Kessler Effect
It’s a Sci-Fi TV show in VR. On sale it’s worth it. Not on sale, it’s ok. It has good visuals, but everything else is cheesy including the script, but you won’t care.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric First-Person Games.
TLDR; While the game has GREAT voice acting, and looks great, the nonsynched facial recognition they boost about, the rushed storyline, the somewhat weird writing, very short, a couple of nausea inducing parts (like really bad, and i have strong vrlegs) and pretty bad performance (50fps with a 1080) makes it hard to recommend.
This is a Mostly a Cinematic experience, with 3 endings, all branches and endings can be seen in ~30min. (you can choose a new branch after finishing the game so you dont need to go through everything again).
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
The Bunker
Decent story marred by ultra-linear gameplay and lack of basic features
“The Bunker” is a fairly decent post-apocalyptic thriller movie - turned into a deplorably poor game that repeats all the mistakes of the “interactive movies” of the 90s, a time when these products were expected to sell on the basis of their full-motion video alone, and gameplay was an afterthought.
The premise is fairly interesting. After a nuclear strike hit Great Britain, people try to survive in bunkers, and you are the youngest resident in one of these, having been born just when the attack happened. The game starts with all other residents already dead and you being the last survivor, clinging to your daily routine because you don’t know anything else. When a system failure requires you to break out of that routine and enter long abandoned parts of the facility, disturbing memories of your past resurface.
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric Indie Games.
TLDR
This is an introspective story on a well-explored topic: the Lone Survivor in a dystopic world. It’s done pretty well too, and has a good soundtrack for the presentation, but it’s not a game as the gamer community would define. The Bunker is an interactive story, where choices matter and actions have consequences.
DEETS
First, a few notes about the interactive aspects.
1.) Most of the choices you make will be in regards to finding cookies, as opposed to survival. It’s easy to miss the few minor collectables in the game if you’re not looking for them, and it’s not always intuitive to look where they may appear. Darkened corners, minor minutia of background details, and simple but unannounced puzzles are all a factor in various scenes.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
The Great C
This short adventure cinematic is well-made, though it has some of that “indie” charm to remind that it has been made by a small team of enthusiasts, rather than a heavy-hitter like ILMxLab. Most of the characters' animations are motion-captured performances, though there are plenty of character movements that are stilted and robotic, which were obviously manually-animated. The characters are cartoony, but expressive. And don’t let the character designs fool you… this story is not for young children.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Atmospheric 6DOF Games.
Not quite long enough to be called a movie and not quite short enough as the Google spotlight shorts. At 38 minutes long it’s almost as long as an episode of most series.
The story is good and the actors are quite believable. Graphically it looks a lot like Telltale (rip) games. Which kinda makes me sad that I’ll never see that studio dive into VR.
VR cinematic experiences are quite new and there is a lot of experimentation involved. Some of it really works, like the building case scene, where trying to follow both characters creates tension, or the final confrontation, where the scale of C really can be appreciated. Some of it doesn’t, like suddenly you feel like an ant watching giants and the next moment a giant watching ants. But that cam be expected in such a new medium.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
CINEVEO - VR Cinema
8/10
DK2 w/ runtime 0.7 , GTX 980 [Only have access to 4D Movie Theater 3.0 Beta]
PROS:
Theatre is well made (graphically pleasing) + ambient lighting that is linked to the image on screen is great
No Need to use keyboard and mouse everything can be navigated with gaze detection
Smooth Experience no judder at all
Subtitle Support
CONS:
0.7 runtime is very limited at the moment still waiting for update (cannot choose other theaters except main beta version)
There was one tvshow that started with low frame rate only on the screen not the theatre and took about 10 minutes to become smooth again
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
I really do not understand the negative reviews around. If you don’t know how to instal a codec well…the problem is yours. There are also instrucions on the website and in the manual.
However, I reccommend new users to wait for an update before buying this software (read the whole review).
In my opinion, “CINEVEO - VR Cinema” offers the BEST VR CINEMA EXPERIENCE so far, and especially for the 3D movies. It features a fully functional multiplayer movie theater in virtual reality, and you can even choose your seat!
– Real player with 9.5 hrs in game
Conscious Existence - A Journey Within
This is something that I honestly think everyone should see - pick a reason. But a few suggestions: 1. This thing is VERY system intensive. I have a 9900K system with 32gb RAM, a RTX2080Ti Founders ed., and m.2 nvme primary drives. I didn’t install this on a primary drive, I put it on a slower external as I do for new things. Well, the slow drive alone was enough to make this experience clip and stall on me, badly enough that I stopped it part of the way in as it ruins the experience utterly. (@dev, I sure hope there is some additional work that can be done on the buffering?) This means if you have an SSD, put it there or risk stutter and stalls, which ruin it frankly. 2. Put away the bitter sarcasms and stresses of the day before you experience this, and commit to just be open and present. The author is clearly trying to make a statement, but that statement may not be for everyone. Nor does it need to be. This is a beautiful experience in imagery, message, and sound (I am not sure what kind of headphones some reviewers are using, but my audio was extremely clear and full spectrum) I certainly would have a hard time thinking of a better way to practice being present, listening, and letting go of the cynical side for a few minutes than this. 3. I would suggest that you watch this while alone, and only so that you can react open and honestly to it and not react how others might expect of you. @Dev as others have suggested tweaks for replayability would be a nice add. I can think of several guided meditations that would fit beautifully and it should be relatively inexpensive to sound-engineer someone in to read. That is, If you are open to increasing your target objectives a bit (but I think, in doing so you would be promoting the spirit of the intent anyway)
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
I’m rather PISSED OFF I did not experience this on the index. The audio alone would of tested the index spatial performance to the max.
Imagine dying and coming back to life and then appreciating your room. YOUR ROOM! A feeling enhanced by Infinity! That feeling! The production crew managed to pull that out of me. I appreciated life, looking at the sky, the sun, the ground, the trees. Even an ANT I observed under a magnifying glass. It’s like all your senses melted into one neural pulse. This is how I felt after I came back from death. And after the high, I am now feeling normalized and I validated my existence now and for ever more.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Rainy Season
This Game is Truly something, as someone who really Loves Japan and Anime and just the general Culture of the Country and recently have found out how beautiful it looks in the Rain i was quick to buy this and for only 2 Pounds it is a Must try in my opinion, you can pick how long the day lasts ranging from 20 mins to 1 Hour and there is different Day Dreams you can expierence. This Game is also amazing for wallpapers or Photos as it has amazing scenery, even in the small Map. I really Reccomend you give this a Try if you like Anime or Just Japan in General and it is really Cheap. There are a few Bugs here and there and i do think that the Avatar can be a bit glitchey Sometimes and it keeps opening Steam VR so i am not sure if there is a VR version which i am going to Try now as of the Time of this Review but Overall i really do reccomend this Game.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
For 4 dollars I can’t really argue. It’s got a nice atmosphere, art, and music while you get to explore around a Japanese house during the rain. Not too much else to say than that. It’s cute, but it’s only about an hour long of an experience. The game does have a lot of detail in that one house, with various events, lots of objects to pick up and doors/drawers to open.
It does have issues, though. There’s a general sense of jank here. Items can often refuse to want to be picked up or moved around, if you look downward you can see the weirdness of your player model, crouching/sitting is especially jank looking, the text sometimes scrolls twice despite you only pressing the button once, the cutscenes are a bit unpolished in places, etc. That said, I did spend a good bit of time attempting to get out of bounds just to explore, which I was successful in doing. That part was definitely fun and made me appreciate the game’s development.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Contradiction - Spot The Liar!
This is a FMV detective & mystery game developed by Baggy Cat, created thanks to a kickstarter campaign. Since I love detective games and tv-shows I decided to give this one a go. This is a lovecrafted masterpiece, great from start to finish. I’m gonna try to explain why.
You play as detective Jenks, investigating a girls suicide in an english village. Mysteries surrounding the suicide quickly leads to a murder investigation. Jenks only have a day to solve the mystery. He quickly finds out about a private school for adults called Atlas that uses some questionable methods, and you learn more and more as you go. Every chapter is an hour in the game, but every chapter took me more then an hour each. It’s a pretty tricky game, but you can use clues if you get stuck.
– Real player with 15.2 hrs in game
TL;DR: It’s a very fun and interesting game,
! with a very, very, VERY bad (and extremely) unsatisfying ending
I’m probably very late to the “reviewing contradiction” party (what a weird party), the game being almost 6 years old now and having been talked about in the ExtraCredits YouTube channel (the reason why I bought it in the first place!), but I’m gonna have a go at it anyways.
Contradiction is an FMV game where you must investigate in one night a supposed suicide in a small village. The investigation is done almost entirely by talking to people (i.e. watching small bits of questioning), though some evidence is found by walking and snooping around (in fact, I’m no lawyer or law-enforcement officer, but I feel like a quite a few of the evidence found wouldn’t be admissible in court!) But the main aspect of the game is asking people about things, which can directly lead you to new evidence, but will always lead to a set of statements from each person. This is where the main mechanic of the game comes in: you can select two statements (they must be from the same person though, hold this for later) that contradict each other and if they do, indeed, you get a new line of questioning where detective Jenks brings up the contradiction to the person in question, usually leading to new evidence. When you reach key milestones in the investigation, the time moves forward, and some new witness can become available (or unavailable), and going certain places can unlock certain events that can give you new evidence to ask around about.
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game
Late Shift
There are a few really good FMV games around but in general there is a drought of this genre so people who love this kind of game just have to take what they are given. Late Shift is good but the lack of a skip function really drags the playtime out and I found myself 100%-ing this game with a grimace on my face towards the end. Don’t get me wrong, the story was good but it wasn’t good enough to keep me engaged and to play through it in fully 9 times. See the full review here
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
This looks great, and is surprisingly interesting as a movie. As others have said, it’s probably the most successfully implemented FMV game ever made, which isn’t really that high of a mountain to climb. In fact, it’s probably more successful as a movie than as a game. There’s not much “play” in it, and what there is is fatally undermined by the design.
The theme of the game, spelled out by the protagonist in the opening narration, is that choices define who you are. And more specifically they define who you are internally - your reason for making a certain decision is, in many ways, more important than what the decision actually was.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
Halloween Stories: Horror Movie Collector’s Edition
I was going to click No however, this would be a good game for a preteen or teen. It is not scary and a bit juvenile.
– Real player with 6.1 hrs in game
This is the first Halloween Stories game that I have played and is overwhelmingly the absolute best ever hidden object game that I have ever played. It is the complete deal. Story line keeps you interested in the game play and the bonus chapter picks up where the main game leaves off. The interaction with characters is one that I myself have never encountered. I extremely enjoyed the added “liveliness” of some of the animations, (streets apart from anything I have seen) congrats to the entire team that are responsible for them :-) I have no problem at all recommending this game to anyone, in fact I would encourage you to buy this game. My many thanks to the entire team for an absolutely fantastic, unforgettable and pleasurable game. Thanx
– Real player with 5.9 hrs in game
LEGO® Jurassic World
5/10 Quite the bug fest there, Tt Games
Due to Steam’s 4000 character limit, this is a strongly edited review from Gao Li Occasionally Reviews
Childproofing Jurassic Park
While LEGO is famously kid-friendly, Jurassic Park flicks are monster movies where giant lizards devour unsuspecting victims, which is why many of the more violent scenes were toned down to make them family friendly. For example, the death of Donald Gennaro – the lawyer who gets eaten by a t-rex on the toilet – is still shown here, but he’s spat out after apex predator’s fight against a raptor. Zara Young, meanwhile, stays devoured by the mosasaurus & plays cards with other characters in its belly. That said, even though the developers managed to elude graphic scenes, they failed to edit out the “adult” language.
– Real player with 39.9 hrs in game
NOTE: I noticed a few comments on this review. Please note that this is an old review. I have not played this game in a long time. It was in an unacceptably dire state the last time I played, and I don’t plan on coming back to it. Some have claimed that the issues mentioned here have been fixed. I can’t confirm if this is true or not, but I did say that if this game receives a patch, then I’d recommend it. So keep that in mind, please. Thank you. 3
Anyway, here’s my review, still intact and unchanged.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game