Ketchup

VR still has a lot of a way to go in terms of the ease of use. The quest 2 is mostly there buts there’s still lots of ‘now take the headset off to do this thing, that you kind of need the headset on to do. Eg. Adding your wifi to it. Then there is the oculus link and air link stuff. What an absolute faff and only really accessible to the hardcore. Starting up oculus link requires a guide because as is the user experience doesn’t make sense. First it asks you if you want to trust the device and allow your pc to access it. Sure allow it. That means the link doesn’t work cos your pc just sees it as storage. Instead counter intuitively you have to decline which then means the link now works and a pop up appears to go in. I’m not sure how to do that without the pop up. Then you are in another virtual world with a different layout to the quest and new buttons that don’t really explain themselves well. At this point I start up half life alyx, I instantly get an error about SteamVR isn’t running. Would have been helpful when you install a steam Vr game if it installed that too! Once that’s installed I’m in another virtual world Steam have created with mystery meat buttons. There’s settings within this you can change for performance but they don’t seem to do anything? I figure out how to load half life from inside this menu. But it’s running kinda slow, my height level is set so it thinks my face is the ground and I’ve no idea how to bring up any menus. I push the oculus button and all hell breaks loose as it brings up the oculus menu, the steam menu and the half life pause menu all at once and the frame rate drops to 1 frame every few seconds. They’re all trying to interact at once! Headset taken off I restart it all and try again. This time once in game theres just a massive black text box obscuring most of my view. The game is rendered behind it but it’s literally in the centre of my vision so I can’t do anything. This happened a few more times. Eventually after about an hour I figure out how to change my height, only bring up the half life menu etc but this stuff really isn’t user friendly, even more so when you’re strapped into a headset. I’m someone who’s used VR before and pcs and played games for years and if I’m having trouble I can’t see how with how things are currently someone more casual or new to the scene will get anywhere. Yeah the quest 2 itself is pretty user friendly but still has its UX issues that need to be ironed out and PCVR is a whole other level of pain.

I really love Toy Story. The Mega Drive got DKC style graphics and every level almost has its own graphical look and style. There’s lots of interesting technical effects from the doom like level and 3D effect on background objects to polygons on the racing level and movie screens that use more colours than the mega drive can normally display. It’s also a fun if stupidly short game that follows the movie fairly closely. Full of nostalgia for me but I love that the film including the characters got translated to the game.

Steam has a steam vr test you can download to tell you how well your machine will do.

if anyone does this I wouldn’t mind a code

Yeah I feel old Edge and even Famitsu would only give the absolute best games a ten, something never before achieved and basically perfect. Streets of Rage 2 is a great game but on release I feel it’s something they’d have played, enjoyed and then basically said it’s a one and done game. Great to play through but doesn’t do much new and no staying power. Remember a lot of 16 but games especially beat em ups looked and felt similar and it’s only over the years do you realise the tiny differences that actually have a huge impact and make a game like SoR2 amazing.

Zelda OoT was the first game to get an Edge Famitsu 10 (well 40/40), Mario 64 was the first Edge 10. But surely there must be games before this that would have earnt a perfect score. What game(s) do you think would have done that in the previous generations?

I did try it and was getting 1 frame every few seconds. I’ll try that setting but feel my current setup just isn’t useable as is. I did have powerline plugs but for some reason kept having issues with them but maybe I’ll try some new ones.

I want to try out airlink, but currently all i have is a Virgin Media hub, that my PC is connected to wirelessly as they are in different rooms. So whats the cheapest, easiest way to get airlink working and what will i need so everything all plays nicely still.

Besides the blockchain stuff how’s this any different to second life? People bought and sold land as well as objects in that game and whilst the world itself could be fairly seedy no one really cared all that much when someone spent thousands on an island.

There is so many odd areas in this. Hidden cave systems in the side of cliffs but the armour core pickup is outside by the entrance but when you go inside there’s a load of enemies in a room guarding absolutely nothing. The fact you can’t fly to all the islands, even the final one you visit. Clearly the map is mostly there but that talked about two thirds of the game being removed has meant they’ve just put return to battlefield around just a handful of islands. There’s clearly structures in the distance which were meant to be used but for now are not. It’ll be interesting to see how they expand this or if it’s worth them cutting their loses and just taking these basics and building something new on top of it instead of trying to add on little things to what they currently have.

This is the Mario Sunshine of the Halo Franchise. Clearly rushed with tonnes of cut content but it has solid foundations, it really just needed more time. Like Halo 2, it'll be interesting to hear the stories down the line of what went on. As it is the map is alright, its clearly not got many hand touched areas like BotW which makes it all feel and look similar. The gameplay loops is very simple, theres an area and you have to clear it out of enemies, your reward being marines, a base, or points. This is where things sour because the copy and paste nature is great at first due to the classic Halo gun play but clearly shows its flaws after you've done each one just once. Add onto that that story missions start off the same way with you going into a base and clearing it out before finding a door that takes you underground. The story levels are fairly dull to be honest, room with enemies, and then a corridor, and then maybe an empty room and repeat. If you're (un)lucky then you may have a puzzle which requires you to push down on the dpad to see the power cell thats feet away from the place it needs to be put. The story is complete nonsense, yes Halo CE didn't have much of a story but thats what made it interesting, this game requires you to play Halo Wars 2, maybe Halo 5 and remember/care about those key story points. This game tries to capture the second level of Halo CE and just doesn't. It's still obsessed with those 30 seconds of fun moments instead of those long stretches of no enemies, of you wondering if you're going the right way, wondering what this thing you can see may be. I don't know why they've never been able to recapture Halo CEs feel. The 2nd level feels like a huge open world where as its actually just a wide corridor, it just has been very well designed to give you enough freedom where you feel the world is larger than it actually is. But its just the mystery, the horror elements, the quite moments and the feeling you are alone or with a tiny squad that they need to bring back. I think its easy to nit pick this game because it does do the basics very well but then doesn't really do anything interesting. There's only one memorable action scene towards the end of the game, no interesting side missions, the story missions all look and feel mostly identical and unlike MGS5 you can't have fun in this sandbox because all you can do is use your powerful weapons to kill enemies. Want to stealth a section, can't happen because enemies can spot you from miles away, let alone if you shoot an enemy in the head in which case the whole base is alerted anyways. Want to do something fun with your AI marines? You can't because they can barely get in a vehical to assist you. Maybe you want to take the enemy from the high ground, well it's dull cos they just stand down there getting shot at. I guess the point of my rambling post (whilst ignoring the stupid story stuff, things that happen for story reasons that have never happened before or terrible lines of dialogue) is that the base game is good. But like Sea of Thieves there isn't much game here. I'd love to see them in 2 years time come out with some proper missions and just spend all their time creating unique moments. Even if they had missions which were dressed up differently eg. capture a base because it has supplies you then need to take somewhere else. But i fear they'll expand the world with more bases to capture. This isn't a 9/10 game, it feels like an expanded demo at times but its still fun and if you like Halo you'll have a fun 10 hours but it'll definately be compared to MGS5 or Sea of Thieves with a fun opening hour and then many hours of not much interesting happening.

I mean i could just point to all of Skyward Sword. But Fi every two seconds butting in to tell you obvious stuff, there being a puzzle but before you can even look at it there is Fi to tell you how to do it. Not pointing your wiimote exactly right, theres Fi again. Not Fi related, but close, every single time you pick up a rupee after a power on and the game going 'This is 5 rupees, try not to spend it all at once lololololozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz'. For every single rupee type. Oh wait i know whats worse, Flooded Foron Woods. The NPC you meet tells you that you've done loads of quests, have got all the little shiny things you need, but they're just not sure about you. Only the actual Hero of time whos done all the quests and got the shiny things can pass and whilst you look and sound exactly like that guy they want you to do one quick test just to make absolutely sure. Cos you know, theres other guys just like you with these one of a kind objects or something also pretending to be the hero of time. So what do they do for this test? Fill the level with water and add music notes you have to get within a tight time limit. No, stop it! I've already proved who i am with all the other quests. Actually i change my mind, can i just say Skyward Sword the game, cos once you add in the same crappy boss repeated 3 times, stupid fetch quests and a game that can't help itself in giving you endless tutorials i never want to see it again. PS. I actually liked the motion controls.

A new update has dropped. Two karts on one switch and up to four players now playing plus new courses etc

You can buy them via the website but I’ve found it’s a bit finicky when you try to buy even for games that are fully available . Try a different browser but Daytona certainly can still be bought via the web store.

Lots of 1 star reviews now from existing owners saying their existing paid for content is either gone or hidden away deep down in menus and basically it’s unusable as it used to be without subscribing.

Still thinking of picking up one of these in the future, I really wanted it for boxvr/fitxr which I have on the PSVR. But turns out recently on the quest it’s become a subscription service, even for those that previously bought it. So is there anything similar fitness wise on quest that doesn’t have a subscription that’s worth looking at?

Get new friends or come and join some of us online for some possible more positive moaning. Always people in new game threads wanting others to play with.

The best time i had with this was when i stumbled upon something with no idea how it happened or why...yet

Add Alien Isolation to the list giving it a 5.9 and gamespot also giving it a 6.0. Both did their best to try and ruin one of the games of a generation because they wanted shooty bang bang and got something a little more crafted. These types of reviews are upsetting where they’re trying to review a game for what they wish it was rather than what it actually is.

Skies of Arcadia. The demo for that was the first few hours of the game and not only do you start with a fantastic intro that quickly introduces the characters but also the idea of being sky pirates who are in this jrpg world for fun rather than dead family, ultimate curse, mystical sword etc but you get a quick intro battle taking down a ship before being shown a fun world and then just going on an adventure for a meteorite that landed in the distance. It just has so much fun coming out from every aspect and makes you feel like you’re apart of a fun adventure than the typical RPG.

Any game which either has stupid tutorials or has lots and lots of text about said tutorials or things unimportant to a first time player. A lot of Japanese games do this currently where they feel the need to over explain every detail as multiple large text boxes. Phantasy star online on Xbox and FF7 remake both do this. Where firstly they teach you the controls. Move the left stick up to go forward. Push the right stick right to tilt the camera right. Now left to, can you guess? Make it go left! Ugh. But it’s the text boxes which on first boot bombard you with news, updates, community stuff happening in the world, bug fixes, and that’s before you even get into the game pausing to at length tell you about enemies and how they’ll damage you and how this is a health bar and how you can get stuff to fill it up and how if it empties that’s game over. Stop it! Just let me play, have an in game manual or hide all this stuff until it’s actually needed. First time boot should be straight into the game not an hour of stuff that I’ll forget and isn’t needed for a first time player.

Yeah just silly stuff like glitching and getting stuck in walls or squashed on moving objects (sonic 2 chemical plant zone is infamous for this one) or being hit but being hit in between an invincibility frame and dying.

Sonic The hedgehog on the mega drive had lots of little bugs that the manual mentioned saying if you came across one it was actually Robotnik who’d set a trap for you. Quite a nice way to get around it.

Anyone got a referral code for a quest 2? Might pick one up after the 28th in case they announce anything new.

Yep, whats the point of pre orders if they are only making 5 of these. Open up pre orders, make as many ordered, win-win for everyone!