Mister Jack

GAME OF THE YEAR Yeah this one really couldn't have been anything else. I've never really been one for CRPGs but this one finally managed to suck me in. It's just such an enormous game with so much player choice and such great and memorable party members along with such deep and tactical combat that I really had no choice but to pick the same game most other people out there are picking. This one won the game awards for a damn good reason and I'm itching to replay it in co-op sometime. You could probably replay this ten times and have ten different experiences. The next Dragon Age or Mass Effect game has a hell of a tough act to follow after this one. RUNNER-UP I was fully prepared to put Tears of the Kingdom as the runner-up, and in fact I did just that in the poll for the other GOTY thread, but then I played Asgard's Wrath II and it just blew me away. Is it as big or deep as Zelda? No, of course not, but the thing is that Tears of the Kingdom was basically Breath of the Wild except better while Asgard's Wrath II, despite being a sequel, gave me an experience unlike anything else I've played before, especially in VR. It felt more fresh than Tears of the Kingdom did, so I just have to give it bonus points for that. It will probably be a long time before I experience combat that is this much fun again. Lots of VR games let you swing a sword around, but somehow it just feels so much better doing it in this one, and that's not even getting into the other weapons you get to play with in your loadout. Wielding a blade, a whip, a shield, a ranged weapon, and magic all at the same time against enemies who don't pull their punches makes battles more satisfying than anything I've felt in a VR game before. That's not even getting into the creative puzzles that will have you utilizing your god form, your mortal form, and your animal powers all at once to get through dungeons. This is probably the closest thing to a Zelda game we're going to get in VR anytime soon. HONORABLE MENTION I normally try not to put three games in a post like this but man, 2023 was just such a kickass year for games, maybe the best year since 2017. While I could put Zelda here and I would definitely say Zelda was the superior game in comparison, a Zelda game hardly needs to be given special mention. Outside of Nioh 2, Lies of P is the best Soulslike game not made by From that I have played to date. The atmosphere, the story, the combat, it all just scratches that Bloodborne itch in me that has been going neglected for ages. I think I ended up completing it five times before I put it down. It was pretty punishingly inaccessible at launch, but it has since been patched to make it easier for new players to get into it without hitting a brick wall. I recommend it to anyone who liked Bloodborne and I can't wait for the sequel.

Real Yakuza don't wait for 2024.

Asgard's Wrath II This is it. This is the killer app, the system seller, the reason to buy a Quest. I'm sure a lot of people scoffed at Meta when they tried to enter the gaming space (and don't get me wrong, the Metaverse is still embarrassing), but if Oculus Studios keeps putting out titles of this caliber then Valve and Playstation had better step it up because this surpasses Half-Life: Alyx as the best VR game currently in existence. I don't know where to begin with how much I loved this game. I already thought the first one was really good, but this one is such a leap that it feels like the jump from Half-Life to Half-Life 2. Not only did they fix the few complaints I had with the first game, but they improved things that I didn't even think needed to be improved. Despite the name of the game, this time you're trekking through both the Norse and Egyptian pantheons, with the plot explaining it as Loki's machinations causing the threads of fate to unravel throughout the universe and it falls to you to fix it. The number of animal companions has been reduced to 5, but to make up for it each one can also be used as a mount to traverse the huge open maps. The developers claim this has a 60 hour campaign and yeah, that wasn't a lie. This game is enormous and stuffed with content. The one major complaint I had in the last game was the divine shield mechanic that required you to parry specific attacks to break the shields before you could do any damage. Divine shields still exist in this game, but they've been improved significantly. For starters, no enemy has more than one shield now, even bosses. Second, you can do chip damage to the shield with regular attacks. Third, there are multiple ways to open up enemy weak points, and if you hit those weak points then it not only does huge damage to their shield but it also refills your own. You never feel like you're just waiting for an opportunity to do damage anymore. Combat is fast, intense, challenging, and responsive. I can easily say this is the best melee combat I've ever experienced in a VR game, and since you're once again playing a god who possesses multiple mortal heroes, that means everyone has a different loadout to play with. Some of them are extremely creative and you would never be able to guess what kind of weapon some of them use. The puzzles are tricky but fair and boss battles are epic. The final boss battle is, once again, the best I've experienced in VR to date. As if a huge campaign that lasts dozens of hours wasn't enough, they also included a free roguelike mode where you traverse through a dungeon to compete for high scores, farm items for the single-player campaign, and complete challenges to unlock cosmetics for your godly avatar. Oh yeah, almost forgot, you can share your avatar throughout the campaign From Software style to show off your character or give hints to other players. They are also doing seasonal events for the roguelike mode so there will always be new things to unlock. This mode would be the full game for most VR titles and here they just threw it in as a side thing. It's fantastic. If I absolutely had to pick a negative point, and I am loath to do so, it's that it's not a graphical darling compared to the likes of Alyx. It doesn't look ugly, mind you, but as a native Quest game it has to work within the constraints of the hardware. The developers absolutely did the best they could with what they had to work with and what they managed to make is very impressive, but you still shouldn't put this on expecting Alyx level graphics. That's my only complaint, and it's not even really a complaint, more just me trying to be fair with my assessment. While the game also works on Quest 2, I am so glad I experienced it on the Quest 3, which not only got a graphics patch to take advantage of the extra power but the pancake lenses make it look so damn good. I can't go back to fresnel. Had I beaten this game when we were doing the game of the year poll this one absolutely would have made it onto the list, probably near the top.

I haven't finished it

The idea is that by using buttons instead of a stick you can get faster and more accurate inputs once you get used to it.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 I was always a casual enjoyer of the FNAF franchise at best, but the first Help Wanted was an excellent VR game with remakes of the first four games in the series along with a smattering of minigames to top it off. Well, this one is all minigames. Maybe around 20 or so? I didn't think to actually count them, but it took me 8 hours to beat them all and get both endings, which seems reasonable enough. A few of the minigames are new versions of the usual gameplay of the series where you have to watch cameras and close doors and vents, only this time they're harder because unlike the first game which just remade the originals and thus playing in VR gave you an advantage over the AI, these levels are designed from the ground up for VR, meaning you'll have to do things like look outside your office occasionally to see if anyone is lurking around the corner. The rest of the minigames, excluding things like the surprisingly creative shooting galleries, are typically based around performing complex tasks under the pressure of either a strict time limit or an animatronic hunting you in the background (or both). Some of these can get pretty frantic, especially on the hard mode. There are plenty of games where you have to take food orders, but putting together orders in VR while an impatient robot hovers over you so she can kill you if you get it wrong just hits different. This is one of those games that would be fun to watch other people play at a party or something. I tend to have nerves of steel but I bet it would be pretty amusing to watch a total wuss try to do arts and crafts while getting stalked in the dark.

Just in time for the sex update! Yes, really.

Playing Asgard's Wrath II right now and holy hot damn this game is amazing. This might surpass Half Life: Alyx as the best VR game for me. At the very least, it's neck and neck right now. Anyone who owns a Quest headset absolutely needs to play it.

Asgard's Wrath I got this game along with its recently released sequel for free when I bought my Quest 3, so I figured I might as well give it a shot and see what I was missing out on since everyone always praises this game and yeah, the praise is justified. This game is great, not to mention lengthy. The campaign will take you about 30 to 40 hours, but if you want to 100% everything I could see someone playing this for close to 100 hours. It's just that packed. I didn't quite understand what kind of game this was from trailers I saw but it basically works like this. There are two modes in this game: god mode and hero mode. When playing as a god, the environments are like tiny little dioramas that you can manipulate to help your hero navigate. You can do things like repair broken structures to help your hero, solve giant sized environmental puzzles, and transform wild animals into beastmen servants. When you possess a hero, the game is basically an action rpg. The beastmen part is what really makes this game unique. After you pick up and transform an animal in god mode, the animal will help out your hero not just with combat, but also with puzzles. Each animal has its own unique ability that can affect the environment in certain ways. The turtle, for example, can block flame turrets with her shell while the owl can see hidden paths. You'll be switching between them frequently, which is easily done just by pointing at them and selecting the right animal with a button press. If they get separated from you, you can summon them to your side just by pointing at your feet. Not only that, but you can build up friendships with them by feeding them their favorite foods, keeping them healthy, and high-fiving them to celebrate after battles. Animals with high friendship will find rare items for you while you're adventuring. I grew pretty fond of all of them. When you're not solving puzzles, the other half of the game is about combat, which is pretty cool. You play over several different sagas and control different heroes, all with their own unique weapons and style. While you start off with your traditional sword and bow heroine, other heroes use weapons with completely different but still fun mechanics. I can't really decide which hero was my favorite. Battles emphasize parrying quite a bit since they open up opportunities to get in a critical hit, and the location based damage is very satisfying. I lost count of how many times I literally split an enemy in half down the middle and watched them peel open like a banana. It never gets old. I really only have one complaint about this game, but it's a big one. There are enemies in the game who have runic armor, which basically means you cannot hurt them at all until you get rid of it. How do you get rid of it? You parry them until their rage meter fills, at which point they'll attempt a signature attack. Parry the signature attack to stun them, then hit them to destroy the armor. Doesn't sound so bad, but some of these attacks are hard to parry and if you fail then the rage meter empties halfway and you have to build it up again. Not only that, but later enemies will have anywhere from three to five layers of runic armor, which means you won't be hurting them whatsoever until you get every last layer off. Upgraded weapons can remove two layers in one blow, but it still drags out battles quite a bit. If you play on the easy difficulty this becomes a non-issue since the runic armor just acts like an extended health bar, but if you do that then, you know, you have to play on easy. That one glaring flaw aside, I have almost nothing negative to say about this game. By all accounts, the sequel is even better so I'm really looking forward to digging in to it.

Arizona Sunshine II The first game came out in the early days of consumer VR and was really more like a tech demo while this is a proper game with about an 8 hour campaign. Unlike Walking Dead, which is more about survival, this is a straight up action shooter. The tone is lighthearted, ammo is plentiful, and zombie body parts explode into cartoonish gore. In fact, the gore is what really makes the gunplay so satisfying. You can blow off limbs, bits of flesh, and sometimes headshots will rip off chunks of a zombie's skull, leaving their exposed brains sticking out of the hole you just made. Shooting zombies just feels good, and since that's the whole point of the game it's definitely a good thing that they nailed that part. Some zombies are also covered with armor-like patches of infection, meaning you need to either aim at uncovered areas or sacrifice more bullets to get through it. The other big feature of the game is Buddy, the German Shepherd companion who follows you through the campaign. Put simply, he's the best. You can pet him, play fetch with him, and even put funny little hats on him. Do they do anything? Nope! But who doesn't like a dog in a hat? More practically, he can fetch items for you, open up barricaded doors, hold guns for you, and attack zombies on command. Sometimes he'll also jump on zombies who get too close to you. He saved my butt from a surprise attack more than once. The plot isn't very deep, but they clearly want you to care about Buddy and I'd say they managed to pull off that much. As a side note, you don't have to worry about protecting Buddy from zombies. He can handle himself just fine and you don't have to worry about watching your dog die every time you screw up. While I do recommend the game to VR users, especially when it has cross-platform online co-op, it is a bit of a flawed gem. Clipping was fairly frequent, and while it never broke the game it certainly broke my immersion. Your gun belt is also very sensitive, and while it's nice that you will pretty much always be able to reach your gun when you need it, it can sometimes make it hard to grab objects that have fallen on the floor. You can adjust the height of the belt, but as far as I can tell you can't adjust the size of the ring. I don't know if the PSVR2's eye tracking helps with this issue. I played on the Quest 3. Lastly, you only have two inventory slots for healing items or explosives, so while you can craft bombs and grenades at crafting stations the chances are you often won't have anywhere to put them and will just be holding them in your hands until you find something to throw them at. A couple more spaces would have been nice. I still had a blast with it and plan to replay the campaign in co-op pretty soon.

I'm sure it will feel weird reading chapters that aren't Miura's, but it would feel much worse for this story to go unfinished.

Have they even put out any new chapters yet? I haven't checked on that in a while because I figured it would take ages.

I've been using the Quest 3 for a few days now and I think that's long enough to formulate my impressions on it. As some of you may remember, I already owned a Quest 2 so this is an upgrade for me rather than a new foray into the world of VR. How does it compare? Well, by just about every metric this is an improvement. I'll break it down by categories. Comfort It is my understanding that despite being thinner, the Quest 3 actually doesn't weigh less than the Quest 2 by more than maybe a few grams. Even if this is true, it certainly feels lighter. In fact, next to the PSVR2 this is the lightest feeling headset I've tried. This probably comes down to better weight distribution. The slimmer profile is bound to factor into this and the strap it comes with in the box offers better support, though I do still plan to replace it with a third party strap. If you do buy this without any intention to modify it, however, I don't think you'd be terribly burdened by the stock parts, unlike the Quest 2 where I pretty much immediately wanted to switch out the strap and the facial interface. The interface on this one is much more comfortable than the default interface on the 2. Would a third party one be better? Maybe, but I don't really feel a need to spend the money on one, at least not right now. It doesn't get all sweaty and uncomfortable like that one did. You can also adjust the lenses with a dial on the bottom now rather than having to take off the headset and physically move them with your fingers. The dial also lets you change between 10 positions instead of just 3 and it shows a handy indicator on the screen to let you know which measurement you have selected. It makes finding the sweet spot much, much easier than on any other headset I've used. Controllers These are honestly pretty similar to the old controllers except they got rid of the tracking ring in favor of tracking LEDs on the surface of the controller itself. So far it works just fine and I haven't really had any tracking issues, at least nothing that messed up a game for me. Supposedly they don't track the space directly above your head as well as the 2 controllers did, but they track the space over your shoulders better, which seems much more important. I managed to use sniper rifles in Pavlov without losing any tracking while looking through the scope, at least. There are also haptic triggers, but I haven't really played anything that takes advantage of these yet. The buttons and stick feel slightly higher quality, but it's not exactly like a jump from a regular controller to an elite one. The biggest improvement here is losing the rings. Visuals This is definitely the biggest upgrade, as it should be. The Quest 2 had a pretty good screen for the time, but with VR you always just have to accept a little bit of screen door effect or a little bit of fuzziness even on good headsets. This one, however, is much more clear. The flat pancake lenses mean I never really get the sense I'm looking at lenses, if that makes any sense. I don't see any rings or anything like that. Text is crystal clear and easy to read, when before there were times when I would occasionally have to squint to read on the 2. The field of view is slightly larger, though you're still going to see the facial interface on the edges of your peripheral vision. There is a little light bleed on the bottom too, so the real world still comes through if you tilt your eyes downward, but I kind of prefer it that way because it gives me a means to orient myself if I get confused about my physical space. Features The biggest new feature that Meta loves to tout is mixed reality. I'll be honest, I haven't really messed with any MR games, but I have used the color passthrough while wearing it, which is a HUGE improvement. While the color camera isn't exactly anything you'd want to shoot a video with, it does make it easy to see your surroundings and even check your phone without having to take off the headset. The visuals do get a little bit wobbly if you hold it too close to the lens, but this is easy enough to work around. I'm skeptical that MR games are really going to take off, especially when they're such a battery drain, but I do enjoy not having to take off the headset anytime I get a notification or a phone call. Battery This is the downside of all the new tech. I turned off the controllerless hand tracking for the sake of saving power and even then I get two hours at best out of this thing per charge. To be fair, it can charge back up to full from 0% in less than two hours, which is pretty good, but the fact remains that the Quest 3 is a power hungry beast. Don't bother plugging in ordinary power banks either, because they won't charge the headset faster than it drains power. This means that Quest 2 battery packs won't work with it either. You'll have to look for batteries that are very specifically graded for the Quest 3 because anything less than I believe 30w just won't cut it. I myself plan on buying a Kiwi battery strap as soon as they drop on Amazon, which is supposed to give you an extra 2-4 hours depending on what you're playing. 4 to 6 hours in VR is plenty, in my opinion. Sound I'm no audiophile so I can't really give you in-depth specifics about trebles or bass or anything like that. I will only say that it sounds better and louder than the 2 and I don't feel the need to use earbuds or a headset while playing it. All in all, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I know Valve is rumored to be working on an Index successor, but even if they are I'm sure it will be really expensive, so I'll probably be sticking with my $500 Quest 3. As PC headsets go (and I do primarily use it for Steam VR despite being able to play standalone games) it really is the perfect combination of convenience, comfort, affordability, and reliability for me.

I don't know if I could come up with 10 games. Maybe 5.

Had 300 dollars in Amazon points from all the medical equipment I always buy so I decided to get myself a little treat.

All I know is the Alan Wake Remaster still isn't on Steam.

Epic is the publisher for Alan Wake 2 so I wouldn't hold my breath for ever seeing it on Steam. Anyway... Cultic This is a retro style FPS that was made pretty much entirely by one guy. It's on the short side but you know what? He did a pretty good job. While there are only ten maps, they're all pretty big and full of secrets. Excluding the final boss, each one probably took me around 20 to 30 minutes to clear on hard mode. There's a decent enemy variety and this game clearly takes a lot of inspiration from Blood, only without the bullshit hitscan enemies that game had and thank god for that. Something that impressed me was that all the weapons not only feel good, but are also useful through the entire game, and that includes the starting pistol. I only upgraded the pistol once, but it shoots fast and makes for a pretty decent midrange sniper weapon if your aim is good. You will rarely be swimming in ammo and guns have fairly low ammo caps so you're encouraged to use every tool in your arsenal. Picking one favorite and sticking with it isn't really an option, but I didn't really mind this because, like I said, they're all fun. You also get throwables in the form of TNT bundles and molotov cocktails. Fire is crazy good in this game. Once you set someone aflame they will pretty much flail around helplessly until they burn to death and will ignite anyone they touch along the way, much like they did in Blood. Headshots are also extremely satisfying. I'm talking blood geysers here. The game does end on a cliffhanger, but there's already a chapter 2 planned. Not sure if it will be DLC or a new release, but either way this game is only 10 bucks, which is more than fair for the amount of content on offer.

Alan Wake II Worth the wait. Like Ethan said, they changed it from an action horror to a more full-on survival horror kind of game. You rarely fight more than two enemies at a time, but they're now much more dangerous individually than they ever were before and I can't remember a single moment where I ever maxed out the ammo for any of my guns. The game looks great, the story answers many questions that have been hanging for over a decade, and of course it is also a technical marvel. If I have any complaints I suppose it's that sometimes it's easy to get lost and not know where to go due to the world operating on dark presence logic, which is a far cry from earthly logic. Key items will sometimes magically appear where they didn't exist before, bathrooms will take you to an entirely different floor in a building, walls will be blocked off until you change the lighting in a room, and so on. You get used to it, but there can still be moments of frustration. Even then, this is still my favorite Remedy game ever made. Can't wait to see where the DLC takes it.

Five Nights at Freddy's What a fucking mess. I wasn't expecting it to be good to begin with. I figured it'd be mediocre at best and I could just enjoy it as a campy guilty pleasure, but it's seriously all over the place. The story makes no sense even for a FNAF movie and that is really saying something because the franchise lore is already absurd to begin with. There are plot holes everywhere, character motivations are nonexistent or nonsensical, and the movie tends to just make up bullshit for the sake of having a twist. Nothing even really happens for most of the film and we get dragged along on some subplot about a guy's dreams that isn't interesting or fun. Oh yeah, and this is a PG13 horror movie so don't expect to see any cool kills either. That's really the biggest crime at the end of the day. It's boring. A real shame too, because the animatronic effects by the Jim Henson Creature Shop are actually quite charming and accurate to the source material. I really hate that the labors of such talented special effects artists were wasted on such a dogshit script.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 I already thought the first game was the best Spider-Man game ever made, but somehow they managed to make it even better. I expected just a small update with better graphics and story, but the combat and traversal has been fine-tuned so much that it almost feels like a whole new game. The biggest improvement for traversal is easily the web wings that allow you to mix gliding in with your swinging. It doesn't sound like it would change that much on paper but it really does. There are also a few new swing abilities in there as well which are all pretty useful. The best combat change is, ironically, removing the gadget wheel and instead putting them on the face buttons, usable by holding down R1 while pushing one of the buttons. While this does mean you have fewer gadgets to use, the four gadgets you do get are all useful and you don't have to pause the fight to switch between them. You also get four spider abilities assigned to L1 plus a face button, so all-in-all you have eight abilities you can use with both Peter and Miles and you never have to break up the flow of the fight to use them. It works really well. The story might be somewhat predictable, but it's delivered well and it still had a few surprising twists and cameos. I got invested enough to binge the whole campaign in a little under three days. Miles and Peter both have their own arcs and their narratives weave together quite nicely. Switching between them is nice and seamless and can be done automatically if you're approaching a mission exclusive to one character. One touch I especially liked is that sometimes when doing a side activity you'll run into the other Spider-Man who is already doing it and then the two of you can work together to finish it, complete with banter and team attacks against enemies. Even if it's a gimmick, it's a nice way to make it feel like they both have their own lives and aren't just sitting around waiting for you to switch back to them. This game is also a lot harder than the first one. They do have a super easy game journalist difficulty where you can't die if you're a wimp, but if you play on Amazing or higher you can expect to get your ass kicked a good bit even if you mastered the first game. They've introduced a new parry mechanic and some enemies have attacks that cannot be dodged and can only be parried, which means you've got one more thing to keep up with. Some enemies also have attacks that cannot be parried and can only be dodged. Chances are you're gonna screw up many times in the heat of battle while you're getting the hang of it, but once you do it feels better than any Arkham game I've played, and that's saying something. Honestly, if you own a PS5 then why haven't you already bought this game? The console is starved for exclusives. Go get it.

I can't even get IN to my Epic account because it got locked at some point and they have the world's most unhelpful support team.

I want this one but those PC requirements are insane AND it's Epic exclusive so when I get around to it I guess I'll be getting the PS5 version.