VideoGame_Discussion

KarmaZoo {} 8/10
This is a pretty cool little 2D platformer that is based entirely on co-op. You play with 10 random players online or setup a private lobby for friends only (I wish you could mix and match friends and randoms but the last time I played it wasn't possible) and the goal is to help each other. Sometimes that includes dying on purpose, for example jumping into a floor of spikes so when you die it leaves behind a little tombstone that your teammates can use to jump across safely. There are a bunch of characters to play as and each has their own unique ability. If you try running off to do your own thing (like I am sometimes guilty of in co-op games) you will be punished for it if you go too far away from the rest of the team. I don't know how many levels there are in total or if there are an infinite amount and are just randomly generated (because a bunch do look similar) but you basically just have to survive a loop that is 4 levels long and keep repeating to rack up karma points to spend on unlockables.

This has cross-platform multiplayer which is great, I'm playing on PS5 and my friend prefers Switch so I bought it for her on there. It's only $10 (but free on PS+ Extra) so if you're a sucker for co-op games like me, you should consider giving this one a chance.
-=-

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas {} 6/10
I bought this back in 2018 and finally started it. I've only put around 3 hours into it, so this is more like a first impression.
I know this game got a lot of praise back in 2013 for being a pretty decent Zelda clone for mobile devices, probably the closest you could get to Zelda on your phone or tablet at the time without installing an emulator and playing an actual Zelda game that way. However, when you port the game to consoles where there is no shortage of good Zelda clones, especially a Nintendo console that gives you access to legit Zelda games, expectations are going to be a little different. So far the puzzles are pretty basic stuff, like pushing blocks. And pushing is all you do, you can't pull them. Of course early on you get bombs so you can blow your way through hidden walls. The gameplay itself is like a mix between 2D and 3D Zeldas. I've read they went full 3D in the sequel, but in this one you don't get control over the camera. You sail a ship around to different islands like Wind Waker, but I've only gotten to visit 3 or 4 so far and haven't gotten to do everything there is to do on them. Anyway, I don't expect it to be a long game, but the minute I start feeling bored of it, I'm moving on to something else.

Among Us VR {2} 8/10
I enjoyed Among Us a few years back for a couple weeks during the pandemic before I lost interest in it and moved on. I expect the same might happen here, but for only $9.99 even a couple weeks of enjoyment at that price is worth it (I've been bored of full priced games in less time than that).

First off, unless you have a group of friends to play with that you already know, be prepared to play with noisy kids, because in my experience pre-teens playing on their Quest VR are the only ones keeping this game relevant. I can count on one hand the number of times I've come across a fellow PSVR2 player in the same lobby as me. This game helps to justify my decision to not give money to any developer who makes a PSVR2 game with a heavy emphasis on online multiplayer but doesn't include crossplay. The combined playerbase of VR headset users is already small-ish as it is, but PSVR2 by far has the smallest amount of players of them all, combined with the fact that not everyone who owns a PSVR2 will be willing to pay for PS+ to play online in the first place, so that makes the potential playerbase even smaller. So even though it might mean you'll have to tolerate some noisy Quest kids in certain games, kudos to these devs and every other dev who puts crossplay in their games, as PSVR2 online games would be dead without it because nobody is buying the damn thing. Sad, but true.

With that said, this is Among Us, which you no doubt already know about, but it's in VR now which automatically makes it more fun. I'm having fun while it lasts, in fact while it might be too early to say this since I've only been playing less than a week, but as of right now I'd rank it up there among the most fun I've had playing a VR game. Top 5 for sure. But man the kids really can be annoying at times. Like, I get it, I was a kid too, but I don't think I used as much foul language in a month as they do in one 10 minute round of this game. But as seemingly the sole adult playing (because nobody else I know has VR) in every match, it makes me want to mute them, but then you can't because the purpose of the game is working together and communication. I'm always "the quiet one" (in real life too), and I don't like to use voice chat in online games with randoms, so when someone finds another player's corpse and nobody was around to witness who did it, it's easy to point fingers at "the quiet one" since I'm not going to argue my innocence with a bunch of freakin' kids, so I just take one for the team and let them vote me off and be done with it even if I wasn't the imposter, and it's funny how quickly they'll all gang up.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Annnnnd I'm out lol

DCGX wrote:

If if it were all psvr2 players, you probably want to play with a group of friends anyway rather than randos. You would get a lot more out of it.

Social deduction style games really benefit from knowing the people you are playing with

Robocop: Rogue City (PS5) - 7.5/10 - If you were a child of the 80's then this is pretty dang good, but otherwise it's just a decent AA title. The story moves super slowly, cutscenes lack energy and have lethargic pacing, and character interactions in general are meh. The voicework is acceptable but not great either, and there are some really mundane tasks and side missions that feel odd.

The standard linear levels are a blast though. It nails the atmosphere, looks rather good, and the default pistol is an absolute joy. Somewhat destructible environments and constant debris really help sell the power of the weapons and it's been quite enjoyable so far.

Suicide Squad : Kill The Past. Let it Die. Live Service Is Your Future - Spalding Gray of Crap/10

https://youtu.be/HR4N9JoRHN0?si=IQvSrGtU6AaAOZNR

DCGX wrote:


Yeah, it can get so bad at times. Apparently on Quest, people are using a soundboard app to blast pre-recorded sound effects/voice clips or in one case the other day some idiot was running around following random players just blasting "Baby" by Justin Bieber. And in another round some kid was playing in the same room as his crying baby sister, and his mic was picking up every bit of it and I don't know if he even realized we all could hear it.

Drums Rock {2} 7/10
This was one of the earlier PSVR2 games I bought when I got the headset back in January, and I've kept it installed since then because it is fun to come back to every couple of weeks.
So what you get by default when buying the game are a few cheap cover versions of classic songs like I Love Rock & Roll, Black Betty and Bring Me To Life (to name a few). Honestly it isn't too bad, because you're more focused on keeping up with the rhythm of the song rather than listening to the vocalist who sounds nowhere near as good as the the original singer. Beyond that, there are a bunch of original songs made just for the game and some of them are good, others you'll have forgotten about by the time you turn the game off. There are some DLC packs out now with more on the way, and I've been thinking about buying them even though they feature bands I don't give a rat's ass about (Green Day and Simple Plan for example) and there's a DLC pack with music from the game Undertale which I've never played and don't know what the music sounds like, but it could be fun.
However, the Quest version allows you to use custom music, so if you have a choice between buying the game on either headset then that's the version I would recommend buying just for that feature alone. But even without the feature on PSVR2 I am enjoying the game, though I haven't been able to graduate to anything higher than easy difficulty, but that doesn't bother me too much because back in the days of Guitar Hero I could barely last on medium. My reflexes ain't what they used to be.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Brings back (bad) memories from the early days of Xbox Live.

Trip World DX - 7/10

I knew nothing about this game prior to Limited Run Games announcing a new color version of the 1992 original Game Boy release last year, with a Game Boy Color cartridge release. Many people say it's like Kirby, so in honor of my sister and her love for the Game Boy and especially Kirby, I bought a copy which finally arrived yesterday.

Yes, in a way it is like Kirby. The player-character Yakopoo can transform at times and use different abilities, but it's also an easy game like many Kirby titles. Often "enemies" bounce right off Yakopoo or can be avoided. There are some blind jumps, but they don't feel cheap. The colorization is done very well. Once the character patterns are learned and the bosses figured out, this is a quick game to complete. I haven't beat it yet, but I did play a while. There's also a sound test and stage select.

If not for my sister's probably interest, I wouldn't have thought twice about 'Trip World DX,' but it's a solid early 90s platformer. The physical release is really nice. The box fits into the GB collection, the manual is substantial, and the cartridge is really cool and solid. I don't regret purchasing the physical GBC version, but I wouldn't spend more than a couple of dollars on the digital modern releases.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is quite the scrumptious dish. 8.5/10 so far and I’m a few hours in.

Pistol Whip {2} 8/10

Damn, this game gets intense. I regret not starting this in winter, because you can't play this and not break a sweat. And it's sometimes already hard enough to not break a sweat playing VR in Spring and Summer weather without cranking the AC, even for games that keep you half as active as this one. You are constantly dodging enemy bullets and having to duck under obstacles, and as you're doing this you've got EDM music blasting in your ears. I guess you could say the game is almost like a combination of fellow VR game Superhot and Metal: Hellsinger (which is about to become a VR game in a couple months).

You can go along and play this like a generic on-rails first-person shooter, which I admit is how I was playing it at the beginning and kind of not enjoying it as much, but that's not the point of the game. How you're supposed to play (especially if you care about ranking on the leaderboard) is by racking up combos by shooting these bad guys to the beat of the music. The soundtrack fits the game well, though EDM isn't something I'd listen to outside of this game. The 3D audio in general is really good. I had recorded a play session of the game and when watching it back I could hear each enemy bullet whizzing past me, but when actually playing the game I didn't notice that so much because I'm so concentrated on the music.

I bought this a few years back on the original PlayStation VR but never got around to playing it. Once I saw it offered a free upgrade to PSVR2 version I figured there's no reason not to play that version instead. From my understanding when the game originally released it was kinda barebones with 10 songs and no type of campaign mode at all. Over time they raised the price by $5 while adding more free content for existing owners. I don't know exactly how much extra content was added, but from what I've read it seems to be a fairly significant amount. While I haven't played it on the other headsets to compare it directly, I think I'd have to say the experience is probably best on PSVR2 due to the crazy haptic feedback features, they really add a lot with a game like this. Either way, regardless of what headset you play it on, it's a good workout.

Galaxy Kart {2} 6/10

People crapped on this game when it first released last year, with many crowning it as one of the worst games in the initial PlayStation VR2 launch month period. I didn't play the game back then due to not owning a PSVR2, but after looking into the game after I had got my PSVR2 this past January, all I'd heard about was how much the developers had improved it over the past year and that it's now in the state they wish they had released it in. But alas, the damage had already been done. When you search for the game on YouTube the first results you're likely to see are the negative reviews. I'm on a VR Discord server that the devs are also on, they've reached out to a couple of the YouTube Channels that gave it a negative review last year and asked if they'd be willing to give it a second chance, and only one seems interested in doing so, but he keeps putting it off, the other reviewers won't budge. The devs also added a 30 minute free trial of the game to the PS+ Premium tier hoping that it would boost sales, but they've only seen sales drop since doing that and that places the devs in a spot where they aren't making money on it anymore. They want to get this out on Quest but for whatever reason can't get it approved yet. Anyway, just giving that little backstory, I'm not here to throw a pity party for the devs because they shouldn't have released the game in the state that they did.

So this released last year initially with only 4 tracks to race on, which is mind boggling to me anyone would release a kart racer with that pitiful amount in 2023 when the OG Super Mario Kart had 20 tracks, 30 years prior. The game is up to 18 courses now, which is a lot more than 4, but still a little on the low side, though since the game is only $20 I'll let it slide and because the track designs aren't bad. There's 6 player online multiplayer...but it's kinda broken. You have to search for a lobby at the right time, you can't join a lobby with a race already in progress and just spectate until they're finished like with Mario Kart 8 (I think the devs are working on that though). Plus without cross-play and the game not being on Quest, don't expect there to be many players online anyway unless you hop on Discord and hope you can wrangle enough other players together that also want to play at that time. Because of that I have still not gotten to play a single online race because it never finds anyone when I search and I'm too lazy to jump through the extra hoops of finding people on Discord. And since it's VR, don't expect local split-screen multiplayer to be an option (it rarely is with VR games). So that just leaves you against the CPU, which is hardly fun in any other kart racer either, especially with the rubber-banding they do in this game. I do not call myself a top tier Mario Kart player, though I'd say I'm "decent" at it at least, from all the hours I've spent playing the series (and genre as a whole) since the original release. I should not be finishing last place in this game on the easy setting. Maybe that's why people are playing the 30 minute free trial and then not buying the game afterwards, because it makes you play on easy difficulty first, and if people feel like the CPU is cheating even on easy, they might feel like they won't stand a chance on the harder difficulty settings.

As it is now, this is the only option for kart racing on the PSVR2, so I try to be a little more forgiving. The graphics are not bad. I've heard it had a poor frame-rate at launch, but from what I've played that isn't the case anymore. The audio is alright, nothing really memorable though, you won't be humming these tunes when you're not playing, though I can't remember the last game soundtrack to leave a memorable impression on me. Loading times are quick, in fact I can't recall seeing a single loading screen. I select a course, then my driver and kart, and then the screen fades to black for 2 or 3 seconds and then the race is beginning. The controls I have mixed feelings about. A lot of people are saying the best way to play is with a steering wheel. I don't have one of those, and since GT7 is the only significant racing game on VR2, I feel like only a small portion of VR2 owners might have one. Without one, just using the VR2 Sense Controllers took a little getting used to. You steer by using the steering wheel, and I don't mean by using the analog sticks, but by gripping the wheel with both hands and steering it, kinda like playing Mario Kart Wii with tilt controls using that plastic wheel controller shell (or, y'know, how you'd steer an actual car). Then when needed you reach over with your one hand and grab the item you've gotten from one of the item boxes scattered around the course, but they don't really explain how to use the items. I've figured out that some are meant to be thrown, but after I got 5 or 6 races deep I just decided screw it, I'm just going to race and not even use the freakin' items.

As for where the game is still lacking, I dislike that when I finish a race I'm stuck waiting for all CPU racers to finish too before I can go to the next race. To unlock extra characters and their karts, you have to play certain tracks on a certain difficulty and win, but the problem is you'll be doing it multiple times because you can't just start from the hardest difficulty, the game makes you win on easy and then normal and then again on hard on each damn course (and like I mentioned before, the rubber-band AI can put up a fight even on the easiest setting). Also, each "cup" in the game I think only lasts 3 courses each, and when you win the 3rd one there's no celebration ceremony or anything, you're just kicked to the main menu, no congratulations or anything like that.
So the game is $20 but I paid $10 on sale, and so it's hard to be too disappointed in something I paid so little for, but even still at only $10 it just slightly fails to meet expectations. If you're a kart racing whore like myself, maybe get it on the next sale and only if you're okay with the possibility of never finding people to race against online so it's just gonna be against the CPU, but I can't recommend it at full price. The game seems to have a small-ish following, but I honestly just think it's because this is our only kart racing option and the minute a better one releases they will forget about this one.


Edit: I need to clear up a couple of things now that I just put another 45 minute session into this. First is that you actually can steer with the analog stick (you still have to grip the wheel with at least one hand, though). Sure, it kinda breaks the immersion in a VR game, but I still prefer this way. Second is the loading times and I said "I select a course, then my driver and kart, and then the screen fades to black for 2 or 3 seconds and then the race is beginning." but it's not even 2 or 3 seconds that the screen fades to black, it's barely 1 second, enough to say there are no loading times at all. Still, I feel like I've gotten all I can from this game.

Sounds like the devs have a long way to go with this game still, and I'm guessing that's why no one wants to re-review it.

Spincraft

8/10

Fun game. It's a rogue style game, sort of slot machine style based. Each turn you "spin" and an assortment of your currently collected items for that round show up, and you get different amounts of coins for each one. The coins increase depending on the synergies of the items. If you get bee near a flower, you get more; rain near a flower gives more, a bowling ball near a pin, etc. That's simplifying it, but you get the idea.

There are items that will increase your luck, making it easier to get rarer more powerful items.

There are items that will let you remove from your current item collection (sometimes less is more, you know?)

There are items that will let you respin.

And there are items on the side that have effects, such as for x amount of item y, something happens; if Y happens, then Z occurs, etc.

It's a good game so far. Some runs I've gotten pretty far, some not so much.

Simple fun.

Thanks for the suggestion @Simon_Belmont

Super Death Game SHOW! VR {2} 4/10

I know I bought this on sale a couple of months ago, but I don't remember what I paid for it. Now that I have played it, I'm gonna say that whatever amount I had paid, it was probably more than this game is worth. I'd like to think I am a little wiser with my PSVR2 purchases now, but this one I really did no research on ahead of time, I was just trying to build up a library and buying almost anything when it went on sale.

This is set up like a game show (obviously), kind of like the type of game show you might expect to see in the movie SAW. You start in a room, a voice explains what is happening and that you're in a game show and there are viewers watching and commenting as you are going through all of this, and you have to complete 10 mini-games to win your prize of millions of "Yen-Dollars". Failure to complete the 10 mini-games results in...your death. On my first attempt I completed 3 mini-games before I ran out of time and died. It was on the second attempt that I managed to complete all 10 and it only took me just under 15 minutes. I don't think it would take more than an afternoon of playing to see all that this game has to offer, if you can stand to play it that long.

There are a variety of mini-games (though not as many as something like Mario Party) and they start off easy, I think you have to play more to unlock harder versions. I haven't played them all yet, but I'll give a few examples:
- One mini-game where you have to stack different shaped blocks
- Another mini-game has a dude kicking a soccer ball at you 10 times and you have to block at least 5 of them from making it into the goal behind you
- There was one called "chick sexing" which sadly was not at all what I hoped it would be, it was you having to tell apart the genders of little baby chickens
- There's one where a laundry dryer machine drops from the ceiling and there's a secret message in it telling you what item to put inside it, but you can just throw random items until you get the correct one.

Despite the game show taking place in a fairly big room, you don't get to move around in it. You can turn left and right, but you'll be standing in one spot the whole time, and it's always the same room over and over. This seems to have been done by design, because they wanted this to be a game you show off to your friends and family that haven't played VR before and they wanted no risk of motion sickness. And for a mini-game collection, the lack of any kind of multiplayer is disappointing and kind of limits the replay value even further than there not being many mini-games to begin with.

Immortals of Aveum (PS5) - 6.5/10 - It's...fine. Being one of the first games to use Unreal Engine 5 on the consoles makes this appear to be more than it really is. It's a AA game but with a (literally) shiny coat of paint. There are moment where things look fantastic but overall it's a mediocre game.

There are no Quality/Performance visual options, the shooting gameplay is ok but nothing noteworthy, and many button combos get messy during chaotic battles. The button to recharge your powers is the same one to open doors, open chests, activate portals, and also talk to people. So I often burn a powerup on accident just trying to advance.

Speaking of, the story tries to do too much and the characters I was most interested in often weren't where the story went. Everyone feels so stiff and uninteresting and although you can fast travel to backtrack for goodies, I never did as I just want to get to the end.

I'm playing this on PS+ and it's great for that. I've had trouble putting it down but it's good, not great.

Affected: The Manor - Complete Edition {2} 7/10

It's kinda hard to rate this one. If you're like me and horror games are what got you into this wacky world of VR to begin with, you might enjoy this. The problem is, there really isn't much to it.
You'll spend about an hour walking through this haunted house loaded with jump scares. Unfortunately, that's it. There's no puzzles to solve or anything like that, it's only jump scares, and the jump scares are all scripted and once you've been through it you'll know where they all happen and when to expect them and they have no effect anymore. But that first playthrough though, it was good. Just know that this is a port of a PSVR1 game from like 5 or 6 years ago, so it in no way takes advantage of any of the PSVR2 features (no eye-tracking, no controller haptics, and now that I think about it, I don't recall any rumble being used either).

This is definitely something to show off to friends and family, especially if you know they don't like horror stuff, because they are the ones who give the best reactions. There's two main ways to get through the house, and both are fairly short (20-ish minutes each) but feel longer than they are due to the slow walking speed. Each way has a split path towards the end, so you'll want to play through at least 4 times to have seen everything, which will take around an hour.

Any additional replay value comes from the Gauntlet Mode where you race through the house, the goal is to do it in under 2m30s for a trophy, but my best time was 2m46s before I gave up. In this mode the general layout is the same, except some parts are randomized so you can't just rush your way through it the exact same way every time. You hold the left analog stick to move and the longer you hold it without bumping into anything (like mostly furniture that moves on its own to startle you) the faster you will go, but if you bump into something you're back to moving at a snail's pace. This mode is interesting in that it not only judges you based on how fast you get through it, but also by how many gasps or screams the microphone detects you doing. I feel like more horror games need to utilize the dang microphone.
So, yeah, I slap a 7 outta 10 on this because it's good for that hour. Anything more than that you'll want to dock a point off the score for each extra playthrough. If this were a flat game it'd be a hard pass, but being in VR makes all the difference.

Bugsnax {} 7/10

I've had this downloaded on my PS5 within the first couple days of me getting it almost 2 years ago, decided I'd finally give it a chance. I went in with low expectations, I'm not even sure why. Not because it looks like a children's game (so does Animal Crossing and I'm a big fan of that series for over 20 years now), but it exceeded my expectations definitely. Not enough that I want to go for the platinum trophy or hunt down every last bug or anything like that, but I'm enjoying the goofy story they came up with. Sure, hunting down some of these bugs feels like a chore sometimes because you have to remember what area of the map they're in, but sometimes it's fun figuring out how you have to catch them. Gameplay-wise it is fun but fairly simple.

Also I want to give a shout out to the PS5's Game Hints feature. I was looking for one particular bug, I had left my phone in another room and was too lazy to go get it and and look on Google where this bug was, so I used the Game Hints feature on the PS5 and damn it was really helpful. I had never bothered to use that feature before.

Bugsnax is a 10/10 game.

Bunger bunger bunger.

7/10 is 5 more than I would've given that crap. Best part might have been the Bunger Bunger Bunger line.

Also couldn’t get into Bugsnax but glad some folks can.

Hoyle Card Games

Not as good as any of the PC versions, including the original from 1989.

Part of what makes the PC versions fun is the banter and reactions from your opponents (characters from other Sierra games in the first few releases, then a cast of original characters in the later iterations). The GBC version has a few characters, but they never say anything. They are just portraits.

The programming isn't the greatest - you don't have any gameplay options to adjust. For example in Cribbage, the CPU always starts as the dealer in each game (if you are one of the cool people who plays cribbage, you probably know this is a statistically significant advantage).

Still, it does do something I didn't expect at all... single system 2-person multiplayer. Yes it's a little clunky to pass the system back and forth but still kind of neat that they implemented it at all (they also have link function which I figured would be all the effort they put into it).

As far as GBC games go it's pretty average. I think GBC may have the worst library of any Nintendo system, though, so make of that what you will. It gets slight plus points for the single system multiplayer. I think I would give it a C minus.

Crisis VRigade 2 {2} 7/10

I'm kinda torn on that score. I think I'll settle on a 7, though I'd like to score it a point higher because of how much fun it can be, but then I also could dock it a point for how little content there is here, thus affecting its replay value.
So what this game was aiming to be was like the popular arcade light-gun shooters of the 90s like Virtua Cop for example, but in VR. It succeeds there, because it's fun just like those games were, but due to them being arcade games there wasn't a whole lot of content to them, and that applies here too.

You play as a cop and blast your way through levels ducking behind cover when needed (and you will have to physically crouch too to really be protected behind the object, so that makes me glad I played this on PSVR2 and not the original PSVR where the camera might lose track of me if I crouch too low). From what I can tell there are 9 levels in the game, each kind of a parody of popular movies. Three levels are part of the "Story Mode", except I couldn't really tell you what this game's story was about because I don't feel like the levels were linked together by a story, and story was never important in these types of arcade games anyway. In the three story mode levels you have 7 minutes to make your way through each level, and when you kill all enemies in an area there are usually two paths you can pick to go next, so I guess that adds just a little bit of replayability, even though they all take you to the same place. Then there is a Time Attack mode with three more stages, albeit they're shorter because this time you get 30 seconds to kill all enemies in the area, though scoring kills adds time to the clock. Then there is challenge mode, but these levels are locked until you complete certain challenges in the previous levels (example: score X amount of headshots and complete one of the story levels on Veteran difficulty). Among some of the movies the game tries to parody are Scarface, The Matrix, Terminator and World War Z.

There's a two player online co-op mode, though I haven't gotten to try it yet because nobody was playing when I had searched and I don't know if it supports crossplay or not. Like I said, the game is fun, but if you're the type like me who usually doesn't bother replaying games much or going for 100% and you're just fine with playing through each level once, then you can expect to be done with this in two hours or less, so for that reason I could only recommend this on a sale.

Alvo {2} 7/10
I decided when I got PlayStation VR2 that I would do something that I never really bothered with on the original PSVR and that is to buy an online shooter and actually invest some time into it, because multiplayer shooters is one genre I had moved away from over the years because I just stopped enjoying them, even something as simple as Splatoon feels impossible for me to enjoy anymore. I don't know what it is that made me decide to go with this as my first real VR online first-person shooter (I've played others on PSVR, but either only offline against bots or just a few matches online before I moved on), but I'm pretty happy with my choice.

This is a 5v5 online team based first-person shooter (also a 10 player free-for-all mode which is what I play 90% of the time, because I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.) Something to know before you go into this game is that there is no single player campaign or anything, the sole purpose of buying this is for the online multiplayer, so make sure you have PlayStation+ or you'll be stuck playing against bots, and that's never fun.

Graphically, it's not gonna blow you away. I watched some comparison videos and it looks sharper than the original PSVR and Quest versions, but if you've played something like Horizon or Resident Evil 4/8 or Gran Turismo 7, all built with PSVR2 in mind, this can't compete with those. This game was originally shown in a CGI trailer for the original PlayStation VR back in 2017 and after multiple delays (and temporary cancelation due to lack of funds) finally released in 2021, so it's definitely a last-gen game by a small team. It's a little disappointing that you can't interact with objects around the environment, and if you shoot a toaster on a kitchen counter for example, it gets what I describe as "bullet_hole.jpg" effect on it, iykyk. Of course you shouldn't be wasting bullets on shooting toasters, but this is VR, make it shootable for the sake of immersion, brah.
Audio is good, but nothing special. Player voices come in loud and clear (sometimes a little too loud, especially PSVR2 players, the mic is so sensitive you can hear the other players breathe, something I also notice in Among Us and it's how everyone knows when a PSVR2 player joined the lobby), but footsteps in game you don't hear much of because so many players use the ninja perk once they unlock it. The gun sound effects also are kinda lackluster. But I do like when someone calls in attack dogs, you can usually hear the dogs in the distance and you know it's time to run and hide. Speaking of the attack dogs, the game has the killstreak rewards of Modern Warfare (the real one; Call Of Duty 4). Get 3 kills in a row and you can get a health boost, get 5 kills in a row you can call in a remote control car that drives to the nearest enemy and explodes, get 7 kills and you can call in attack dogs or setup a turret (I always preferred the 3/5/7 killstreak from that game, sucks they messed with it in the later games). I don't remember if this was the case in CoD 4 as well, but once you reach the 7th kill and call in the dogs or turret, there's nowhere to go from there until you die and restart the streak. At one point I had joined a lobby and there was one other player who left right away, so I was stuck in a room full of bots where I proceeded to wrack up a killstreak that went 26 kills deep, but after the 7th kill there was no reason not to just die and start from 0 again. Also from what I can tell, you're eventually just going to die anyway because as far as I can tell you don't get more ammo for your guns until you die and respawn. Maybe there is a way and I just haven't figured it out yet, but also you don't seem to be able to pick up guns of dead enemies either.

Controls are good for the most part. It took me a little while to get used to reloading an imaginary gun as if it was an actual gun (swapping magazine clips) instead of just tapping a reload button like I would in a flat game, but they do give the option so you can assign it to a button press and I think I'm going to do just that to make things easier. I played most of Resident Evil 4 in VR that way too because it saves time.

Now gameplay-wise it feels like probably the closest we'll get to a VR version of Call Of Duty anytime soon (it even has a co-op zombies mode, though I haven't messed with it), and I'm glad it plays more like that than something more like SOCOM or Rainbow 6. One nice difference between this and Call Of Duty, the playerbase is by far less toxic. Granted I'm only around 10 hours into it so far, but almost every lobby I've been in has people joking and laughing with each other, each day I've played there's at least one lobby with people making jokes about my gamertag when they see it. I've not heard one insult get thrown when someone gets killed by another player except for one kid who sounded about 14 and hadn't played the game before and was getting torn up by the people who definitely had played before, was a bit of a Negative Nancy when he'd get killed in-game and would tell the rest of the lobby full of adults that we're too old to be playing this game. But nobody took offense to it and some of them were even joking back that he needs to take a sip from his juice box and calm down. There are teens and older adults playing from different countries (judging by their accents), no vitriol besides that one kid, mostly just laughter. This is how gaming is supposed to be dammit, and is the total opposite of the kind of crap I hear when playing Call of Duty or [insert nearly any other flavor of the week shooting game here]. The best part is it supports crossplay with Quest and the original PSVR and unlike Among Us VR I am not consistently the only PSVR2 player in a lobby, there's usually at least 2 or 3 others.

The game loads very quickly. No matter what mode you pick, it thrusts you into a match. If there are not enough other players they will shove some bots in the round but they'll be replaced as more people join. However, there is a lot of grinding needed to get the better guns and perks, and for now I'm still stuck with the basic guns you get from the start which means I'm constantly getting my ass kicked by the better players. Still, I'm having fun playing this even with losing consistently, and it has earned itself a spot alongside Drums Rock and Among Us, as now three PSVR2 games that I'll keep installed indefinitely because they are perfect pick-up-and-play games whenever you're feeling in the mood.

Suicide Squad:KTJL (XSX) - 6/10 - This isn't the disaster I had read about. It has some good bits but is overall not that fun. The actual gameplay offers some variety between characters, and the traversal and gunplay works ok. But after a bit of time, it all just feels like padding. The core campaign feels like padding...not a good sign. I like the graphics and am interested in seeing how this plays out, but just standing on a rooftop and seeing new enemies spawn in nearby all the time just feels like a slog. I think "I'll clear the streets" but then new things just pop in and it feels like a waste of time.

The controls are a little convoluted too and I've had trouble when switching characters. Plus the screen has so much stuff on it that I struggle to know where to look sometimes.

I think the core game is fine, but the live service focus and insane grinding sucks all the fun out. I went with my son to the library and checked this out for a week so at least it was free. But I can't imagine I'll play it more than a couple hours.