Recent reviews by PhyterNL

It appears the Hearth and Home update has broken the Boss playthrough. I cannot progress to Eikthyr. Even with more than enough trophies it tells me "nothing happens" when adding them to the alter. In fact, I cannot submit anything to the alter at all. No amount. So it looks like the game is soft locked.

It's genuinely hard to tell this is an early access title. The licensed songs are kick'n, the engine is smooth as silk, the interface is functional, the levels are polished, there is a good progression of difficulty with enormous replay value, and the global scoring system appears to work without issue. It's shocking that this is Beat Games first time up at bat because they've hit a home run.

If I'm going to be super critical then there are a few missing features... Difficulty levels in single saber play are missing. There is no option to disable the menu button on the Vive Wand during a song which is far too easily pressed by accident. There is no clock and no "Remember to take a break!" reminders. It would be wise and useful to include a reminder on launch to always use the straps as well.

But my biggest gripe is that there is no STAR WARS mode I can knock down blaster beams with my laser swords!!! Okay maybe that's not a real complaint (or maybe it is?). |O| <-- tie fighter

I love the game. It's a crazy workout every time and it's going to be a huge success. Years from now we're going to be looking back on "Vanilla Beat Saber" and marveling about how far the game as come.

Note, this is not a game, per se. This is a walk through discovery adventure title much like Dear Ester. You can't die, there are no weapons, you aren't going to be attacked, creatures aren't going to jump scare you... well except for that one thing (I'll let you worry about that later). The point is there isn't much to this other than the enjoyment of exploration, but to that end the game is exquisite.

Using the LIDAR scanner to reveal the world around you is a visceral form of interaction that for some reason makes it feel more 'real'. The mind is forced to imagine the texture of the rock, imagine the rippling water, imagine the finer details in the models and terrain. In so doing it becomes quite memorable.

The audio is haunting and beautiful. The experience moves seamlessly from calm to tense to overwhelmingly wondrous, like some sort of Disneyland dark ride.

Some artistic license was taken with regard to the way the LIDAR works. Instead of being static data points, the points are sort of "glued" to the objects they hit. So when the object animates, they animate. It's kind of weird but I can understand the reasons for not going with a more realistic system.

The game is not perfect. There are many things I didn't like or feel could use improvement:
* I felt the story was far too simple and I did not care for the ending at all.
* The experience is not bug-free, I ended up inside walls several times and on one occasion I was not able to warp out.
* The grey warp circle is difficult to see at times.
* I did not like the fact that some objects are permanently outlined and can be seen from virtually any distance, I didn't really see the point.
* Near the end of the game in the larger chambers there are serious frame rate issues on the map (I run a 6500+980Ti).
* The fly back at the end of the game features sharp cinematic cuts which are extremely uncomfortable in VR.

Despite these issues I have to give this a thumbs up. The artistic uniqueness, the ambiance, the adventure. I don't believe I would feel as strongly if I wasn't playing it in VR. So if you've got a Rift or Vive, pick this one up. It's a rough cut gem that need some polish, but still a gem!

Ha!! This is one weird game and I love it. The paddle ball mechanic can be frustrating when you're in a hurry but that's part of the challenge. The level design is not inspired, very simple, but functional and for this concept I think simple works just fine. I love the dialog and you can tell the voice actors had some fun with it too. Pick up this title for five bucks in early access and help these guys out. Don't let the weirdness die!

The duck hunting portion of the game is simple but fun and quite challenging. I had some trouble with the gun not loading in hectic moments, I think the cocking action could be smoothed out a bit. The story portion of the game is short but exceedingly clever. Keep in mind, this is a horror game and the ending I obtained on my first play through was... horrific... to say the least! I look forward to playing again to try to reveal the other endings and discovering more secrets.

-- edit --

and then...

I found more endings. The endings just keep getting better and better. Must play through multiple times!

GORN is the first Vive native VR game to really do melee combat right. If any of you have played Robo Recall for the Rift then you know pretty much how the melee combat works in this game. What sets GORN's combat apart from Robo Recall is that there is no warp mechanic. Instead you "walk" by holding down the touch pad and swinging your arms. The walking mechanic felt awkward at first, but after a little while it started to feel surprisingly natural. In fact, I found myself wanting to swinging my arms to walk in other games I played. Grabbing items and enemies works as exactly as you'd expect. And the stretch 'wobbly' physics allow you to get very creative with how you dispatch each foe. GORN is a serious contender for best VR game of 2017 and a serious workout to boot!

theBlu remains one of the best stand-in-place VR experiences. The scenes are breathtaking. I only wish there was more of it.

Slightly Mad has built a beautiful game. Truely mind blowing graphics, decent physics, good AI. Shame they failed to work on -> BASIC FUNCTIONALITY <-. Steering setup is extensive but numbing if the defaults don't work well for you and they probably won't. Driving with an XBox controller either doesn't work or is so twitchy as to be virtually unplayable. Slightly Mad has demonstrated themselves to be yet another developer who enjoys working on making their game look fancy before making their game actually work. It's a trend in the industry that needs to end.

While certain aspects of this need to be polished up and certain things just need to be added, such as loading animations between levels, this is such an amazing example of what a full-size Portal game would look like and work like in VR. I can't wait to see and play more! Kudos to all of the talented people who made this a reality.

Come on, Valve. Pour whatever time and money that's necessary into this to make it happen. I want to hear your Portal resprise!

SWINGING GUY MAN! SWINGING GUY MAN! Does what ever a swinging guy does. I've loved Windlands ever since it was a simple tech demo for the Oculus Rift devleopment kit. If you hate heights, you're going to love this game. It makes my palms sweat.

Unfortunately the game is having some problems with Vive right now. Although it's technically compatible with the Vive headset, it's currently unplayble. The touch pads are useless and the gappling hooks don't shoot with the triggers so you can't actually play the game anyway.

But if you have a Rift this is worth picking up. Very sweat inducing. Looking forward to the Vive issues being ironed out!

-update-

The initial issues with the Vive controllers had nothing to do with calibration (Vive controllers do not require calibration) but rather firmware. Once was the firmware was updated the controller wonkiness went away, triggers worked and the game is thuroughly enjoyable! Still very sweat-inducing though.