Recent reviews by PuttPuttTheTruck

Until Then has one of, if not the best story in any game. Go in blind and press continue. in all 100 lifetimes

I finish high school in a few months, i am so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cooked

decent game but development is weird, why is the dev talking about working on update 5 while update 3 shows no sign of releasing?????

Very good benchmark, eh game

Daniel Mullins is incredible, play it, don't look up anything

Please remove the VR mode. (not even just the desync in multiplayer) It's 3DOF in 2023, we haven't had 3DOF PCVR games since before the DK2 came out in 2014. When you interact with something the camera SHIFTS TO FOCUS ON IT, IN VR. Even in singleplayer the hands are not even close to aligned with your controllers, they are also weirdly huge. I assumed it's just because I was using a Q2, but it turns out the dev used a Q2 as well... and didn't align the hands to their own controller? I know it's an annoying part of vr gamedev but you can't release on steam with that issue. In VR things render on top when they clearly aren't supposed to. You can't pick items up with your hands like you'd expect at all, they just disappear into your inventory when you touch them. Controls are very nonsensical throughout. LEFT GRIP IS CROUCH???? Definitely don't expect hand collisions with the environment.

Playing this feels like the developer has never played a VR game before and had zero concept of the rules and standards of modern VR while making the VR mode of this game. This would have been way behind everything if it released with the Rift CV1 in 2016.

That said, if you plan on playing in flatscreen, it's a decent, albeit unpolished and not very scary backrooms game.

10/10 gameplay, smartest and most well thought out puzzle design I've ever seen in a game. Though there is not really any story, even compared to Inside and Limbo. Graphics are pleasing with some really well done shaders and particle effects, sound design is fantastic and it runs very well.

I have never played this game before i swear

I've played many VR games and I can say with confidence this is the best VR game ever made, I would even consider it to be in the top 5 best games EVER. It does right what so many VR games have got wrong.

CLIMBING:
It has the best climbing I've ever seen in a VR game, no instant snapping like Alyx, no shaky "realistic physics" system like in Boneworks, it just lerps to your hands creating a bit of drag and it feels weighty and works perfectly. A while ago Zach made a video called "I solved VR ladders maybe", he definitely did.

WEAPONS:
Guns are great too, there are SIXTEEN! (I think) They all have fantastic reloads, and all feel impactful, with the exception of the trident SMG which seems to do very little damage compared to the others.

The gun upgrade system is great too, with many to find and very interesting upgrades that often change up the weapon's gameplay in meaningful ways.

STORY:
The story and lore are great, I'm yet to get the second ending, so I can't comment on that (at the very tail end of my NG+ run). The writing is really funny, but what kept me interested in the story is the fleshed out lore, it feels like you are in a fully thought-out universe, or multiple ;), All in all I loved the feeling of being in this world.

COMBAT:
Combat feels really good, super satisfying, when bullets connect you know. It can be pretty tough towards the end of the campaign, even on normal, but it forced me to really plan out how I was going to beat a certain encounter, which I liked. There's an enormous variety of enemies, and with your huge arsenal of weapons combat never gets old. The cubehead guys are my favourite, they're funny :)

PHYSICS:
Physics interactions are pretty important in VR games, and Vertigo 2 does better than most, the physics on held items and guns feel great. fantastically weighty. Something I noticed loosely related to physics is the fact there's no hand poses on bigger items, when you grab a big cube for example your hands just close, without looking like you're grabbing it. I'm sure this was probably done due to glitches with it, I know the annoyance of working with hand poses, but it takes me out a bit. Chairs are also pretty glitchy they tend to fling you around if you attempt to grab them.

Don't try to hold a weapon in a moving vehicle, if it touches anything inside the vehicle it will do some cyberpunk 2077 style stuff with your arm flinging it around everywhere and sometimes making your arms fly off into the distance. It looks like an issue with unity physics, but since you don't ever need to use your weapons in vehicles, maybe disabling them once you enter could fix it.

Unfortunately another physics issue is doors, if you push through them in the wrong way you do tend to get your arms stuck in them for a few seconds which happens really often on 90HZ, I turned my headset up to 120HZ and the issue was a lot less pronounced. Most people will likely be running the game on 90HZ though. This issue isn't brought up very much so maybe it isn't an issue for most people.

I also want to note that the IK on the arms is fantastic, honestly the best I've ever seen, it's not really physics related but there's nowhere better to put it.

GRAPHICS:
Graphics are really good, enemy models look great, The environments are sprawling and look beautiful. The particle effects are really nice, I love some good particle effects, also loved them in Vertigo Remastered. Weapon models are masterfully done.

One issue I do have though is the human animation, honestly, it's not great, Brian looks pretty goofy, both his animations and his character model, but the entire game is made by one person so it's unfair to be annoyed over what is a small aspect of an incredible game, plus the animations of other creatures look good.

CAMPAIGN:
To me, the campaign is the most impressive part of Vertigo 2, the entire thing made just by Zach, It is absolutely jawdropping, the best campaign I have ever seen in a VR game, maybe besides Alyx (which suffers from boring combat, unlike Vertigo 2). There's tons of variety here, there's even a level that has 2 separate paths and bossfights, I'm not gonna spoil anything, you should go play it.

It took me what I would guess is 12 hours, and I didn't even look for the weapon mods or secret weapons on my first go, there is tons to do in this game, and with the coming level editor and workshop support, the content here will be near limitless.

SOUND:
The music is really good, like really really good, I've already put a few tracks from the game into my playlists, I'm still in shock after hearing that Zach also produced all the music.

The sound effects are also very good, and react to your environment.

PERFORMANCE:
I was so happy with the performance here, I have a PC on the older side and have pretty bad performance issues with most VR games, areas of Boneworks drop down to <30FPS for me, Alyx is really stuttery and I can't play Blade and Sorcery in anything other than 1v1 mode without my FPS dropping below 90. In Vertigo 2 on the other hand I can run the game at 120HZ 95% of the time!! I have NEVER been able to do that with any other VR game before, I can barely run the home menu at that lmao. There was clearly a lot of work put into optimisation and my PC (and me) are very grateful.

FINAL NOTES:
If I'm missing anything I'll update the review, there's a lot here to talk about here so sorry if the review seems a bit rambly. If you plan on taking in the story I recommend playing Vertigo Remastered first, the combat isn't as good, but it's very entertaining and still a fantastic game. My final verdict is if you own a VR headset, I can't stress enough that this is the first game you should be playing, you'll 100% enjoy it.

Also side note, Zach, if you're somehow reading this, I wanted to say you're a huge inspiration to me. I've almost finished highschool now, and have been making games for years, and am just now trying to learn VR development. The fact you've made this incredible VR game, starting in HS, mainly on your own is just mind blowing. I'm sure I'll never be able to undertake a project as ambitious as this, but your work really inspires me :)

10/10 Game

game make me sad :( poor man just wants to play cards he didn't deserve it