are decidedly 'human enough' to be convincing. The level of difficulty is extremely high, making for multiple hours of bow shooting throughout the game's singular campaign.
    • 93 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Beat Saber is stylish, fun and hits all the right notes for a VR-native rhythm game. In its Early Access state, it’s missing out on some variability when it comes to songs and visuals, but lays the foundation for a game that has the potential to charm a pretty wide audience. Gameplay is intuitive, but also difficult to master, making it a title worth revisiting, and passing around to anyone regardless of age or gaming background.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is a veritable Saturday-morning cartoon, replete with wacky characters and some pretty groan-worthy humor. Impressive animations and game environments are a big plus, although characters can straddle the uncanny valley at moments. The point-and-click style node teleportation works fairly well, but at the ultimate cost to immersion. In all, there's a strong family-friendly Nickelodeon vibe throughout the game, which can make it feel a little too juvenile for most of the tax-paying public.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skyrim VR has successfully made its way to PC after squeezing onto PSVR, now boosting the pixels where it counts and leaving it an extremely stable experience. While flatscreen-to-VR ports tend to have the deck stacked against them, Skyrim VR for PC shows that you can bring an older, more mature game to VR and have great results. Besides some obvious holdbacks and design tropes from an early era in gaming, its vast and rich world, great voice acting and depth of play mostly make up for its shortcomings.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bravo Team is a cover-based shooting gallery wrapped in a paper thin narrative. You can only kill so many faceless baddies before things become dull, and the game's limited number of weapons do little to mix up the monotony. It's nice to have another cooperative option on PSVR (and with PSVR Aim support to boot), but with the game's diminutive length and minimal allure of replayability, it'll be a one and done playthrough for many.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Moss is the beautiful opening to a promising tale of an adorable mouse and her silent helper. It's an artfully crafted game that you will want more of—more content, more story, and more depth. Moss feels like an opening chapter that's trying too hard to be a self contained story. It got the ball rolling but fumbled when it came to bring all the pieces together. If Polyarc can follow through with their (apparent) plans for timely episodic installments to the world of Moss, and continue building on this foundation, this could be the start of a world you'll look forward to losing yourself in any time there's a new story to be told.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Brass Tactics shows its makers' RTS pedigree in this visually stunning and well-balanced table top game, but fails to deliver on the promise of an engaging story mode. Skirmishes, multiplayer, both solo and co-op, help make up for this, but it's still a sore spot that VR players are expecting when looking for immersion over their flatscreen RTS cousins.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sprint Vector may have borrowed some well-established kart racing tropes from the Mario Kart franchise, but that's where the comparison with other games stops. Using a unique locomotion system, Survios shows a masterful understanding of what it takes to make a fast-paced, but comfortable racing experience, one that will have you flying higher and running faster than you've ever gone before.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fallout 4 VR definitely has it flaws as a VR title, some of which simply couldn't be addressed without completely overhauling the game. The overall effect is clear though: it works, and that might just be enough given the depth of the post-apocalyptic backdrop.
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    For under $10, it’s hard not to take a chance on some WW2 deathmatch action. As it is now though, Front Defense: Heroes needs some serious TLC to become a trusted VR shooter that people will come back to. The core premise of the game is valid—essentially Day of Defeat in VR—but whether Fantahorn is able to put in the hours to make this rusty wheel eventually spin before its true consumer release… well … we’re hoping for the best.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When the best thing you can say about a VR game is that it makes you want to play its non-VR inspiration, an opportunity has been missed. There are definitely glimpses of the game it could have been, but too few to salvage the experience. Add a point if a substantial patch materialises to address some of the issues.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Skyrim VR challenges the notion that games not made for VR can't be effectively ported. It isn't perfect by any means, but the game brings a level of world depth and vastness of content that's unmatched anywhere else in VR to date, bringing a certain type of immersion that other VR titles lack. Heavy reliance on menus and sub-par visual fidelity hurt immersion and in-the-moment gameplay, but the game is propped up by the shear quantity of details, things to do, places to discover, and ways to play. If you can put up with Skyrim VR's port-y feeling, you've got a huge world to explore and a ton to do. In some ways, Skyrim VR offers strong hope for the future of VR—when a game of this scale is eventually built for the ground up for VR, it's going to knock your socks off.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    From Other Suns might be too brutal for the casual weekender going solo, but its ability to provide online multiplayer significantly changes the amount of fun you'll have. While not as immersive and detailed as we'd hoped, the game presents a fairly solid shooting experience and hectic ship resource management to pump up the adrenaline. However you play, you'll need to be determined to bang your head against the wall until you beat it though, because you can sink hours into it with only a few measly achievements to your name.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Gallery -Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone is a longer, stonger and more immersive experience than the first in the series, and shows that Cloudhead has put in the hours producing a visually and emotionally adept story that feels like it hasn't outworn its welcome. Puzzles are innovative, and while they aren't particularly difficult, they always reward you with something worth pursuing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Arktika.1 falters somewhat with a thin story line that doesn't match up with the grandiosity of the game's impressive visuals. Shooting is a natural and genuinely fun experience and level design is immersive, although enemy types and puzzles can start to feel repetitive at times.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    With its mixture of incredible highs and frustrating lows, I tentatively recommend Project CARS 2. Its physics engine has taken a massive step forward, and should win back many enthusiasts. But as a result, the game sits more firmly in the ‘sim’ category, and might feel less approachable for fans of the original (or those coming from series like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo). If you can look past the unproven multiplayer and troublesome AI—which should improve over time—Project CARS 2 is a seriously capable title with a promising future.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    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.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    If you look past the game’s traditional canned responses, what remains is another person looking at you, and talking to you sweetly and affectionately; sitting on your lap and whispering in your ear. I personally found that last bit pretty off-putting, but again, I’m obviously not the target demographic here. The developers say their most important goal is to ultimately provide a sense of comfort to the user at the end of the day. Whether that’s right or wrong for whatever reason isn’t within the scope of this review, so we’ll just leave it at that.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Until Dawn: Rush of Blood starts out swell, slowly teaching you the gameplay mechanics while staying within the creepy haunted house ride theme. But as the game progresses the flaws really begin to show. Between the lack of interesting enemies and the basic shooting gameplay it’s just not that entertaining and falls flat. I found that fighting my way through seven levels was more of a chore than a fun gaming experience. For $20 there are better games out there. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is game you can probably live without playing. [Tested with PlayStation VR]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Loading Human wants you to create a bond with the characters of the world, but forces you to do it in a way that comes off as ham-handed and involuntary. Both writing and voice acting are better than average, and the world is almost always beautifully rendered, but this is dampened by inconsistent locomotion and cumbersome object interaction. [Tested with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive]
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eagle Flight brings the unbridled joy of flying to VR. With its sense of speed, stern challenge, and unparalleled levels of control and comfort it’s only the fact that it plays so safely within its own sandbox that stops it getting a perfect score. [Tested with Oculus Rift]
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Batman: Arkham VR plays like a long demo with highly detailed and immersive environments and fun (if one-dimensional) gameplay. For Rocksteady’s first attempt at a VR game, Arkham VR is a solid foundation for what we hope will be future episodic installments. What the game lacks in mobility and action it makes up for in storytelling and satisfying object interaction. Overall Arkham VR is a taste of the potential virtual reality can offer the series, but leaves us wanting more varied gameplay. [Tested with PSVR]
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    AliceVR blurs the lines between fantasy and reality with a certain amount of competence in its loose sci-fi adaptation of the classic tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but pushes too hard to put you into a world where up is down and down is up. Bodily discomfort is a serious concern once you go down this rabbit hole. [Tested with Oculus Rift]
    • 84 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Thumper is a fun and visually aggressive, face paced rhythm survival game. As a space scarab you’ll enjoy banking and weaving your way through hours of increasingly intense levels. It doesn't make use of any mechanics that are unique to VR and plays identically on the screen as it does on the headset, however the novelty of being in VR enables a more focused experience and heightens the game's purposeful intensity. [Tested with PlayStation VR]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zen Studios have achieved a very natural VR pinball experience. While it might not do enough to convince purists, for many it is already a compelling alternative to owning a real table. There is still nothing quite like playing a real arcade machine, but Pinball FX2 VR offers a healthy taste of the real thing. [Tested with HTC Vive]
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Superhot VR is built upon a one-of-a-kind bullet-time mechanic that translates phenomenally well to VR. After a slow start, you'll find that the game is part action and part puzzle, as you dodge incoming firing in slow motion while finding the most effective way to shatter your enemies. The core gameplay is challenging and enjoyable, though it comes up just short of hitting a masterful climax of game mechanics. The story elements are mostly distractions, and, like many of the best VR experiences, we're left wishing there was more than the 2 or so hours of gameplay available. [Tested with Oculus Touch]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Werewolves Within is a clever and well-balanced VR adaptation of the popular party game 'Mafia'. While fundamentally based on deception, even the best liar can get caught if he/she is unlucky enough. The cartoony atmosphere is both approachable and extremely well polished, although the game makes poor use of natural input controllers. [Tested with HTC Vive]
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A lot of small changes to the VR shooter formula add up to more than the sum of their parts, delivering an enjoyable experience somewhat let down by overly fussy controls and a lack of variety. You'll forget all the sleepy towns along the way but you’ll remember the protagonist, you’ll remember Fred and you’ll remember the ending. [Tested with Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's not perfect, and it's clear Unearthed Inc: The Lost Temple isn't as clever or polished as other critically acclaimed VR puzzlers like Obduction (2016) or The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed (2016), but it certainly has its own character and allure that merits further exploration in future installments. Boss battles however are a welcome addition, and help punctuate some of the game's less than enthralling fetch quests. [Tested with HTC Vive, Oculus Rift]
    • 53 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Siegecraft Commander is a tabletop strategy game that may look like a competent VR port of the PC game on first blush, but the game's core launching mechanic proves to be too encumbered and laborious to be truly fun in fast-paced play. Maps and units are well rendered, but an over-reliance on labeling units detracts from the game's immersion, culminating in an experience that just never hits its stride despite its innovative core mechanic. [Tested with HTC Vive, Oculus Touch]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Syren certainly has a few flaws, but this made-for-VR survival-horror game is a competent stab at the genre, and proves to be terrifying as it is exciting. An engrossing story, and a flair for the dramatic makes Syren a worthy addition to any horror junkie's VR collection. [Tested with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift]
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    John Wick Chronicles proves itself to be a fun and extremely svelte-looking entry into the wave shooter genre. If not for its extremely short story mode and a few ham-handed, immersion breaking moments, this would be the sort of AAA title that VR has been waiting for, but in the end is just another short but sweet VR demo.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Robo Recall is one of the most frantic, kinetic, satisfying, and challenging games of bullet ballet available in VR today. It harkens back to headier days of blue skies, tight gameplay loops, and arcade purity. You could argue that it’s a little content light, but you can’t argue with the price, so we turn to the modding community to see where they can take us next. [Tested with Oculus Rift]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    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]
    • 76 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Obduction revives the overall feeling of its predecessors 'Myst' and 'Riven' by recreating the familiar brand of visually stunning environments mixed with cerebral puzzles. [Tested with Oculus Touch, HTC Vive]
    • tbd Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Despite a host of redeeming qualities, including a cohesive art style, beautiful scene work and a no-gravity locomotion scheme that left me feeling completely nausea-free, you can't help but shake the feeling that there should be at least 10 times the amount of gameplay in the single player mode. In the end it feels more like a vertical slice, or a demo. [Tested with HTC Vive, Oculus Touch]
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality perfectly matches the show's hilarity and absurdity, and truly feels like an extended episode of the show. As a clone of Morty, and consequently the lowliest creature in the Smith household, you don't get to go on all of the adventures with Rick, but somehow the tedium inherent to the studio's predecessor 'Job Simulator' all pays off in the most Rick-way possible. [Tested with HTC Vive, Oculus Touch]
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    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]
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Detached is good-looking game that could deliver more of what it does well, but instead bites off much more than it can chew in an effort to fill out functionality. The game primarily suffers from a lackluster single-player mode and a promising but feature-starved 1v1 multiplayer. The biggest barrier of entry is the game's locomotion style which is brutally unforgiving. [Tested with Oculus Touch, HTC Vive]
    • 71 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Farpoint is one of the most complete single-player VR games available today with a high level of polish, compelling combat sandbox with interesting and varied weapons & enemies, and a serviceable story. It's also exciting proof that a more 'traditional' FPS can work in VR. [Tested with PlayStation VR + Aim on PS4 Pro]
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Star Trek: Bridge Crew may offer a steep learning curve to overcome, but if you've got a trusty crew by your side, there's serious fun to be had here for both fans and non-Trekkies alike. Interiors are well-rendered, control panels are easy to use, and action is intense, making it easy to lose yourself in the one of the first truly cooperative space sims in VR that offers a deeply engaging social component, hopefully lasting well into the 23rd century. [Tested with Oculus Touch; HTC Vive]
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    FORM offers a visually stunning mix of epic, dream-like architecture and ever-morphing geometric shapes. Puzzles are intuitive, and while difficulty is on the low to medium side, they always make you feel like you've accomplished something great. In the end, it demonstrates a clear understanding of what makes VR different, and delivers a truly VR-native experience that you'll have a hard time forgetting. [Tested with HTC Vive]
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    People with play areas at least 3 metres square will have the best time but, even then, compared to the standouts in the VR shooter genre the fun is limited. [Tested with HTC Vive]
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Offering a suspenseful story, characters that feel human, and sci-fi backdrop that hits all the right beats, 'Lone Echo' is an impressive entry into the VR adventure genre that begging for multiple series. If the concept of "VR legs" ever existed, you won't need them in this zero-g space adventure that lets you fly with ease for hours at a time.

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