Starship Commander: Arcade
I can’t recommend this to anyone other than those that want to support VR development.
Sorry, but I was thoroughly unimpressed with every single aspect of this project. I’m not sure I would have even been impressed 3 years ago. It’s just not a good game. Period. The graphics are uninspired. In a world with Alexa and Siri, the voice recognition and responses are pathetically limited. In a world with Half Life: Alyx, this hardly even qualifies as a VR tech demo… even for a mobile VR platform, let alone the Vive Index I played on.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sci-fi Interactive Fiction Games.
Experienced on the Oculus Rift
You can view my (edited) gameplay here: https://youtu.be/FoH5CmxQVvo
This is an approximately 13 minute cinematic experience, which has varying scenes depending on your voiced answers. This is like a 360 stereoscopic video, choose your own adventure type experience, which is like the stuff on Amaze VR. You don’t use motion controllers at all. It can be fun to try to find new scenes based on your novel responses. Unfortunately, even though the reviewer VR Focus said the AI was good, the AI responses really aren’t good and have severe limitations … but they can be funny (I wouldn’t trust VR Focus who seems more concerned about clicks than accuracy in his reports).
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
There Came an Echo
In a digitally-aware world encryption is everything. In light of recent revelations involving the NSA and GCHQ spying on much of the world’s internet traffic, encryption has become a hot button issue. Whether you know how it works or not, it’s there securing your online presence against unwanted intruders. And yet, how often do you stop and think about the people who make your communications and data secure? Not often, I’ll wager. In There Came An Echo, Corrin is one of those people, one of those geniuses, you might say. He’s your typical computer whizz and he is about to become embroiled in something larger than himself, or anything the physical world has to offer.
– Real player with 11.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sci-fi Singleplayer Games.
Disclosure: I backed this game on Kickstarter.
This review is about the 1.06 version of the game.
There Came an Echo is a game made from independent game developer Iridium Studios.
It is based in a not too distant sci-fi setting and has teambased RTS elements.
The innovation of the game is that the issuing of orders to your team is done with voice control,
meaning you issue the commands using a microphone, the game registers them and the respective units execute the orders.
It is possible to play the game without using a microphone though i do not suggest it since the voice control is fairly responsive.
– Real player with 10.6 hrs in game
Bot Colony
Bot Colony is an ambitious title, maybe even too ambitious for what it’s worth. So far, playing it is more of a struggle than entertainment…
I am aware that Bot Colony is an Early Access Game, but still, this build is not playable by far. I’m afraid i wouldn’t even be wrong if i would say that there is literally almost nothing in Bot Colony that works as it should… Let’s start with the game’s motto: “The Game You Speak With”. This is the main reason why anybody would pay attention to it, but unfortunately in the end the player will find out that this is actually “The Game Which Doesn’t Understand You”. That’s it. I’ve said it. Natural language understanding is just not ready to be implemented in a game. It wil get you right about one time out of ten. Other then that you’ll get replies like “I don’t know what you mean”.
– Real player with 55.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sci-fi Robots Games.
Review after June 18 major upgrade
Introduction
Bot Colony is an ambitious title, aiming to provide a non-scripted story by allowing you to freely converse with robots. If you enjoyed literary works like ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’, Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, movies like ‘Space Oddysey 2001’(not one of my favorites though) or Anime like ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and ‘Psycho-Pass’, you’ll find a similar setting here.
An important remark is that most of the gameplay is text (or speech) conversations, which at times can be both agitating and humorous, and that might not appeal to everyone.
– Real player with 27.4 hrs in game
Binary Domain
Binary Domain was yet another part of a (free) bundle given away by SEGA, featuring mediocre games mainly. When I started playing it, I was expecting an average shooter (the reviews didn’t provide much clue). What I got was an absolutely positive surprise in all aspects. But I’m not explaining this fact that I liked this game so much with the element of surprise: I wish every overhyped AAA game could provide as much fun as Binary Domain did. It has everything a good game needs: a thrilling story, excellent characters and funny (!) dialogues, choices & consequences and of course great combat with fluid controls. This is one of those games that would require a sequel, but apparently won’t get one, since the game never received the proper amount of praise and appreciation it should have deserved.
– Real player with 105.3 hrs in game
Binary Domain is a Third-Person-Shooter with a cover system set in the future after catastrophic events led the world to some major changes.
In 2080, due to climate changes, the world faced the large flood ever existed, and in search for cheap, reliable labor, the humanity turned to robots, in hope for a better future. To lead this revolution is Bergen, a US-based company, responsible for manufacturing robots for all over the world. But Bergen is not the only one in the business. Amada, a Japanse company, sued Bergen for stealing their technology. Bergen won, much because of its influence… They do manufacture over 90% of world robots, and this made the USA more powerful than ever!
– Real player with 48.8 hrs in game
Espire 1: VR Operative
Espire 1 is currently my favorite VR stealth game. It was rough at launch but the major issues related to glitchy and inconsistent guard behavior seem to have been ironed out with the first update. There’s already plenty of fun to have in the challenge missions and I’m looking forward to more being added to the game over time.
The performance of this game is very good overall as you would expect from something that was simultaneously developed for the Quest headset. While this means the environments are somewhat bare I prefer the approach because of the higher frame rate. I often see frame drops in other stealth games like Budget Cuts or Unknightly with an RTX 2060 but I can run most of Espire 1’s challenge missions at 144 FPS without a hitch.
– Real player with 36.7 hrs in game
SHORT VERSION:
It can be fun and there is a freedom in it that is not like other VR stealth games but the glitches and certain factors of the game kinda ruin it.
I am waiting till the updates fix it to play again.
If you don’t have it, follow it on news and pay attention to updates. Or wait for it to be discounted, at least then if you don’t like it you wouldn’t have paid the full price.
LONG VERSION:
Best attempt at a fun stealth game, but so far a little disappointing.
Not saying I didn’t have fun, but certain glitches and game design ruined fun playthroughs.
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game