The totality of the game lacks effective pacing as it bounces back and forth from puzzle to combat with little sense of synergy and no apparent climax. For those that are compelled by Boneworks' combat, the Arena and Sandbox modes offer up a great opportunity for extended gameplay, though we would have liked to see an emphasis on user-generated levels so that the community might flesh out concepts that didn't hit their stride in the campaign.

Battlewake serves up a short campaign and buffet of online modes that mostly do their job, although it's hard to say whether the plucky little pirate battler truly lives up to its full potential. The campaign, which should be an important anchor in times of VR multiplayer uncertainty, presents a melange of same-ish enemies and a forgettable story. The game's online modes aren't taking any risks either, although there's no telling how the community will take to Battlewake, which presents some fresh locomotion ideas and a good dose of wow-factor.

Fracked has a lot going for it: satisfying weapon interactions, a great visual style, a unique and very functional cover system, and a handful of side activities like skiing, climbing, and light puzzling to break up the game's pace. When it comes to combat, the game lacks the variety necessary to keep things interesting through the end, petering out early on with just three enemies and two main weapons. The story does its best to drive the action forward, but feels underdeveloped, leaving the player wondering what their motivations are and scratching their head at the perplexing ending.

Borderlands 2 VR technically works in VR but hasn't managed to escape the feeling of being an outright port. There's not much to the game which really feels like it's making good use of VR, and more than a handful of players are likely to find the game uncomfortable without cranking up the comfort settings. By the time you add up all the cons of playing the game in VR—no co-op, no DLC, no VR-specific interactions, poor graphics, gamepad-first design, and necessary immersion-reducing comfort settings—you might start to wonder why you aren't just playing the original Borderlands 2 in PSVR's 'game theater' mode—if not on your TV without the bother of the headset.

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.

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.

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]

Defector serves up some high-octane set pieces that are clearly inspired by the myriad of Mission Impossible films, but is hobbled by a lackluster arcade shooter and toothless interactions with NPCs to boot. Its bog standard action movie narrative is mostly forgettable, but users may forgive many of Defector's cons considering its $20 launch price.

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.

Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot has plenty of style and atmosphere to rely upon, which is probably more thanks to the recent entries in the franchise than work generated specifically for the game. As a title that takes only 1.5 hours to complete though, it struggles to flesh out any of the concepts introduced to the player, and feels less like a complete game and more like the beginning tutorial levels for each vehicle. When dialed in correctly, visuals can be cohesive and even pretty immersive, although it's hard to really care about a world you can only visit for such a fleeting amount of time. It is admittedly priced at $20, however there's basically no replay value once you've beaten it on its hardest mode.

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.

Evasion brands itself as a bullet-hell shooter, but doesn't quite focus in on what makes the genre so appealing. While some of the elements are there, what results is an often ineffectual standard arcade shooter with a measure of random laser-filled chaos to its name. Co-op mode is measurably a better experience than single player, but only just, as player-to-player interactions are limited to infinite heals, making the human element the only pressing reason to stick around.

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.

True to its name, Sniper Elite VR delivers strong sniping mechanics, but the surrounding action doesn't do it justice. With a great VR sniper scope implementation and the franchise's signature x-ray kill cam, delivering those long shots can definitely be satisfying. Unfortunately the homogenous enemies and weapons blur together against a backdrop of unmemorable levels and story. The game's graphical presentation on Quest is surprisingly good, with long draw distances, sharp imagery, and great performance. Sniper Elite VR is also a very comfortable game with a wide range of comfort options, but the teleport mode is painfully slow—to the point that I wouldn't recommend the game if you must play it with teleport.

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]

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.

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]

Twilight Path wants to deliver something grand, but doesn't give itself enough time to set up a world that you can connect with (and therefor care about). Without that, the game is purely reliant on its puzzles for delivering engaging gameplay, but misses a key opportunity to train the player with core concepts that are expanded and challenged as the game progresses. While the player is imbued with special spirit powers, they ultimately don't make you feel very powerful or part of the world.

Bonelab is similar to its predecessor in key ways—both the good and the bad. The game's physics driven world can be refreshingly immersive in the way that almost everything interacts together. But physics sometimes make the game less fun and even frustrating to play, especially when it comes to the game's many climbing segments. While there's lots on offer, including a campaign and several replayable mini-modes, they all suffer from the same core problems which is boring enemies with little variety, poor encounter & puzzle design, and bland weapons. In lieu of having those things provided for you, you'll have to extract your own fun by challenging yourself to execute stylish kills and physics-shenanigans with the game's all-you-can eat slo-mo feature. While the game repeats most of Boneworks key issues, this time around if offers proper modding support which could improve things significantly— that is... if the game's community is willing to spend the time building the toys this sandbox should have had from the start.

Well-refined visuals are impressive in their own right in Hubris, although the core of this shooter is a little too hollow to be truly engaging. Some good decisions make for highlights, like interesting environments and one-off narrative events, although adventuring is stymied by a "helpful" floating drone who just can't seem to read the room.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond proclaims to be a AAA production (and is priced as such) but falls well short of that bar. With simplistic core gameplay, uninteresting & daft enemies, and a lack of polish, the bulk of the game feels like a shooting gallery. The set-piece sequences which are supposed to deliver epic WWII moments are foiled by bad writing, pacing, and lack of player agency. A meaningful portion of the game (roughly 10–20%) largely ignores best practices of VR comfort and won't be comfortable for some players. Competitive players might find some fun in the game's fast-paced and largely competent multiplayer component, and the 'Gallery' mini-documentaries are exceptionally well produced, but a shame that they are locked in with a game that conflicts with their reverent tone.

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]

The Walking Dead Onslaught unfortunately suffers from a bad case of being overstuffed with filler, making you grind through inconsequential missions to move forward in the story. Although there's some fun to be had mowing down zombies and hunting for useful items in the wasteland for a while, after the first few hours it begins to feel like a chore, and not an exploration of the world envisioned in the TV series. This is offset somewhat by the game's excellent character design, weapon variety, and physics-based zombie killing, but it does little to mitigate the hours spent loading up on items that never seems like just recompense for the time spent gathering them.

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Tempestfall brings some good ideas to the table but only executes a few of them well. While the game’s ranged spellcasting is satisfying and fun, most of the focus is put into a shoddy melee system that’s functional at best and frustrating at worst, with enemy design and variety only exacerbating the issue. With inconsistent art direction and asset quality, weak sound design, amatuer-level animations, and poor writing, Tempestfall feels like a clear case of trying to do too much with too little.

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.

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]

Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia guides you through simple one-off puzzles and frontloads an embarrassing amount of exposition and cutscenes that stubbornly put cinematic pretense ahead of user immersion. Ionia talks of big game, but this musical adventure is over before it truly begins, which considering the level of pretense isn't the worse thing about this meandering 45-minute experience.

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.