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.

VR Bros has the pieces for something really great with A Wake Inn, but just falters in stringing things together in a way that remains compelling. The core design ideas are fantastic in terms of how you move through the world, interact with the environment, solve basic puzzles, and creep through the halls, but that thoughtful nature is discarded once a weapon is in your hand and the once terrifying mannequins are just combat dummies waiting to be mauled. A Wake Inn isn’t as terrifying as it could have been, but it’s still an interesting look at some clever VR mechanics others could learn from.

Ryte: The Eye of Atlantis has enough moments of interest to make it worth a look, but there’s nothing particularly deep or memorable here. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with performance, but as-is, it clearly needs some optimization work to be a smoother, less glitchy experience as a whole. And even then what’s here is mostly derivative, if compelling at-times, VR adventure fare.

At its heart, Yupitergrad’s brand of VR vaulting offers a clean and thrilling sensation, but its obstacle courses can frustrate as much as they do entertain. It’s not a game to master so much as it is to survive as you subject yourself to the mercy of its gauntlet and the finicky arsenal that helps you navigate it. Take it short strides, keep your patience and there’s fun to be had with Yupitergrad. It just gets strung up by its own plungers from time-to-time.

Battlescar is a deafening success, then. Unapologetically in your face and determined not to settle, I’d call it an echo of the scene and characters it so assuredly realizes, were it not for the film’s stubborn refusal to fade out. So grab a headset and crank it all the way up to 11; this is one VR movie you can’t afford to miss. I’m still not sure what ‘it’ is, but Battlescar most certainly has it.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond can be both frustrating and captivating at the exact same time, but underneath it all is a fun and engaging VR shooter that nails several facets of being a successful AAA game. It’s not quite enough to solidify the experience as a must-play, but there are plenty of bright spots. If you’re eager to dive into a VR version of WWII with exciting set piece moments, authentic historical footage, and an addictively fun online multiplayer mode, then you should come away satisfied. But if you were looking for an immersive narrative wrapped up in a cutting-edge evolution of VR game design with expert pacing — don’t hold your breath.

Outside of VR, Project Wingman really is the Ace Combat spinoff fans have always dreamed of. If you just have a gamepad and want to feel like you’re in Top Gun without needing to learn aerodynamics, you’ll have a lot of fun. In VR it’s still playable with a gamepad, but that ruins the immersion for the most part. Project Wingman is still a good game, but the shaky VR support drags everything down significantly.

To succeed in the multiplayer VR market in 2020, you need to be red hot. Frostpoint, however, arrives frozen stiff.

If you are fine with being limited to playing against friends who have also bought the game, or don’t mind that content from the sequels aren’t present, then feel free to add another star to this review. But for myself, the zen nature of it all got old quickly when I couldn’t really play with others.

Operencia: the Stolen Sun is an excellent RPG with a lot of great qualities. It looks good, the classic turn-based combat is well done, and the world itself feels expansive. Players can expect between 20-30 hours of adventure as well, so it’s a fairly lengthy game. For RPG lovers who haven’t checked out Operencia, it’s absolutely recommendable. For a VR-only release, it’s less of a sure bet. Avoid the Oculus Store version and go for either the Steam or PlayStation versions since those let you play the game however you like.

Last Hope Of The Internet have brought us an interesting action-adventure premise with Flavortown. Though I cannot check how it compares with the original release, there’s a solid idea at the core, packed with good humour and enjoyable combat. Unfortunately, it suffers some minor issues with grabbing objects and whilst it offers replayable minigames, they don’t do much to increase the brief gameplay time. For $6 an episode though, there isn’t much risk here and I’m certainly curious to see how this saga unfolds.

If you’re looking for a new, addictive VR shooter to sink your teeth into then you can’t go wrong with Population: One. The verticality and freedom of movement is unrivaled and the smooth, snappy gameplay feels fantastic even on the lower-powered Oculus Quest. My only significant gripe is that I wish there was a bit more diversity in content available, but they’ve got an amazing foundation to grow from here. Population: One is definitely the best VR battle royale shooter on the market and will hopefully find a strong audience for quite some time.

Mario Kart Live takes a concept you know and love, and makes you think about it in a new way. The races are fantastic, but there’s just as much fun to be found before you even get to the start line. The game gives you the power to make and decorate your own Mario Kart race tracks, and that unlocks the kid inside of you, no matter your age.

Panoptic definitely feels like an experimental game. Its design is kept simple and direct, but it’s polished and entertaining. Unless the developer releases additional maps in the future, it’s still sadly unlikely to hold most players’ attention for the long term. Still, Panoptic is exceptionally good at what it does. A challenging and fun game with a lovely minimalist design, its same-PC multiplayer functionality is perfect for being cooped up in the house with someone you love, yet still want to (virtually) snipe.

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.

Until You Fall is nothing less than a pitch-perfect breakdown of the best rougelike games, reassembled with VR in mind. The genre’s staple elements feel wholly refreshed by swapping out fast fingers for realistic movements, and the foundation of upgradable gear, new weapons and different loadouts encourages you to return again and again. Its combat system has some unfortunate quirks and I would have liked to see more elements rooted in reality, but as an addictive arcade treat you’ll find hard to put down, Until You Fall stands a cut above the competition.

No matter how you look at it this is still an immensely entertaining, challenging, and downright exciting VR shooter packed with content and is easily my new favorite multiplayer VR game for Quest. This should be in every Quest user’s library that enjoys shooters — hands down.

Just like its puzzles, Cubism is a perfect, complete package where everything fits just right — the minimalist design, the reserved soundtrack and its simple nature all come together to create a really fantastic and polished end product. If you’re a fan of puzzles that put your mind to work, then don’t sleep on Cubism. It might seem basic, but solving each level is infinitely more complex than you’d expect and the satisfaction you get at the end is incredibly rewarding.

I’m struggling to think of a scenario in which I’d recommend The Walking Dead: Onslaught. Functionally, it works, and there are some bright spots here since you get to step foot inside the world of the show and interact with iconic characters — but the compliments mostly stop there. Campaign missions are extremely linear and uninspired, Scavenge runs utilize a ludicrous red fog to represent “The Horde” while you collect random scrap parts, and combat fails to ever give you much of a reason to graduate beyond the basic combat knife. I hate to say it, but The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is just a much better example of how to create an immersive VR world, much better use of the source material, and much better game in general.

Cook-Out has all the ingredients for a good time in social VR, then, even if it isn’t especially original. A hectic, multi-hour campaign anchors some of the most engaging, demanding and frantically brilliant party gameplay you’ll find in VR. I wish it had gone deeper with its best ideas and embraced the platform more holistically, but you won’t find a better tribute to Overcooked anywhere else inside a headset. Compliments to the chef.

Gravity Lab isn’t as groundbreaking a puzzle game as it might have first seemed on freshly-released VR headsets, but its challenges are intuitive and carry genuine VR wonder, encouraging spatial experimentation. This is an enjoyable, accessible and (whisper it) incidentally educational piece of to-the-point VR gaming that’ll still put a smile on faces today. Not a bad return for a face from VR’s past, then.

Karnage Chronicles impresses with its wealth of polished content, offering hours of rock-solid VR dungeon-crawling action that really comes alive if you have a friend or three to play with. Ultimately the game’s combat is too simple, its progression too sparse and its tricks too cheap to stave off repetition but, if you’re wanting to form a Fellowship and wage war with your friends, you won’t find a much meatier option than this.

Despite being one of the first fully “finished” and paid Oculus Quest games with content beyond an alpha testing stage including leaderboards available to purchase on SideQuest, Rest in Pieces is mostly stuck in the past. There is some satisfying progression with a ton of weapons to pick from and upgrade, but getting through the first levels to dig into its depth can test your patience and the frequent performance issues make it hard to recommend in general.

Dreams’ creative mode might not integrate with PSVR as naturally as hoped, but its cemented position as a hub of invention makes it an easy recommendation. Paired with the platform’s inherent comfort issues, its sprawling, untamed ecosystem can prove to be a minefield to navigate, but for every unwelcome rollercoaster ride (literally and figuratively), there’s another wish waiting to be fulfilled or something genuinely original to discover. The only way to truly judge Dreams is by the strength of its creations and those already speak for themselves; if you want to embrace VR’s experimental side, you shouldn’t miss it.

Pistol Whip’s multiple difficulties and modifiers like Deadeye and Dual-wield add depth to a game that’s more addictive and satisfying than Beat Saber. The 15 scenes included at the time of this review are all in the same general musical style and a bit of variety would be nice, but that might be coming with future updates. Pistol Whip is the game that brings me back to my VR headset again and again and I expect to keep playing through every update Cloudhead has planned for it.

Despite its flaws and unpolished nature, Into the Radius is still a good VR game worth playing if you’re a fan of the setting or looking for something dense to dig into. You can easily get upwards of 15 hours of content out of this game and the developers seem eager to continue working on it. Janky controls and some odd design decisions do not nullify the quality of the setting or the game’s underlying ideas. At its core, Into the Radius is an immersive and ambitious survival shooter on the fringe of humanity that pushes you to your limits.

Vertigo Remastered is still very much a 2016 VR game at its core, even with an impressive number of new bells and whistles. But there’s a beating heart at the center of this always-entertaining campaign that fuels not only some brilliant, affectionate parody of Valve’s beloved series, but also its own string of thoughtfully-designed concepts that would fit right at home in it too. It’s Half-Lite which, for a game that wants to celebrate a series’ cultural impact as much as echo its philosophies, is high praise.

While it may be difficult to play for very long before your heart rate spikes, it delivers the most consistent and unnerving jumps of any VR horror game out there, held back only by its repetition and lack of variety — both of which are still worth overlooking.