Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s The Next Generation DLC is pretty special. The attention to detail afforded to the Enterprise-D is mind-blowing, the overhaul to Engineering (now Ops) is much-needed, and the expansion of Ongoing Voyages missions and new enemies add variety to an experience that can otherwise grow stale over time. However, it doesn’t do enough to really shake up or improve the core experience enough to elevate the game as a whole. It’s basically more of the same with slight alterations.

Salmon Man is a worthwhile use of your time if you’re in the market for this sort of game. It’s somewhat ironic to say this as a games reviewer, but more than most titles, you can tell at a glance whether this is for you. Did you enjoy Getting Over It? Can you handle a turbulent VR experience? Do you want to combine those ideas? This is for you. If not, perhaps it’s ok to give this game a miss. If you do give it a go though, there’s a good degree of value and fun to be had here.

Overall Conductor is a good example of the simple thrills that come from VR escape room games. If you find yourself easily frustrated by puzzle games then this is a great example of how to set the right amount of challenge without feeling too easy, and it builds an intriguing world in the process.

The whole experience is both haunting and fascinating, and a very worthwhile one as well. Also, you’ve got to love a short game when there are so many vying for entire months of our lives. Westworld: Awakening is an excellent story wrapped in a solid VR experience that is a good reminder of just what can be done with the amazing immersion that the tech offers us. It’s a very good game, and a must-play for fans of the show. Hell, even if you don’t know the show, it’s a worthwhile thriller that shouldn’t be ignored.

Tabletop Gods is a quirky little strategy game that offers a lot of fun for those who are happy to take a more relaxed approach to the genre. The variety of units, spells, and factions helps to make your army feel unique, and the fast pace of each match is a welcome change to the hour-long slogs that can often occur. Players who want a deep and fulfilling experience are unlikely to enjoy the game, but for everyone else it offers a fun way to play at being god.

Ashen Arrows delivers a welcome blend of roguelike mechanics that adds replay value often missing from many VR shooters, offering a fresh and pleasing visual style with some great voice acting. If it could just ramp up the storyline and add in extra minigames, it could very well become a game I’d regularly come back to. It isn’t that Ashen Arrows feels incomplete, more that it needs a few extra bits to round it out and turn an enjoyable experience into a truly amazing one.

Starblood Arena isn’t a profound expression of the power of VR, but it’s hard not to appreciate a rock solid shooter that will provide hours of multiplayer battles for those willing to put the time in. Ultimately it’s a little too niche to become the definitive multiplayer PSVR game, and the struggles to get into matches aren’t going to please people that threw down $39.99 to play it. But if you’ve got the patience the game will regularly ask of you, you won’t come away disappointed.

GNOG is the video game equivalent of synesthesia. The bright colors are incredible, the simple, but disgustingly clever, puzzles are perfectly designed, and the experience inside the headset is wonderfully presented. However, it’s just such a bizarre and simple game, without anything new to really help it stand out. That it isn’t for everyone. But if you love gorgeous, modern art-style puzzle experiences that challenge your mind, then GNOG could be just your kind of weird.

Squishies may not be some profound realization of what puzzle games can be in VR, but it’s never anything less than entertaining even if that does often dip into frustration. Struggles with the controls aside, it’s a polished and thoughtfully-made experience with plenty of content and a charming world to explore. As far as ticking the boxes goes, it does so quite admirably.

Korix delivers intense real-time action with an intuitive way to control the chaos. Multiplayer is a real blast as you can see each other’s floating avatar mask to really make it feel like you’re occupying the same space together. The new player experience could use some work, but there’s enough depth here to keep strategy fans busy for a while.

Rock Band VR is the biggest evolution the franchise has ever seen. The inclusion of the keyboard in Rock Band 3 was interesting and bringing a full compliment of plastic instruments to living rooms around the world with the original was revolutionary for a generation, but now this latest entry truly makes you feel like the star of your very own group. The Classic Mode is merely a shell of its former self, but the new VR features establish a more immersive way of playing the game than ever before. It’s lacking in a few areas, but the core of it all is too fun to ignore.

Windlands 2, when at its best, is a delight to play. Swinging through the air with friends, rhythmically grappling between trees, and feeling the rush of adrenaline as I arc across the sky — all while shooting my bow into the distance — is an unrivaled joy in VR. There’s a great foundation here, but it could have been so much more. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t have the execution to fully live up to its potential.

If you want your science fiction racing to be more hardcore and realistic, Vector 36 is definitely the game. It starts out slow, but past that initial hump, speeds up considerably and requires mastery of some of the most intensive physics around. Though not perfect and lacking multiplayer, there’s a solid amount of content here with hopefully more on the way.

Epyka is a beautiful entry point for first-time puzzle-adventure gamers, and a breath of fresh air for adventure game veterans seeking a lighter, well-crafted experience. Its compelling narrative, challenging but fair puzzles, and the companionship of the game's few NPCs make Epyka exactly the game that I wished MYST was when I was ten years old. Given my ten-year-old daughter's joy when she donned the headset and patted Jack for the first time, I think she agrees. We only wish the game was longer.

Detective VR is fun! It's inspiring! Suspenseful. While there's room for improvement with the gameplay, it's an impressive effort from Studio Chipo y Juan that's a delight to play, with so much room for more to come. If you want to catch a murderer in mixed reality, I'd recommend picking this one up today.

A fun on-rails shooter that brings back a classic gameplay mechanic tasking you with targeting enemies as you pass them by to rack up points. There are only a handful of levels and it takes just around 30 minutes to play the entire game, so despite the fun, it’s short-lived. Fans of the genre should check this one out, but it’s far from being a must play in the Steam VR library.

Rise of Insanity isn’t a perfect game, but it doesn’t try to be. The story has some satisfying twists if you’re paying attention and the environments are well-designed with nice vistas and some top-notch jump scares to keep you on your toes. I’d have loved motion controller support or a more fleshed out VR integration, but as it stands as a gamepad-only VR title it certainly delivers good scares wrapped up in a solid story at a brisk two hour pace.

While you can tell this wasn't initially designed for VR or mixed reality, Hidden Memories of The Gardens Between is a captivating journey that touchingly portrays the familiar pain of a friend moving away. This houses a compelling tale about childhood imagination that's beautifully surreal, and taking the diorama approach introduces an intriguing perspective to this existing story. Several issues keep this from becoming an essential recommendation, however: the Quest 3 resolution isn't the sharpest, several levels become rather frustrating, and the expanded content isn't enough if you previously beat the original game. Still, The Voxel Agents largely does this chilled-out puzzle adventure justice in VR, and it's worth considering if you're after something different.

Wordomi is breezy fun, and it’s fine value. Your parents could play it — add this to your library so you’ve got a way to help them “get it.” Or add it to your library for the usual reason: it’s a good time! Sanding off the rough edges (“DUE” really ought to be a solution whenever presented the letters D-U-E) and it'll be a great time. Zooming out, it fits the essential niche of a quick, casual game.

Statik’s sheer invention and fascinating premise are somewhat betrayed by its short length. No two puzzles are the same, and they’re all well-balanced and thought-out trials, but they left me begging for more. Still, that speaks to just how enjoyable an experience this is while it lasts. The game casts a web of intrigue that will pull you in and I suspect have some people picking it apart for even longer than the initial run time. This isn’t quite PSVR’s Portal, but it wouldn’t take much for Tarsier hit that high with a sequel.

As an entire package, Titanic VR is a thoughtful, engaging piece of VR edutainment with some great ideas and surprisingly powerful moments. Immersive VR clearly understands that, for a game to educate, it has to first be held to the same standards that we put upon any other experience and it meets many of those expectations with ease. Ultimately its muted presentation and padded-out campaign hold it back from true greatness, but it’s another crucial step for one of VR’s most important developers that suggests they’ll definitely get there one day.

Arktika.1 is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it’s an extremely polished shooter with a longer-than-average campaign (for VR) and a structure closer to more traditional entries into the genre rather than the many wave-based alternatives available on headsets. On the other, its repetitive missions, unbalanced weapons and upgrade system and limited locomotion eventually took their toll, resulting in initially exciting levels with diminishing returns. The search for VR’s shooter king continues.

Prison Boss Prohibition carefully iterates on the processes of its predecessor and provides a hilarious opportunity to test your criminal prowess in VR. The world surrounding your illicit behavior is wonderfully silly and yet still creates a sense of urgency as you cook up all manner of contraband. While control issues hamper the immersion, Trebuchet’s poultry-filled co-op simulation provides an enticing gameplay loop well worth sinking an afternoon into - even if you are a clumsy suspect with poor planning skills like me.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s The Next Generation DLC is pretty special. The attention to detail afforded to the Enterprise-D is mind-blowing, the overhaul to Engineering (now Ops) is much-needed, and the expansion of Ongoing Voyages missions and new enemies add variety to an experience that can otherwise grow stale over time. However, it doesn’t do enough to really shake up or improve the core experience enough to elevate the game as a whole.

The HeroCade bundle on PSVR does a great job of collecting a large amount (nine total!) of games into a single package. They’re all tied together with a loose “narrative” of sorts but about half of them are hardly worth even playing. Dreadhalls and Sisters are easily the best of the lot, but the sheer breadth of games on display is commendable. Worth a grab if you haven’t tried Dreadhalls yet, but I wouldn’t recommend it for the other eight games on their own.

Still, treated like a board game you occasionally unearth for family game night, RATtv is a joyfully upbeat party game. After a few rounds of Beat Saber and a gander through Google Earth, it’s a fine choice for some multiplayer mayhem at a VR gathering. It’s in undeniable need of more content, but what’s here already is a riot. Just don’t actually play it with your family.

Selina: Mind at Large is an easy game to recommend, simply because the moments that work feel not only unique in how they make you feel, but are emblematic of what we should champion in VR. It needs polish and isn't perfect, sure, but it's an experience only possible or made better by being created within this unusual medium. I’d prefer that to something boring, and it’s certainly engaging far more than it stumbles. Trotzkind took an ambitious swing here, and it mostly works. Isn’t that what we want in games?

This is simple, brain-teasing sneaking that encourages the player to experiment and take risks, though rarely takes its own advice on board to create something truly memorable. Despite its ambitions it’s by no means a revolution, but gamers that just picked up a Go will definitely appreciate having a full, story-driven experience to dive into.