It is at times delightful and at others unflinching, with moments of VR purity that tear down the barrier between you and your companion. If you want a look at where the true power of VR lies, look no further than Ghost Giant.

Ace Combat 7’s VR support makes for one of the most convincing, bombastic games you’ll see in a headset. It’s a powerhouse display of roaring engines and teeth-grinding tension that’s never anything less than relentlessly enjoyable. And yet it’s painfully short, over before you can even pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming. But, to hell with it, it’s left me with a heightened pulse rate, sweaty palms and the biggest grin VR has yet put on my face. If I can’t praise that, then what’s the point? Now let’s start the campaign for more of it.

There’s a lot to learn about Bow to Blood and not all of it’s to love, but what does work elevates the game to soar with all the majesty of its battle-hardened ships. This is a deliciously strategic bit of randomized arena battling that might not make the most compelling case for VR itself but stands as a thrill to play in its own right. If I were to make a bet on what might be one of PSVR’s most beloved sleeper hits in a few years, it’d be this.

It’s an absolute delight to unravel the mystery of The Last Clockwinder and beyond satisfying to feel such a strong level of creative and intellectual control over the solutions to each puzzle. With no wrong answer to any given problem, it’s a puzzle game that centres itself around letting you choose your own approach at all times. If you’re looking for a relaxing yet stimulating few hours in VR, The Last Clockwinder comes highly recommended. [Recommended]

Green Hell on Quest is a game you have to take on its own merits. Similar to how Superhot VR offered a streamlined take on a strong central idea, this chops away at the original game’s foundations to deliver a focused version of a great survival game. True, it’s a much more straightforward experience with simpler crafting and fewer threats, but the meticulous attention paid to VR interaction and physicality, not to mention the still-impressive scale and performance makes this one of the better flatscreen conversions VR has seen over the past few years. If you really don’t want to compromise on the original experience in VR then you should wait for the PC VR version arriving later down the line but, for anyone interested in a more tailored title, Green Hell’s Quest version is a worthy rumble through the jungle.

With all the polish of the acclaimed sequel fused with the ample character of VR’s elder statesman of zombie shooters, it’s hard not to recommend grabbing Arizona Sunshine Remake. The limited campaign length, rehashed horde maps, and the lack of a few notable features (here buddy, here boy) mean that if you have only the time or patience for one jaunt through the undead-infested desert, the sequel remains the seminal Arizona Sunshine experience. Still, the excellent gunplay, polished presentation, and great sound design make Remake worth a look.

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is the best VR horror game in quite some time. Much like Batman Arkham Shadow, Half-Life: Alyx, and Metro Awakening before it, Altered Echoes stays faithful to its series while still shining in VR. The gameplay is nothing groundbreaking, but the same can be said for the series as a whole. Altered Echoes keeps it simple and executes at a high level, getting nearly everything right with the exception of limited VR options. These ultimately do not detract from a top notch VR horror experience.

On the gamut of magic-based first-person action games, The Wizards is definitely one of the better ones. Its spell-casting system is interactive without being too cumbersome and the campaign mode packs a decent amount of content. Plenty of collectibles, a replayable Arena mode, and lots of mission augmentations add up to this being one of the best ways to live out your most fantastical magical fantasies in VR. We just wanted more and preferably multiplayer of some kind.

For what it is, Firewall Zero Hour defies the odds by delivering a multiplayer-focused VR shooter that actually lives up to its potential. If you don’t have a PS Aim controller yet, then you should buy one for this game even though it technically supports DualShock 4 as well. If you don’t have a PSVR headset yet, then you should buy one for this game. With a few improvements and additions, First Contact could turn what is already a must-have PSVR game into a genre-defining one.

Who knows — a few years from now, there might be a pinball equivalent to Walkabout Mini Golf, allowing you to spend time with friends and fully recreate the joy of spending time with others at an arcade. For now, this is as close as it gets to mimicking the feeling of actually using a pinball table, although you might have heard this before.

Minor gripes aside, for fans of Star Wars, fans of arcade-style space combat, and fans of just flat-out immersive VR, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than Star Wars: Squadrons.

There’s a wealth of blockbuster campaigns and arcade games for PSVR 2, but there’s nothing else quite like Before Your Eyes. This is an essential experience for the platform that leverages eye tracking technology to tell a compelling story that simply wouldn’t work without it.

Despite the occasionally repetitive moment of combat, Wilson’s Heart is a must-play game that elevates narrative, visuals, sound, and gameplay for VR experiences to an entirely new level. Your time as Robert may have been a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare you’ll be eager to revisit again, and again, and again.

The Exorcist: Legion VR is without a doubt one of the best VR horror experiences available. The slow-building tension is expertly paced, each and every scare feels visceral and dangerous, and the sheer sense of terror you feel while methodically exploring the richly detailed environments is staggering. It honestly felt like I could hear the voices inside my own head and I could feel the heat from my crucifix as I stared down the faces of demon and eradicated the evil within.

Transpose is a stunning VR puzzle game that elevates the genre and delivers an out-of-body-like experience about manipulating gravity and bending time. There isn’t much of a story to follow and not all of the puzzles are as satisfying as the rest, but fans of the genre would be doing themselves a disservice to not play this excellent adventure from Secret Location.

The Midnight Walk offers a memorable adventure that's enchanting and bleak in equal measure, one that feels like wandering into a twisted fairytale. It's a gripping tale with beautifully crafted claymation visuals, held back only by some minor frustrations and not especially in-depth puzzles. MoonHood have delivered a great example of hybrid design between flatscreen games and VR, and it's a strong recommendation from me.

Despite Pinball FX2 VR’s lack of motion controls, it is nice to have another game for the Quest where you can just sit down and be immersed. Soon the minutes fade away, as you pursue the next high score. Perhaps Zen Studios will bring over more tables from the non-VR version of the game in the future, or maybe even bring Pinball FX3 to VR, but for now this is the only way a pinball wizard can show their magic while on the go.

Horizon Call of the Mountain is a brilliant way to kick off PSVR 2 and remains compelling until the very end. By leaning into the medium’s physicality, Firesprite and Guerrilla created a game that could only work in VR and simultaneously feels faithful to the Horizon franchise. I do wish Ryas was a more interesting character and while I wouldn’t call the gameplay revelatory, what’s here feels incredibly polished and looks absolutely stunning. This is an undoubtably an essential game for all PlayStation VR2 owners. [Essential]

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.

With Paper Beast, Eric Chahi goes for a holy trinity of VR development. It is a game not content with just one miracle, be it the authentic, almost documentarian approach to a virtual ecosystem, nor the technical milestones such a feat requires. Even its set of puzzles somehow emerge as a remarkably natural extension of its core themes and systems, creating a cohesive and curiously precious VR game to be preserved and savoured. Though it usually comes with unintended pitfalls, Paper Beast proves playing god can be great from time to time.

Angry Birds VR is a truly fantastic, intuitive VR title. For younger VR players or fans of the Angry Birds franchise, it’s an absolute perfect fit. The move to VR works seamlessly, retaining the gameplay from the original series while adding in some new VR twists that give it just enough of an edge to be different.

One of the most beloved aspects of the Civilization series is how it makes 4X strategy accessible and unusually nice to look at, at least compared to its many bureaucratic peers in the genre. This port sacrifices both of those defining facets without any meaningful consolation. Civilization VII VR is a good enough proof of concept that is desperately in need of its own flavour. Sure, it works, but at what cost?

Thanks to improved tracking and sharper visuals, the PC version of Apex Construct is a step up from its console counterpart. With full 360 degree turning, combat is a much smoother experience and smooth locomotion on the controller’s navigation options feels much better. While many of the original issues we cited still remain, they’re much more manageable when you’re not fighting the limitations of the platform. If you’re looking to play Apex Construct, PC is definitely the way to go.

All in all Fallout 4 VR is good, but not the amazing experience I was hoping it would be. It’s fun, expansive and ambitious, yet also flawed and wonky. And while it’s not a total bomb, it didn’t completely blow me away, either. Bethesda game are like a big, clumsy factotum friend who you can forgive for not being perfect because they do so many things so well. Fallout 4 VR has its share of problems, but I found myself wanting to jump right back in after a few hours away from the wasteland to see what I could uncover next. I know I’ll be playing this for weeks if not months to come, and hopefully some of the graphical and Touch control issues will be addressed in a future update.

Lone Echo 2’s incredible production values and first-rate immersion make for an enjoyable swansong that’s let down by its plodding pace and familiarity. Despite arriving four years after the groundbreaking original, there’s very little that will surprise you here and, although well written, the drawn-out character dialogue quickly wears thin. It’s still held up by a fantastic locomotion system with first-rate immersion alongside a solid story with believable performances, but the startling spark of blockbuster innovation that fuelled the first game has long-since died out. Jack and Liv’s mission to get back to the past makes for a fun ride, but parts of Lone Echo 2 were stuck there to begin with.

Nexus demonstrates what a full-fledged VR entry can do for a big series, delivering a sizable campaign with accessibility at its core. Gameplay feels well adapted from the main series, parkour across such diverse environments is really enjoyable and that's backed by a strong presentation. Minor jank and stealth issues aside, it's the most fun I've had with Assassin's Creed and comes highly recommended.

Sairento VR is a game with a ton of stuff to do and some really fun core gameplay elements, but it just doesn’t feel like it all comes together well in the end. There’s a lack of meaningful depth, some glaring repetition, and a general lack of polish that holds this action-packed romp from truly achieving VR greatness.

The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an exemplary puzzle game that not only serves as a prime example of what makes puzzle games so compelling in the first place, but elevates the genre via VR with supreme interactivity, excellent visuals, and a palpably mysterious atmosphere. It’s only held back slightly by some minor frustrations with pacing and difficulty, but is otherwise one of the best puzzle games available in a VR headset. It carries the torch lit by Myst and demonstrates how engrossing a puzzle game can be when done right.