Compound is a surprisingly good VR shooter that has intuitive controls, a cohesive art style, and audio that fits the aesthetic. The whole package comes together to feel like a genuine NES game dropped right into VR that, unlike most VR games, gives you $20 worth of gameplay. This is one of those rare games that successfully escapes Early Access and doesn't feel like a patchwork job. Worth playing (if you have a VR headset) with an asterisk because of some problems with the arsenal.

Like most FPS games I've played recently, there's something off with most of the weapons in the game. Oddly enough, the starting weapons are some of the best weapons in the game: the starting shotgun has good spread, good damage per pellet, high pellet count, and reloads quickly. Meanwhile the bouncing shotgun has half the projectile speed, about half of the pellet count, takes longer to reload, and has friendly fire on the bounce. The starting SMG fits into a similar spot because of the high DPS but wide spray of it; excellent at close range but useless at range (as expected). The other two starting weapons are questionable but they provide some decent variety and access to more ammo pools.

Unfortunately, all of the explosive weapons feel bad to use: the starting grenade launcher's arc is unexpectedly short, the rocket launcher's AoE is actually smaller than the GL's, and the sticky launcher's AoE is so small you have to land direct hits with it or set traps. The explosive weapons all have bad hitboxes too, with red explosive barrels bizarrely being more reliable explosive damage than any of your weapons. I think the issue is either the hitboxes being smaller than the explosions or the hitboxes projecting from the billboard particles, causing them to emit damage from your cone of view. Explosions honestly feel "2D"; I'd frequently land a rocket two feet behind an enemy and it visibly did no damage. No matter what the issue is, they are really unreliable and not fun to use.

There's also three starting pistols with infinite ammo (emergency guns around the levels) but the two you unlock feel terrible to use. The burst pistol is so short range that you can't hit the second target at the range with it, making it effectively a melee weapon, and the laser pistol has a three second recharge time for one round if you deplete the three shot magazine. Being a VR game there's of course an obligatory Compound bow too but shooting arrows at mechs and armored machine gunners is purely a gimmick.

This is a good game but with some tweaks it could be a great game. Compound is one of those rare VR games that you'll get your money's worth out of and feels like a real video game. There's plenty of variety to runs with good level randomization plus mutators and difficulty settings to tweak almost everything to your liking. This is something that'll stand the test of time because of the effort put into the presentation; this looks, feels, and plays like a retro game that just happened to release in 2022. An easy recommendation for your VR library, just beware of some weapon wonkiness.

peak

100% worth $20