HTC announced that it will begin selling a headset-only package of Cosmos Elite priced at $550. Though Cosmos Elite became available last month, it was only sold in a package that included controllers and base stations for $900. Offering the headset by itself makes Cosmos Elite a more attractive option for those who already own controllers and base stations.
In an op-ed last month I outlined the confusing positioning of HTC’s various VR headsets and noted how the modularity of Cosmos wasn’t practical when considering the pricing structure. Among those issues is the fact that HTC left no clear path for its existing Vive owners (who already own SteamVR Tracking controllers and base stations) to buy into the Cosmos headset without re-buying controllers and base stations:
This modularity would make a bit more sense if HTC would sell the Cosmos headsets separately. After all, that way people who bought into their VR hardware with the original Vive (which means they already have SteamVR Tracking base stations and controllers) would benefit from that investment by simply buying the Cosmos Elite headset by itself to use it with their existing hardware. Instead, HTC has left no clear path for loyal, existing VR customers to choose Cosmos.
By only selling the headsets bundled with controllers and other hardware, HTC has created a roundabout path where—if you already have SteamVR Tracking base stations and controllers—your best option is to buy Cosmos Play for $500 and then add the Cosmos Elite faceplate for $200, effectively getting you the Cosmos Elite headset for $700 (instead of $900), but still leaving you with two Cosmos controllers you don’t want but had to pay for anyway.
HTC is launching the headset-only Cosmos Elite package on a rolling basis in different regions:
Country
Pre-Order
On Sale
CN
N/A
16-Apr
TW
1-Apr
16-Apr
EU
7-Apr
27-Apr
UK
7-Apr
27-Apr
CA
1-Apr
1-May
US
1-Apr
1-May
AU
N/A
May
KR
N/A
May
NZ
N/A
May
JP
To be announced
To be announced
KSA
1-May
18-May
UAE
1 May
18-May
HTC has also announced the regional release dates for the Cosmos External Tracking Faceplate, the $200 add-on faceplate which brings SteamVR Tracking to the base Cosmos headset.
Country
On Sale
KR
Late April
CA
1-May
US
1-May
EU
15-May
UK
15-May
AU
May
ME
10-Jun
TW
Late April
JP
To be announced
HTC is also including a digital code for Half-Life: Alyx with the purchase of any package of Cosmos Elite or the External Tracking Faceplate.
Though this change makes it far more practical for owners of existing SteamVR Tracking hardware and peripherals to consider Cosmos Elite as their next headset, at $550 it’s still got a price disadvantage compared to Valve’s Index headset which is sold by itself for $500.
Half-Life: Alyx has only been out for a week now, but many who have finished the game are already itching for more. While we don’t expect to see any major post-release changes to the game from Valve itself, the company has committed to releasing tools so that the community can tweak the game with mods for Half-Life: Alyx. Though the modding tools aren’t available yet, here’s list of Alyx mods that we’d love to see.
Valve hasn’t made clear when they intend to release Half-Life: Alyx mod tools just yet, but considering the popularity of the game we expect to see a lot of action when it does.
From my own take on the game, and some suggestions from Twitter, below I’ve listed a handful of mods I’d love to see for Half-Life: Alyx. I’m splitting things up into ‘Practical’ and ‘Less Practical’ sections based on how complex they’d likely be to build.
Practical Mods for Half-Life Alyx
Detached Weapons and Holsters
This was one of the things that struck me right away in Half-Life: Alyx; instead of acting like independent objects, weapons are stuck to your selected ‘Weapon Hand’. And rather than grabbing your weapons from a holster and returning them when done, you use a menu to equip and unequip your weapons into your hand. I find this approach wholly unimmersive compared to being able to grab my weapons with whichever hand I see fit, or even set them down.
Though I’m quite certain Valve did this to avoid the clunk that can come from an iffy holster system, and to prevent users from dropping their weapons, we’ve seen several games that manage to do holsters and detached weapon interactions well. Stormland (2019) showed several smart solutions to these issues (like floating weapons in front of the player for a few seconds if they drop them) which modders could use as a basis for a holster mod in Half-Life: Alyx.
Foot Tracking
This one might seem silly but it could be a major immersion booster. I’m not the only one who became so immersed in Alyx that at one point I tried to kick something with my foot, only to remember that the game doesn’t know where my feet are!
Some games already support the use of Vive Trackers for tracking more parts of the player’s body, and a mod for Half-Life: Alyx which would allow for foot tracking would be quite compelling even if it meant I could kick objects in the world for added embodiment. Bonus if I can Spartan-kick a Combine soldier out a window.
Iconic Half-Life Weapons
The Half-Life series is home to as many iconic weapons as it is enemies to shoot them with. Unfortunately Half-Life: Alyx’s weapon roster left much to be desired both in terms of number and diversity of weapons.
A mod to bring some of Half-Life’s iconic weapons—like the crossbow, revolver, RPG, and pulse rifle secondary fire—to Half-Life: Alyx would spice up the combat for your next playthrough. It would also be nice to wield the heavy weapons used by the large Combine soldiers (which normally disappear when they die).
And of course there’s the Gravity Gun itself, a weapon/tool which was foundational to Half-Life 2. It would be especially fun to be able to use the gravity gun in Half-Life: Alyx because in VR you’d get to wield it much more directly than its original incarnation which relied on keyboard and mouse.
Gravity Glove Overdrive
Speaking of the Gravity Gun, one of the most thrilling moments of Half-Life 2 was when the Gravity Gun becomes extra powerful at the end of the game. While Valve may have avoided doing the same for Alyx to avoid turning the mechanic into a trope, I have to say that I would love a powered-up version of the Gravity Gloves which could be used to pull and (and maybe even crush) Combine soldiers and other enemies. It would be especially fun to be able to pick up the game’s larger physical items and use them as devastating projectiles.
In-game DSLR for Screenshots
Half-Life: Alyx is one of the most detailed VR games ever made; with all the time Valve spent making the game look so good, it would be awesome to have an in-game DSLR camera that the player could use to take screenshots like a real photographer with zoom, focus, aperture, and exposure settings.
As suggested by Andreas “Boll” Aronsson, this would pair nicely with a ‘stop time’ mode which would freeze everything else in the game so that the player could scout the perfect angle for their shot.
Gameplay Adjustments
Some extra gameplay options in Half-Life: Alyx would let players could tweak things to taste. Here’s a handful of suggestions from other players:
You might be wondering why I put melee in the ‘less practical’ section… after all plenty of VR games use melee. Indeed, though in order to get melee to work how most VR players would hope, I think it would take quite a bit of modding work. That’s mostly because enemy AI in the game isn’t really designed to handle physics-based melee, which means a modder attempting to add satisfying melee to the game would need to do a bunch of work to figure out how the physics system would interact with the animation and damage systems in the game to create convincing collisions and
I expect we’ll see some coarse melee mods early on that just do some damage and trigger a generic bullet-hit animation in enemies, but that likely won’t have the visceral feel of melee in VR games like Blade & Sorcery and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. But hey, if someone can give us that precious crowbar, I’m all for it.
Co-op
This is, unfortunately, perhaps the least practical mod in this list, despite being one of the most requested and most obviously desirable. Yes, it would be awesome to have co-op in Half-Life: Alyx, but unfortunately adding such a feature is much more complex than most people realize.
Decisions made during a game’s development (especially the way in which the physics, AI, and resource management systems work) have major implications for how easy or hard it would be to add co-op to the game. Since Half-Life: Alyx was conceived as a single player game, Valve wouldn’t have architected any of its systems to be easily synchronized between players over the internet.
It likely isn’t impossible to bring co-op to Half-Life: Alyx (after all, there’s been a co-op mod for Half-Life 2 for a long time), but it would take substantial work to create such a mod that offers a good experience for both players.
Half-Life and Half-Life 2 Remade for VR
It’s actually already possible to play the original Half-Life games in VR, but such mods are of course missing lots of VR-specific interactions that would be expected from a native VR game. Rebuilding any of the Half-Life games to really work well in VR would take nearly as much time as rebuilding Alyx to work well in non-VR.
Facebook is taking an important step towards releasing its first AR headset, as the company has signed an exclusivity agreement with UK-based AR display maker Plessey to supply the company with microLED displays.
“We have decided to work with Facebook to help achieve their vision of the next computing platform centred around people,” Plessey says in a press statement. “Under a new commercial agreement, our LED manufacturing operations will be dedicated to helping Facebook prototype and develop new technologies for potential use in the AR/VR space.”
A report by The Informationalleges that Apple was interested in acquiring Plessey, citing two people familiar with the matter. Facebook’s choice to not pursue an outright acquisition however, instead opting for an exclusive licensing agreement, was reportedly to avoid what could have been “intense regulatory scrutiny,” The Information maintains, which would have allegedly slowed down the process.
The commercial agreement is said to supply Facebook with AR displays over the course of several years.
Facebook most recently acquired Scape Technologies, a London-based startup specializing in building a computer vision-based positioning system that is to precisely determine the location of any camera device with more accuracy than GPS.
Plessey’s microLED displays are said to combine very high-density RGB pixel arrays with high-performance CMOS backplanes to produce what it calls “very high-brightness, low-power and high-frame-rate image sources” for AR and VR headsets.
Vuzix, a maker of smartglasses and AR headsets, entered into a similar agreement with Plessey last year, which at the time was said to simplify existing AR optical systems of red, green and blue light sources by replacing it with a single self-emitting display which has integrated micro-optical elements. At the time, Vuzix’s agreement was seeking to use Plessey’s displays to reduce size and weight of their headsets.
As more people have had the opportunity to play Half-Life: Alyx over the first weekend since its release at the beginning of last week, the game’s user ratings have surged yet higher. Surpassing all other Half-Life games along its way, Half-Life: Alyx is now among the top 10 best rated games on Steam, ever.
Half-Life: Alyx continues to show a strong impact in its first week since launch. Despite the much smaller audience of VR players compared to general gamers, reviews continue to pour in for the game, recently passing 15,000 user reviews on Steam. 98% of those reviews are positive, pushing Half-Life: Alyx to rank #10 among the best rated games of all time on Steam.
Top rated Steam games according to Valve
Alyx is arguably #9 considering the original Witcher 3 and itsGame of the Year Edition take the #2 and #3 spots. On the way to the top of the charts, Alyx has surpassed all other Half-Life games, though Valve’s Portal and Portal 2 still outrank it at #8 and #5 respectively.
Steam appears to use a relatively naive ranking when sorting by the top rated games; with some minimum threshold of reviews, it orders the top rated games by the whole number percentage of positive reviews, and then settles any ties by ranking games with a larger number of reviews higher than a game with the same percentage of positive reviews but with fewer ratings.
Other ranking sites use different weightings between the percent of positive reviews and the total number of reviews, resulting in a different ranking of the best rated games on Steam.
Steam250, for instance, puts Alyx at #17, just barely under Half-Life 2 because even though Alyx has a higher percent of positive ratings, Half-Life 2 has more than four times the total number of reviews. You can read about Steam250’s approach to ranking here.
Top rated Steam games according to Steam250
SteamDB has a slightly different take on deciding which Steam games are the top rated, and by its count, Half-Life: Alyx is at #16 with Half-Life 2 at #20. You can read about SteamDB’s approach to ranking here.
Join us tonight for Chary's Half-Life: Alyx gameplay - part 2! Cas finished the game already for our review. If you played as well, come talk about the VR game with us while watching Chary's reactions! ► Check out our full review while you wait: https://youtu.be/CyxPgJvaKcU ► Check out part 1 here: https://youtu.be/vdI9ep8HwrI ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary This is our weekly Virtual Reality live stream. Our live streams are usually centered around one topic but we can talk about anything. Come hang out and let's discover VR worlds together. Today's topic(s): Half-Life: Alyx Gameplay - Part 2 NORMAL SCHEDULE Every Friday at: 🕛 12 PM PT 🕘 9 PM CET 🕗 8 PM UK Time 🍿 Watch us from within Bigscreen VR too! LINKS ► Check out our full review of the game while you wait: https://youtu.be/CyxPgJvaKcU ► Check out part 1 here: https://youtu.be/vdI9ep8HwrI ► Half-Life: Alyx on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/546560/HalfLife_Alyx/ SUPPORT US Subscribing and watching our videos is by far the biggest support you can give us. However, if you want to do more - you can also donate. All donations go to improving the channel. BUY US A COFFEE & BOOST THE CHANNEL ► One-time donation → http://bit.ly/DonateCasandChary BECOME A CHAMPION (LONG-TIME SUPPORTER) ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - artArmin - BaxornVR - Wintceas - Studioform VR - Ztreak - Albert - Ben P. MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://share.epidemicsound.com/zqM3g DISCLAIMER Links in this description may contain affiliate links. You don't have to use them, but if you do, a small referral fee will go to this channel supporting the content. VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #halflifealyx #halflifevr #casandchary
Charm Games announced that FORM, the VR puzzle game that made a splash on PC VR headsets back in 2017, is coming to PSVR next month.
Originally slated to arrive on the platform back in 2018, FORM is now officially coming to PSVR on April 7th, 2020.
We really enjoyed FORM when we played it for our review of the game, giving it a solid [8.5/10] for its interesting, alien-like 3D puzzles that do an awesome job of demanding curiosity and experimentation.
We called it “like stepping into a machine of pure novelty, and it manages to deliver its intuitive puzzles without the need of a tutorial, i.e. no condescending robot voice guiding you through the world.”
Granted, it’s a particularly short game at a little over an hour of gameplay, and while we wish it were longer, it still makes for a must-play if you can nab it at the right price.
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With the help of Oculus, YouTube sensation The Slo Mo Guys has launched an eight-part mini-series on Oculus Quest via Oculus TV. The mini-series brings the channel’s signature high-speed footage into the 3D realm.
In the latest example of Oculus’ unfortunately segmented ecosystem, Oculus has brought a new Slo Mo Guys mini-series to its mobile headsets (Quest, Go, and Gear VR) via Oculus TV, an app which unfortunately isn’t available on the company’s Rift headsets.
The footage is shot as 180° 3D video with segments captured at 1,000 frames per second for that sweet slow-motion action. The eight-part mini-series covers classic slow motion fodder like fire breathing, katana slicing, and colored powder bombs, as well as some lesser seen stuff like rubber bands around a watermelon.
Image courtesy The Slo Mo Guys
Below all of the episodes on Oculus TV are linked which allows you to use the ‘Save to VR’ button to bookmark the episodes to watch later on your mobile Oculus headset:
Anti-Fire Grenades Betwixt the wood lies a fiery agent of destruction. You’ve heard of fighting fire with fire. Well, take a peek at The Slow Mo Guys’ most modern method to date: fighting fire with a grenade. Safety first!
Inside a Dome of Sparks Under the cover of night, Gavin and Dan explore the beauty of the cosmos for a VR experience unlike any other. You could fool yourself into believing that this is some distant, twisting galaxy…
Katana Slicing Revisiting the razor-sharp capabilities of the samurai sword, Gavin and Dan take another swing at those pesky water-filled bottles and gleefully show us the colorful results.
Fire Breathing There’s a reason fire breathing is an art form, and not a sport. But Gavin and Dan have discovered the key to making it fun, competitive, and—just like all great sports—they’ve raised the stakes. In a flame-engulfing VR experience like nothing else you’ve witnessed, “The Slow Mo Guys Go Fire Breathing” is an unmissable episode.
Jelly Tennis Splats Why buy tickets to Wimbledon when you can experience the thrill of the perfect serve with The Slow Mo Guys’ very own Jelly Tennis Tournament? It’s the same spectacle, better tasting, and stranger in sound.
Rubber Bands VS Watermelons Ever wondered how many rubber bands it takes to cut a watermelon in half? Gavin and Dan have got you—and their lab coats—covered. You can’t quite catch the scent of summer fruits, but this VR experience will trick you into trying to dodge the splatter.
Rainbow Paint Bathtub Splash Splashing around in a bathtub isn’t only for kids and rubber ducks. Witness Gavin and Dan’s return to recreate the legendary Inception scene with a wet, messy, and colorful twist.
Powder Paint Airbag Explosions Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle while we remotely detonate these airbags. Gavin and Dan discover what happens when you mix Holi powder, airbags, and a determination to turn destruction into decoration.
It’s a bummer that this content isn’t available more widely across Oculus’ ecosystem simply because the Oculus TV app isn’t available on Rift, but this is one part of a systemic division between the company’s mobile and PC headsets.
E McNeill, the developer behind VR strategy games Darknet (2015), Tactera (2016), and Astraeus (2018), is launching a new VR title next month called Ironlights which aims to bring a strategic bend to the melee combat genre.
Update (February 12th, 2020): The Ironlights Kickstarter passed with flying colors late last month, and now developer E McNeill has announced the official street date for the strategy-based dueling game.
McNeill tells Road to VR that the game has now passed Oculus quality assurance and is currently slated to launch on Quest, Rift, and SteamVR on April 9th for $20, which includes cross-buy for the Quest & Rift versions. All version are said to include cross-play multiplayer. The game will be available on Steam, and the Oculus Store for Quest and Rift.
The original article announcing the Kickstarter follow below:
Original Article (January 15th, 2020): Called Ironlights, the still in-development game is setting itself apart from other physics-based melee titles by offering up a dynamic ‘back-and-forth’ combat scheme, which is designed to further eliminate careless controller waggling by way of a novel turn-based combat system. During a turn, only the attacker can land strikes while the defender must do their best to dodge or parry the incoming blows.
As a physics-based game, all weapons have weight and momentum. However striking an enemy automatically enters you into slow motion, forcing you move your body in slow-mo in order to maintain “optimal control” of your weapons.
1 of 4
Image courtesy E McNeill
Image courtesy E McNeill
Image courtesy E McNeill
Image courtesy E McNeill
In Ironlights, you’re also only allowed one hit per swing, as weapons shatter after each hit instead of bouncing off. By design, this is meant to side-step the sort of disconnect you might feel when you strike a virtual enemy and your physical controller keeps moving. McNeill says to think of it “sort of like a VR version of Street Fighter or Soul Caliber, mixed with SUPERHOT and maybe a dash of Beat Saber.”
Although Ironlights is said to be nearly finished, with launch slated for Spring 2020, the studio is searching for $15,000 in extra funding via a Kickstarter campaign, which promises a 25% discount off the full game ($20 MSRP) when it goes live later this year on Oculus Quest, Rift, and SteamVR headsets. The funds, McNeill says, will help bring to the game more armor models; backers at the $30 and above will get early access to the game.
The game is set to include five classes at launch, which includes the Knight (two-handed greatsword), Duelist (rapier & buckler), Monk (staff), Ninja (dual katar-style daggers), and Crusader (flail & shield). And while it promises a single-player campaign, which will include duels, tournaments, and exhibition matches, the game is also targeting cross-platform multiplayer, featuring online and LAN-based modes.
Starting out in VR development is 2013, McNeill has since produced four VR games, including the early Gear VR hit Darknet. He’s been secretly working on Ironlights for some time now with Rockstar Games veteran Geoff Barber, something he calls his “biggest game yet.”
In addition to McNeill’s VR development chops and Barber’s programming expertise, much of the 3D art was built by SuperGenius, a high-caliber art studio which has worked with Blizzard, Double Fine, and Oculus. The game’s thumping soundtrack was composed by EDM artist Jordan Aguirre (aka bLiNd), who also created a few of the game’s sound effects.
Google has taken its sweet time bringing its VR creation app Tilt Brush (2016) to PSVR, although having recently slimmed down the app to fit on the modest mobile chipset of Oculus Quest may have given the company needed incentive to finally launch on PSVR. It’s available starting today.
Update (March 27th, 2020): Tilt Brush for PSVR lands on the PlayStation Store today. Original creator Patrick Hackett says in PS blogpost that the PSVR version will feature a Showcase of art and the ability to upload creations to Google Poly, Google’s online 3D asset viewing platform.
US residents will also be able to buy a PlayStation Move Motion Controller Two-Pack & Tilt Brush Bundle will be available exclusively on PlayStation Direct for $100 starting today, which includes two PS Move controllers and a digital code for Tilt Brush.
Check out the new trailer below:
Original Article (March 6th, 2020): PSN data obtained by Gamstatindicates that a listing for Tilt Brush has been recently created for America, Europe and Japan regions.
All games on the PlayStation Store have an identifier code which is listed in the game’s URL. Gamstat has recovered the following store identifiers for Tilt Brush:
America – CUSA18125_00 Europe – CUSA18231_00 Japan – CUSA18283_00
An image was also scraped from the listing, noting that Sony Interactive Entertainment is the app’s publisher.
Image courtesy Gamstat
Although Google has yet to officially announce Tilt Brush for PSVR, the reported data seems to strongly indicate a nearby release on the platform.
Originally launched on PC VR headsets in 2016, Google’s Tilt Brush has become fully-featured VR creation tool, boasting integration with Google’s other 3D VR creation tool Blocks (2017), and the ability to export creations to SketchfabGoogle Poly.
It’s uncertain how much of this interoperability the PSVR version will retain, or what Google has done to mitigate the platform’s less accurate motion controls, although it appears we’ll be finding out soon enough.
Special thanks to Twitter user Max Ledroom for pointing out the news.
Resolution Games, the studio behind Acron: Attack of the Squirrels (2019) and Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs (2019), today launched their latest game on Magic Leap 1. Called Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel, the detective game arrives today on Magic Leap World for free.
Glimt is Resolution Games third AR game and was created as part of Magic Leap’s Independent Creator Program.
Resolution calls it “a captivating detective game filled with mystery, psychic powers, magic and, of course, intrigue.”
Talking to Magic Leap, Resolution Games producer Johan Donwill describes it as a “whodunit-detective game that has the player using a combination of their sleuthing skills, psychic abilities and visualization tools to discover the catalyst behind sudden disappearances at the Grand Starlight Hotel.”
If you own a Magic Leap 1, you can download it now for free on Magic Leap World. Check out the trailer below:
Vertigo Games today announced that its zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine (2017) got its first paid DLC for Quest today.
Originally launched on PC VR back in 2018, the ‘Dead Man’ paid DLC is a prequel campaign that tasks you with infiltrating the missile base as Cpl. John Dockson. Oh, and if you already bought it through the Oculus Store for Rift, it’s free on Quest. Otherwise it costs $2.50.
There’s plenty of close-quarters combat in the dark missile silo, although you’ll have three new weapons to take on the task of clearing out the shambling walkers: a fully automatic submachine gun, a two-handed shotgun, and a tactical handgun.
Like the PC VR version, ‘Dead Man’ for Quest supports two-player co-op, and a range of difficulties such as ‘Apocalyptic’ mode.
Arizona Sunshine for Quest is getting one last DLC drop, ‘The Damned’, which arrived on PC VR late last year. It’s scheduled to arrive on Quest in April for $5.
Thanks to Steam’s hardware agnostic approach, it’s become the defacto repository of all things PC VR (excluding Oculus exclusives, of course). Every major PC VR headset is supported through the SteamVR platform, including Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Pimax, and Windows VR headsets; not to mention Oculus Quest, which thanks to Oculus Link lets you play PC VR games from the Oculus Store, Steam, and Viveport.
So you may be wondering, what are the best VR games for SteamVR headsets recently? You may find a couple repeats from our 10 Best Recent Rift Games, but there’s still plenty of top-scoring games to dig into here. Now, in no particular order, our top 10 best games for SteamVR headsets.
Note: Below you’ll find links pointing to Steam and Viveport, as the latter also offers support for many of the major VR headsets.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Ganking zombies takes practice, and you’ll get all of that and more as you grab walkers by the head, jab screwdrivers into their eyes, sneak around the shambolic horde, and think about how much your life has changed since you got a VR headset. It’s not an open world adventure, but it does its best to give you plenty of places to visit and even a few choices to make that definitely flexes its mostly-linear narrative.
Cool weapon mods, refined physics-based zombie killing, and a high level of polish put this one head and shoulders (ok, maybe not ‘head’) above many other similar games in the genre. Check out why we gave The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners a super solid [9/10] in our review.
Half-Life: Alyx
It’s a weird time to be alive. After over a decade of waiting, Valve has finally revived the Half-Life franchise, and it did it to spectacular effect in VR with Half-Life: Alyx (2020). Delve back into the dystopian City 17, set between the first and second Half-Life games.
Seriously, the level of detail is amazing in Half-Life: Alyx, making the linear narrative feel lived-in and much larger than it really is. And that’s saying something, because this full-featured puzzle-shooter boasts 15 hours of gameplay that is totally justified playing it straight through. Stop and smell the daises though, because we gave it our top score of 10/10 for good reason.
Fujii
Funktronic Labs describes Fujii as “magical, musical hike through lush, chromatic VR wilderness,” and even though this little escape from the daily grind is more of a chill gardening sim than your standard game, it’s one of those games that will have you coming back, even if you’re not sure why.
Road to VR’s Ben Lang calls Fujii’s lack of instructions “a testament to the intuitive VR game design skills of developer Funktronic Labs,” noting that players learn to interact with the world almost exclusively by doing, exploring, and testing the limits of the world in way that makes it a truly unique and personal experience. Check out why we gave Fujii an [8/10] in our review.
Pistol Whip
It feels like Cloudhead Games took a slice of Beat Saber (2018), a little dusting of Smash Hit (2015), a few shards of SUPERHOT VR (2017) and mixed it all together to create Pistol Whip, a VR rhythm shooter that engages your body in a very unique and compelling way.
You’re constantly moving forward through a levels where enemies appear and shoot at you, and it’s your job to not only return fire, but dodge incoming bullets too. Flow state is the name of the game here (ok, it’s Pistol Whip, but you know what I mean), and although we are still technically waiting for more music to fill out its 10-song library, it’s a game you’ll be able to pick up easily but have a hard time mastering. Check out our preview to learn more about why we like it so much.
BONEWORKS
Boneworks (2019) from Stress Level Zero is not only an achievement in VR physics simulation, but it also basically brought to VR what Valve couldn’t. That was of course before Half-Life: Alyx was even public knowledge, but this part HL homage, part physics sandbox is still a super interesting game that takes a hardliner stance on how to best immerse the player.
We didn’t give it the best score in our review—a respectable [6/10], which on our linear grading scale puts it at “good”. Due to a minimal narrative, you have to create some of the fun for yourself, which might just be right up your alley.
Until You Fall (Early Access)
Until You Fall arrives to us from Schell Games, the studio behind the super successful VR puzzler I Expect You to Die (2017), making this hack-and-slash melee adventure a bit out of left field for the studio.
Nonetheless, it offers up what Road to VR’s Ben Lang calls “a surprisingly rich combat experience which successfully fuses meta-game elements in a way that no other VR title has yet managed.” It’s still in Early Access, so we haven’t given it a score in our EA review; if we had to, it would certainly be high up there.
Beat Saber
What’s a ‘best-of’ list without Beat Saber (2018), the game that has basically become synonymous with VR at this point. Granted, it’s available now on basically any VR headset worth owning, although its overall input simplicity makes it perfect for a multi-device platform like SteamVR.
Ok, we get it. It’s not super recent, but the content keeps flowing at a pace we simply haven’t seen in other VR titles. Now that Facebook has bought developing studio Beat Games, there’s been a strong influx of content from household names like Green Day, Panic at the Disco!, Timbaland, and more to keep you coming back for that sweet, sweet paid DLC.
No Man’s Sky (New VR Support)
With No Man’s Sky (2016), Hello Games has gone the full hero’s journey. With one of the biggest hype cycles for an indie studio to weather, the worst releases in video game history, and nary a sign of a light at the end of the tunnel, No Man’s Sky easily could have slunk away into the darkness, never to be heard from again. Instead, Hello Games persevered and ardently improved No Man’s Sky, eventually even adding VR support with its free ‘Beyond’ update.
Its VR support didn’t exactly wow us when it first released; Road to VR contributor Gabriel Moss called it “a wonderful, deeply flawed space odyssey,” giving it a still pretty respectable [7.5/10]. Quality of life updates have gone a long way of keeping us coming back for more since it first launched though—Bethesda could learn from.
Vacation Simulator
Job Simulator (2016) wasn’t an easy act to follow, considering it was likely people’s first VR experience when it arrived as a launch title on basically all VR headsets. No fear though, because the owls at Owlchemy Labs hashed out a slightly new direction with its more relaxed little bro, Vacation Simulator, which includes a story line, a more open environment and a ton of vacation-style activities to explore and play.
Some fans of the original may not exactly gel with the new direction Vacation Simulator takes, but we’re willing to bet many people will have a blast going through the gads of activities. Anyway, we did, which is why we gave it a resounding [8.8] in our review.
Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
Angry Birds in VR? Pffft. That sounds lame! But no! It’s actually really fun, and not at all a diseased microtransaction-riddled mess like its mobile forbears have become. Here, Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs actually hits on some seriously fun gameplay by letting you not only knock down complex creations overrun by evil little piggies, but now you can even make your own block fortresses in creative mode.
Angry Birds just works in VR thanks to an intuitive shooting mechanic and a good mix of difficulty levels, which were big factors in why we gave it a [8.5/10] in our review.l
Update (March 26th, 2020): Out with the old, in with the new. We’ve updated to include a few of VR’s most promising recent games that you should definitely consider now that you’ll never leave the house.
► Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS: https://clik.cc/q89u4 ✅ ANDROID: https://clik.cc/CIg2L ✅ PC: https://clik.cc/bvbgO and get a special starter pack 💥 Available only for the next 30 days! Been looking forward to this! Here are my first impressions & 10 min of gameplay. ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary ► Subscribe to see more videos like this one → https://goo.gl/bSJ6L8 Down The Rabbit Hole is a VR adventure and puzzle game that you play partly in 3rd person and party in 1st person. It’s also set in the universe of Alice in Wonderland, so you can expect some random craziness. I’m only about an hour in so in this video, I’ll show you the first 10 min. of gameplay to give you an idea of the game, and at the end, I’ll share my first impressions. The full VR game is available from today for both Oculus Quest & PC VR headsets. LINKS - Down The Rabbit Hole on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1215270/Down_the_Rabbit_Hole/ - Down The Rabbit Hole on Oculus (PCVR): https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2476104599150595/ - Down The Rabbit Hole on Oculus Quest: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/2436356466482809/ - Get an Oculus Quest (US): https://amzn.to/2H5ECGx - Get an Oculus Quest (UK): https://amzn.to/2Jip6Zg - Get an Oculus Quest (NL): http://bit.ly/2QlCpd2 (Coolblue) SUPPORT THE CONTENT ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary ► Check out our VR Merch → http://bit.ly/casandchary-merch USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Oculus Quest Comfort Strap (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCStudioformVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - artArmin: https://store.steampowered.com/app/728110/Board_Games_VR/ - BaxornVR: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1tmq8Y3jC7gNGvW7asmv1Q - Wintceas - Studioform VR - Andy - Albert - Ben P. - Steve Dunlap MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://bit.ly/CCEpidemicSound DISCLAIMER Links in this description may contain affiliate links. A small referral fee will go to the channel if you use it which supports the content. VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #downtherabbithole #downtherabbitholevr #oculusquest
Would you wear the same pair of underwear multiple months in a row, sitting in the flaked remains of your dried sweat and bodily detritus which has justifiably ejected itself from your filthy human body? Don’t answer that! Whatever your personal hygiene regime, your VR headset is probably a hotbed of disease and petulance. And it must be cleansed.
All joking aside, it’s pretty impractical to completely sterilize your headset—no matter how germaphobic you may find yourself these days—but you can still get peace of mind with a thorough cleaning and a few preventative measures to make the process easier next time around.
The Enemies
Macrogunk – the things you can see or feel, such as oily secretions called sebum, salt from evaporated sweat, hair, dead skin cells, makeup, dust, etc. These have a good chance of working their way into every crevice, but you’ll most likely find them ground into the facial interface foam, nose guard, on the lenses and the interior area around them.
Micro gunk – the things you can’t see or feel, including pathogens like viruses, bacteria, protozoan, or fungus. Micro gunk absolutely loves macro gunk, so keeping a headset clean helps reduce growth & transfer of your face garbage from one person to another. It’s also good habit no matter what’s going on outside, pandemic or otherwise.
How to Clean Your VR Headset
Protip: keep it in a glass case and you’ll never have to clean it!
You can clean a headset by wiping it down to remove the macro gunk and mostly go about your life unphased, provided you’re making sure to keep good hand hygiene, i.e. washing your hands for at least 20 seconds, using hand sanitizer, and making sure not to touch your face. Sanitizing after a suspected encounter with an unwanted pathogen is a different story, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Headset manufacturers have their own cleaning guidelines, however there are some general tips you should consider:
Don’t
Don’t use harsh abrasives or solvents such as alcohol, acetone, etc. These can damage glue holding fabrics together and many types of plastics, leaving a frosted, ugly residue that you really don’t want, especially on your lenses.
Don’t use household cleaners like Clorox wipes. It may be tempting since they’re readily available, and most polymers shouldn’t react with non-bleach Clorox wipes, but you don’t want the wipes’ chemical irritants anywhere near your eyes, breathing pathway, skin etc. Using Clorox wipes on hard plastics like the headset’s outer surface and controllers is probably totally fine, but keep them away from the facial interface, lenses, and nose guard.
This one’s controversial, but don’t use compressed air. Not only could you risk blowing more garbage into the inside recesses of your headset than you actually intended to remove, but the fluorocarbon-based propellant inside the can may damage plastics if they spurt out accidentally in their liquid form.
Do
Use a lint-free cloth to do the lion’s share of the work, both inside and out. Remember: lenses can scratch easily, and should only really be cleaned with the included microfiber cloth or a lint free cloth, cleaning in gently expanding circles.
Use nonabrasive antibacterial wipes on everything but the lenses. Great for cleaning all styles of gunk.
Take off removable parts and clean separately. If you can comfortably remove a part from your headset, like a facial interface, nose guard, or light blocking guard, it may help to remove these pieces so you can get into all the crevasses, both on the part itself and where the part snaps in.
Take preventive measures such as buying a VR cover for your facial interface, or an entirely new facial interface with an easy-to-clean surface like PU leather (aka pleather). Manufacturers almost universally sell VR headsets with spongy foam facial interfaces that soak up sweat and grime, so this is a great way of keeping your headset clean in the long run. You’ll find a load of them on Amazon, eBay, and from specialized vendors such as VR Cover.
Quest needs UV-C death rays, not hand tracking – Image courtesy Oculus
There are a few ways to mostly sterilize your headset, but you may be better off focusing on keeping it generally clean unless you suspect it’s been exposed to a nasty pathogen. While we’d rather point you to the WHO or the CDC for advice on something so dire, here’s a few tips to consider in addition to your own research:
Alcohol-free Antibacterial wipes: Non-alcohol based antibacterial wipes are perfect for cleaning facial interfaces, both foam and less porous surfaces like PU leather, and there are actually some on the market specifically designed for the task. VR Cover sells alcohol-free, hypoallergenic and unscented wipes just for the job. These include hydrogenated castor oil however, which may leave some residue on lenses.
Ultraviolet Light: The nuclear option. Short of baking your VR headset in an oven (don’t do that), you can sanitize pretty much anything with UV radiation, namely UV-C radiation. UV-C light destroys the molecular bonds that hold together the DNA of viruses and bacteria in a matter of minutes, and is used in hospital settings for that purpose, as well as in nail curing boxes to quickly dry nail polish. You can pay up to $200 for a UV-C box from manufacturers like PhoneSoap, which offer a box big enough to fit a VR headset, or you can make one yourself. This UV-C Shoebox Instructable shows the basics of how to go low-tech with a UV-C light, cardboard, and some aluminium foil. Like with ordinary sun rays, it’s probably best to cover the lenses if you go this route because of possible damage to the displays. Never look directly at a UV-C light either. Eyeballs are important.
Quarantine your headset: Maybe you lent your headset to a friend who has a virus, cold, whatever. One of the lowest tech solutions is to simply put down the headset and leave it be. According to a study from the Nation Institutes of Health (NIH), the coronavirus (COVID-19) has been observed live up to four hours on copper, up to a day on cardboard, and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. Don’t burn it with fire, or smoother it with hand sanitizer. Follow the steps above, and maybe take a rest from VR for a little while if you think your sick little cousin coughed inside it.
– – — – –
Having gone to tradeshows for the past five years and undergoing hundreds of VR demos from headset manufacturers such as Oculus, HTC, Pimax, Google, and more, I can say that I’ve personally seen staff use isopropyl alcohol wipes for quick and easy sanitation. I hesitate to offer that advice to anyone with a headset for personal use, simply because these companies are prioritizing user safety over device longevity. Whatever the case, make sure to check your manufacturer’s guidelines so you don’t void your warranty.
A small patch to Half-Life: Alyx has added continuous turning, made adjustments to a key gesture for Windows VR users, and squashed a few bugs.
While continuous turning is never a default in VR games because it makes many people dizzy, there are those who find themselves unaffected by smooth turning and prefer to play that way for enhanced immersion. Though Half-Life: Alyx didn’t ship with a continuous turning option, Valve has added it in Update 1.1. With that addition they also renamed the ‘Quick Turn’ option to ‘Snap Turn’ to bring it in line with the common VRnacular, and added an option to disable controller turning entirely.
For Windows VR users, the update improves the ‘hand-over-mouth’ pose to work better with the WMR controllers. The pose turns out to be important later in the game.
Update 1.1 for Half-Life: Alyx also improved automated detection of quality settings for some hardware configurations, which means users should get better default recommendations for the game’s graphical settings.
Valve says it also fixed some sound bugs and “several crashes.”
As ever, if you’re having unexpected crashes in Half-Life: Alyx or performance issues, it’s always worth trying to update to your latest GPU driver. You can find NVIDIA drivers here and AMD drivers here, or check your respective GPU dashboard software for the latest driver.
There was a lot riding on Half-Life: Alyx. Not only is it Valve’s first Half-Life game in more than a decade, it is also the studio’s first full fledged VR title. By the measurable reactions from critics and players alike, the game seems to have delivered against the odds.
There was so much pre-release hype surrounding Half-Life: Alyx that I was personally worried that expectations had become entirely unrealistic. But the results are in and there seems to be widespread agreement that it’s a damn great game. Not just a great VR game, but a great game among all games. At least, that’s what review data is showing.
Looking at aggregate scores of critical reviews of 2020 PC games on Metacritic, Half-Life: Alyx is the best rated so far. With an average score of 92 across 32 critic reviews, the game has beaten out major 2020 releases like Doom Eternal [90] and Ori and the Will of the Wisps [89].
When looking at the top rated PC titles of all time on Metacritic, Alyx holds the 31st position in the list, surrounded by PC gaming classics like The Sims (2000), Warcraft III (2002), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2005), while far exceeding Half-Life 2: Episode One & Two.
Looking specifically at the best critically rated VR games of all time on Metacritic, Half-Life: Alyx sits at #2. Here’s the breakdown of the top five:
93 – Beat Saber (2019)
92 – Half-Life: Alyx (2020)
90 – Astro Bot: Rescue Mission (2018)
89 – Lone Echo (2017)
88 – Asgard’s Wrath (2019)
Half-Life: Alyx has also topped the list on Steam, where it now stands as the #1 rated VR game of all time according to Steam250, a review ranking site which weighs both user reviews and number of reviews to determine rankings.
Valve’s debut VR title has also broke records among VR games for concurrent players and concurrent Twitch viewers, and it’s starting to look like the game will have a lasting impact on VR going forward as ‘the game to beat’ when it comes to single-player narrative action in VR.
