Recent reviews by Ess2s2

The ultimate grandfather of physics-based FPS and the template for countless "cerebral" shooters. This was the "killer app" (along with Counter Strike) that truly launched Steam as a games platform. From the groundbreaking facial animations to the cryptic and alluring dystopian world, this was the game. More than 20 years later, the game's stunning mechanics and clarity of vision stand as testaments to the power of focused games design and what can happen when game designers push the established boundaries.

Gameplay
Two words: Gravity Gun. This singular tool/weapon changed the face of first person shooters forever and cemented Half-Life 2 as the new gold standard for single player FPS games when it released. The ability to turn environmental junk into improvised projectiles is exciting and novel in ways that audiences at the time couldn't properly articulate. This is facilitated in large part by the Source Engine's premier physics capabilities, which far surpassed Havok and other engines of the day. Swinging cranes, knocking over stacks of objects (and enemies), using floating boxes as stepping stones, flinging debris, and using balance and weight to solve puzzles was (and still is) one of the most immersive and innovative mechanics in any video game then or since.

Other weapons in the game are a delight to shoot, with a fantastically clean feel and just the right amount of kick. Certain weapons have an alt-fire mode which enhances their tactical options, and each weapon has a well-defined use-case in which it excels. From semi-auto pistols and meaty revolvers, to futuristic Combine machine guns, to (my personal favorite) the Resistance crossbow, each weapon is finely tuned and will have its own crop of fans who herald its effectiveness. Every one is adept at clearing legions of Combine soldiers, and all will need to be intelligently leveraged in order to progress.

In addition, the enemy AI was much more complex than other games of the time, with bad guys swarming, flanking, and retreating as their numbers dwindled. Gunfights are punchy, visceral affairs, and each skirmish feels unique and dire. Many times throughout the game, the player is ambushed or besieged and is forced to think on their feet, lest they be overrun. From headcrabs to Combine soldiers to striders, each new enemy type requires a new approach to beat, and will frequently see the player relying on nearby environmental factors in order to prevail. Set pieces tie seamlessly into the gameplay, and most obstacles make sense as organic parts of the game world, rather than feeling arbitrarily placed as in many other games. Levels and gameplay sections are frequently huge, and while this is mostly a great thing, there are times where these sections can drag on for far longer than they are welcome. Two notable areas in this regard are Route Kanal and Highway 17, both of which are largely vehicular in nature and feel much too long. Nova Prospekt was also a level that never seemed to end, and seemed strangely barren considering it was the point terminus for thousands of prisoners within the games own lore.

Aside from that, every level stands out as another unique portion of the arduous journey that Gordon Freeman must undergo in his mission to free humanity from the clutches of the Combine, and each level brings a design and character that is completely different from the last. The levels together paint a picture of a planet under siege, underlining the reckless destruction and oppression the Combine have visited upon the human race. From city streets to sewers, from prisons to pumping stations, and from bombed-out tenements to the Combine Citadel, each level has it's own challenges, obstacles, and feeling of upward progression. Without a doubt, this game excels at making you actually feel like the Gordon Freeman. It's sublime.

Story
The story of Half-Life 2 has been lauded for years as a pinnacle of writing and subtle exposition. As mentioned above, the levels themselves communicate volumes about the world and the predicament humans find themselves in, having been enslaved by a malevolent alien race after the events of the first Half-Life game. Once vibrant cities have been laid to waste, beautiful coasts and verdant fields have been destroyed from the Combine relentlessly siphoning natural resources off-world, and the human race has been oppressed, subjugated, and pushed to the brink of annihilation. Gordon Freeman has been...somewhere...since the events of Half-Life, and is transported to City 17 by the mysterious G-man to embark upon a campaign of liberation from the Combine's clutches. Alien technology abounds and fills the world with an uncomfortable, assimilated feeling, and events in the game organically advance a growing sense of human resistance, struggle, and betrayal from within, such as the cold, clinical influence of Dr. Breen. One of the messages in the opening scenes of the game, "Welcome to City 17, you have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers..." is written so concisely to communicate all you need to know about the situation as the player, while leaving plenty of questions to be answered. This starting piece of the puzzle is continually built upon by well-acted and well-written bits of exposition delivered by characters new and old, and leads the player to a growing sense of dread as they begin to understand how grave the situation truly is.

As the player progresses in the game, new story bits are revealed, and the enemy response to the player's actions become ever more intense, lending a true sense of weight to the player's actions and breathing life into the world. Even in areas that feel barren and devoid of human presence, the spectre of the Combine's influence is felt and is an easy, organic justification to the palpable feeling of isolation. Gordon being labeled "anti-citizen one" is absolutely on-brand and enhances the notion that the player should not be doing what they're doing and they are not where they should be. In short, Half-Life 2 is deliciously dystopian and has established itself as a benchmark in world-building and character-driven exposition.

Graphics
As a 20+ year-old game which has never seen a true remaster, the graphics in HL2 are certainly dated. That said, the art direction, level design, and character models really do stand the test of time. Once locked into the superb gameplay, graphics become a secondary concern, and the colors and textures still do an excellent job of conveying the needed cues. Lights illuminate the way forward, darkness delivers apprehension and a sense of unknown danger, outside scenes are overcast and feel flat (in a good way), and props are lovingly crafted and placed to create a world that has been ravaged and destroyed. At the time of the game's release, point lighting was still a premier technology, and it has been used to great effect, showcasing stark, high-contrast scenes and making flame-lit tunnels and florescent-lit hallways both pop in their own ways. Water shaders, particle effects, and debris are competent, but have been surpassed many times over by newer technology in the intervening years. Still, they get the job done, and a recent 20-year anniversary update unlocked higher display resolutions, allowed newer effects, and helped open the game to a new generation of fans. Luckily, as stated above, the game is easily able to stand on gameplay and design elements. While a remaster or complete overhaul would be welcome, the game is 100% playable as-is and is very enjoyable even without the helpful lens of nostalgia.

All in all, Half-Life 2 is a testament to incredibly robust game design and easily stands as a true video game classic. For anyone who has never played it, Half-Life 2 will lead players on a grand adventure that is as unique as it is polished. In all ways, Half-Life 2 is a game for the ages.

NOTE: This game has been delisted to accommodate the "Director's Cut" edition.

I wanted to like this game, I really, really did.

Just a quick preface; I've played a great many Kojima games, from the original Metal Gear on NES, to Snatcher (one of my all time favorite games), all the way up to the modern MGS games. I've never had a major problem with his particular style of game design. Yes, his cutscenes are a bit long-winded at times, and he seems to inject quirkiness into sometimes inappropriate places (Kerotan frogs in MGS3, Quiet's costume, etc.), but through the years, he's had a certain dedication to quality and vision that could be relied upon.

Death Stranding is something completely different in my opinion.

Kojima purists may hate me for this, but I feel like without Konami to occasionally pull the reins in, Kojima has lost focus. His games have become increasingly eccentric and meandering in execution. They've become bloated with the transparent aspirations of someone who obviously, desperately wants to be a film auteur. I honestly feel like Death Stranding is the ultimate manifestation of those aspirations. Sorry Hideo, while it might be great for some, I'm not here to play a movie.

This particular design philosophy is evident in many aspects of gameplay, Kojima expects you to play this game his way, on his terms, and in line with his grand vision. This can frequently punish a player who either wishes to play their own way, or tries to do something unexpected or out of order. I don't say this often, but this is truly a case where I feel like the game director couldn't get out of his own way to make a game for the players.

Gameplay
Distilled down to its very core, this game is probably the best walking simulator I've ever seen. Terrain, speed, and your cargo loading all affect your gait and ability to negotiate obstacles. The nuance and thought that went into this mechanic and the actual execution of walking around in the game is nothing short of flawless. The controls are intuitive and truly feel like you're controlling Sam's movements. The terrain system is elegant, with an interaction and flow that just perfectly nails the sensation of walking on rough ground. This is the thing. This is the core gameplay loop to get excited about. Unfortunately, I feel like everything else that was tacked on--particularly the infrastructure-building--dilutes this core loop and turns the game into a meandering, bloated mess. The addition of roads and vehicles robs this game of its most fundamental strengths; the absolutely stunning terrain and the insanely good walking mechanics. While these additions are mostly a late-game addition, this game also comes with a disappointing online aspect that if turned on, essentially destroys the entire "stranded" aspect of the game. Roads and ladders appear, bridges left by other players persist in the world, polluting the landscape and removing any sense of personal accomplishment or exploration.

The rest areas and activities seem like another place where stuff was just tacked on for...reasons. Heavy-handed product placement will constantly bludgeon you with the cudgel of reality while items and upgrades can be bought from...where exactly? How did this stuff get here? Who ported those snazzy shades and Monster(TM) drinks to the rest area? In all, the rest areas feel more like a Norman Reedus dress-up minigame and truly feel out of place compared to the rest of the game's tone.

The BTs and the gameplay loop surrounding them is pretty cool, but also feels like a form of self-fulfillment on Kojima's part in the vein of the aborted Silent Hills game. The horror-esque, time-consuming crawling scenes seem to be Kojima throwing the bird to Konami for cancelling Silent Hills. You're defenseless, slow-moving, and unable to see BTs unless you're standing still. The scenes are very tense, unsettling, and fun the first couple times around. After that, they become this frustrating roadblock that serves as little else than a waste of your time. Unfortunately, the "waste of your time" aspect is ever present in this game, and really, before I go any further, I should just go ahead and say it here. Kojima does not respect your time. From the insane length of cutscenes in this game, to the tediously drawn out BT encounters, to the "this menu animation shall take 2 minutes and 30 seconds out of your life", do not ever expect to have a quick gaming sesh with Death Stranding.

*As a personal side note, this will also make it all but impossible to get a true feel for the game before the Steam refund playtime of 2 hours is exceeded. You've been warned.

Story
Hoo boy.

The story in Death Stranding is...definitely something. It truly feels like a stream-of-consciousness-turned-script, penned by Kojima himself, and hidden away from any edits or general consensus. The apparent child-like simplicity of character names is baffling (DIE-HARDMAN, so named because he's really hard to kill; DEADMAN, because he works with dead people and [SPOILER], and yes, they must be in all caps) and again pulls away from the tone of the rest of the game. On the other end of the spectrum, Kojima assaults you with so many double-entendre names and terms, it becomes overwhelming. Impossible coincidences abound, everyone in the game is completely defined by positively ludicrous situations, and the plot is so convoluted and self-referential you'll likely need to turn to The Google in order to understand everything. The strangest thing is that while so many plot-points are just straight-up explained outright, it's still difficult to gain any coherent sense of the story, and for most of the game, players are left to puzzle over trivial things. Many of the conclusions the game offers aren't worth the work it took to get there, which is a shame since many of the events surrounding the story are very interesting, they just lack any sort of explanation (Timefall is such a cool concept that I wish would have been explained, otherwise it's just an orphaned game mechanic for the sake of making the game harder).

The story is delivered in a somewhat antiseptic manner by the notable cast. This is one of the biggest earmarks of Kojima's desire to actually be in movies; his dogged determination to cast A-list actors, celebrities, and directors. The scope of the cast is frankly staggering, from acclaimed actor Norman Reedus, to Mads Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux, Lindsay Wagner, and other industry luminaries such as Conan O'Brien, it is patently obvious the cast selection was a huge focus for Death Stranding. While it's pretty cool to see big Hollywood and global film names in a video game, I can't help but think about the costs associated with that. These costs are much more than simply monetary; as Destiny proved with their casting of Peter Dinklage, putting a AAA star in a voice role does not guarantee a AAA performance. While Reedus does a great job, and is a treat to watch, many of his contemporaries don't bring the same verve to their roles. To be fair, the material they have to work with is esoteric and incredibly heavy-handed; dense piles of exposition with nonsense words like "BT", "voidout", and "bridge baby". The greatest actors of our time would struggle with the delivery of such babble.

Graphics
Really, this is the one area of the game I have no issues with. The world is stunningly gorgeous, the art direction is tight and believably futuristic, and the character models are lovingly detailed. This is what caught your eye on the store page, guaranteed. Granted, the topography really doesn't match America's look and feel, but with all the other craziness in the game, this quibble just becomes background noise.

Tl;dr
All in all, DS is a game I wanted to love, but too many concessions to Kojima's whims turn a simple, solid game idea into a bloated, aimless mess.

What can be said that hasn't already been said?

It's a modern game on a very old engine (think Duke Nukem, but with over 20 years of game mechanics evolution to ignore).

Much like the old school inspirations, this game is fast, frenetic, and above all, fun. There's plenty of different weapons and their alt-fire modes to explore, and the game is teeming with baddies to shoot, crush, smash, explode, set on fire, and otherwise annihilate.

The levels are large, sprawling, and interesting, although can sometimes look a little samey, especially near the midpoint. Levels all look nice and distinguished from one another, although given to the limits of the game engine, they all have a very characteristic pixelated look which can either feel like home or feel like heck depending on how much love you have for the classic game engine.

Even on lower difficulties, enemies spot you and start shooting immediately, making this very much a reflex-based FPS. There are several different types of enemies, ranging from easily defeated foot-soldiers to bullet-sponge minibosses.

This game may perhaps be more well-known for the controversies surrounding it than the actual game play. First it was in the news for the original title (Ion Maiden) which was struck down by a C+D from the band Iron Maiden. After that, there was a minor kerfluffle when one of the props in the game was found to have a name that upset some groups, and after some patches and temporary removal, the prop was reinstated throughout the game.

Regardless of any outside media, the game is a fun, short distraction from the current glut of "mainstream" titles and their increasing reliance on always online, service-based structure, and hearkens back to a simpler time when all the player needed to do was shoot their way from one end of the level to the other.

Highly recommended for anyone who values a brainlessly violent good time.

Cheers/Game on.

An absolutely jaw-dropping experience that was subsequently gutted and turned into a non-VR, non-Steam travesty.

Originally a VR-only experience that brought together several virtual music "rides" and private "cave parties", WaveVR was a stunning example of how to create a novel VR experience that didn't need to be a game to be fully engaging. With a multiplayer aspect (meeting people in "The Expanse" and during shows) and lots to do in both common areas and musical rides, Wave was nothing short of breathtaking.

Featuring three non-changing shows and hosting multiple limited-time engagements, Wave seemed to be getting bigger and better each day. Unfortunately, as time wore on, development seemed to push further and further toward a live-engagement strategy, but with showtimes only aimed at North American/West Coast audiences, with no way to replay shows that had been missed. Sadly this was the beginning of the end. With seemingly no way to bring back older shows, and with the main three static shows getting stale, fewer and fewer people showed up.

Unfortunately, I have not seen another program in VR that even came close to the concept and execution that Wave managed to bring. With hundreds if not thousands of wave shooters, sports re-creations, job simulators and escape rooms, it hurts that someone else hasn't taken up the mantle and created a new musical experience similar to Wave.

Let me be clear: As someone who loves music, electronica, and cutting-edge virtual experiences, this was literally my Holy Grail of VR. I logged in every chance I could and loved every moment I spent inside. I experienced all that I could, including the mini-games and interactive artworks in The Expanse, cave parties in other user's worlds, limited-time shows, and all the other little surprises and goodies that I could find during the times I had to log on. I LOVED this piece of software.

Then the devs had to go and f*** it all up.

The game may still be listed on the Steam store, but the program itself is completely defunct. Without the company's servers, the game won't even boot, and everything that was there is gone forever. The Wave that exists now is a sort of virtual live concert, but without VR (or Steam), and without all the beauty and nuance from being a place you *visit* and move around in. The Wave that exists now is a hollow, meaningless shadow of what it was before.

During the shutdown, the community *screamed* at the devs, asking for any concession that would allow us to keep our virtual world of music and light, but the shutdown continued on unimpeded, and now is a fading memory that hurts more to remember than anything.

For anyone who is checking out this store listing, stay away. You missed it. It's gone.

If you want a taste of what this was like, check out Surge VR on steam, an interactive (and free!) music video on Steam that touches on what made Wave VR so special.

Another promising entry in VR cut down too soon. Shame on the devs and owners.

I've tried with this game twice and I just can't like it. I can see all the things that make it so popular, such as the nemesis system, the open world, and the myriad of ways you can approach any situation, unfortunately, it simply doesn't resonate with me.

Let me be clear; I LOVE open world games. I have sunk more hours than I care to count into the likes of GTA, Zelda: BotW, Far Cry, Skyrim, and others, but this world simply doesn't pull me in or evoke any feeling of immersion.

One of my biggest issues with the game is in regards to the control mechanics. Every single input is sluggish and awkward, and makes moving smoothly around an enemy encampment a terrible chore. Animation frames are given complete priority, meaning if you let off a given movement control, then press another one, you will need to wait for the character animation to catch up with your intent. This typically means up to a second or more of input delay while your character finishes that last walk animation; and when trying to sneak smoothly around a baddie or creep up on him to deliver a finisher, this can-and routinely does-spell death for the player. During combat, this is less of a concern, due to the fact it takes the AC/Batman combat theory of strike/counter/finisher rhythm, and needed inputs are easy to input with a wide tolerance for timing. THAT SAID: I can't say enough how much I hate the chaotic combat in the game. Multiple times I was inundated by enemies, and nothing I could do could save me from a hopeless, frustrating death.

I know what you're thinking: get gud noob. Well, I was literally an hour into the game both times, on a main mission, and I was completely overrun. I don't care how bad of a gamer you are, that's a poor difficulty spike. It's not even excusable by saying I went off-path and ran into overleveled enemies, because I didn't. I followed a story mission and a scripted event threw an overwhelming number of enemies at me.

It certainly doesn't help that enemy encampments will fill back up with bad guys almost immediately after you've killed everyone, especially after the end of a mission, killing any feeling of progression, and making getting from one side of the map to the other a slog. I was more than a little dismayed to have finally completed a mission only to watch as little red arrows streamed back into my area almost immediately, cutting off my escape route. Why can't that area stay cleared at least for a little bit? Let me get somewhere else and do some more missions before you stack an area back up.

The graphics are very good, and the only gripe I have is with the overly bland maps. Nothing ever looks particularly awe-inspiring, and at least in the areas I saw, there was no variety or distinguishing landmarks. The character models do look fantastic, but they are placed atop generic cliffs, watchtowers, and ruined buildings that again, begin to blend together. All I know is I'm in Baddieville, then I'm in West Baddieville, then I'm in South-West Baddieville, and it all looks the same. Speaking of all looking the same, I'm over Wraith Mode, Detective Mode, Eagle Vision, and every other "-vision" mode. They all ape each others' mechanics and features, from following tracks on the ground to differentiating the "informant" enemies and this game mechanic has pretty much run its course in my opinion. There are some creative ways this has been used in SoM, such as requiring the power in order to find artifacts, but after the umpteenth time using it to find a worm, artifact, or set of enemies that I'm desperately trying not to get seen by, it becomes just another game mechanic, and one that's been explained and implemented better in other games.

Sound is good, all the effects are there from the movie trilogy, the music is nice, the voice acting is satisfactory. Some lines are delivered with a hollow lack of conviction, as if they were recorded on a Monday, and the Uruk chatter gets annoying, particularly since they all seem to be the same three guys from Lower London. Finishing moves are all juicy, crunchy affairs, and are nice and punchy at first, but again, after about the 100th stealth kill, sounds like you're stepping on a bag of potato chips. Also, minor gripe but we'll throw it on the pile, half my stealth kills involve my victim screaming his fool head off as I drag him down and open him up, but no one heard that? Okay.

Really, there's a lot of good stuff in this game, but it all overlaps horribly. It feels as though missions push up against one another in the world, and with the every area teeming with baddies, I never felt as though I could just cleanly complete a mission. I was always in shields-up mode, and it always felt as though I was on the defensive. Others may love that, but for me, it wasn't an enjoyable way to play the game. The progression system is interesting, but convoluted with two completely separate progression trees in addition to two kinds of experience, XP, and Power. You need Power (gained from defeating Captains) in order to unlock an ability before you can learn it with XP gained from missions and tasks. On top of the two skill trees, runes, nemeses, Focus, Elf-Shot, along with the very real danger of being clubbed to death by 10+ enemies at once, the game turns into too much for me to handle.

I go to pause the game and there's an ad for the real money store and an urgent message to go purchase the amazing, incredible, all-new, (monitized), Middle Earth (TM): Shadow of War(TM). No thanks.

You may love this game, but I sure didn't. If you need a numerical score to make it through life, I'd give this a 4/10, mainly because I see it has a bunch of great gameplay in it, but nothing is ever running smoothly, and the game as a whole is hurt by it in the face of better, more focused offerings.

Cheers.

I grew up with the Age series of games and have loved them all for years.

This version of Age of Mythology is mostly faithful, but there are some extremely poor design choices that hamper this game to an extreme degree.

First and foremost, the Chinese expansion is shallow and ham-fisted into the base game. As DLC, it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't break the base game, but in random matches the CPU almost always picks the Chinese, which causes the game to give an error and quit out to the title screen. This all happens AFTER you've already started a game and loaded the scenario. As soon as the game world loads, you get the error that DLC characters cannot be used without purchase and the game quits.

Let me be clear: THIS IS THE WRONGEST POSSIBLE WAY TO HANDLE THIS SITUATION. You are essentially punished for not buying the overpriced DLC as the game wastes your time allowing you to start and load a game before kicking you out to the title screen.

I only bought the DLC in order to play the base game, and I did so against my own better judgement. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would simply not buy the game at all and simply install the original CD version that I have. Achievements and instant availability is not worth the fact that this game was poorly handled in the translation to Steam, and apparently some DLC/compulsory in-game purchase was planned from the start.

As far as gameplay, AoM is amazing, with many minor and major gods to choose from, and similar gameplay to other Age titles, with certain cardinal differences, such as earning Favor and the ability to summon god powers.

All that said, I am still not recommending this game due to the hostile way DLC is implemented and the fact that as a rerelease with very, very few quality additions, this game is rather overpriced, especially when you account for the mandatory DLC.

Please note: I participated in the alpha/beta for this software. I have since purchased the commercial (Early Access) version on which I am basing my current review.

I'm playing this with a Vive; my PC specs are as follows: AMD FX-8350 @ 4.2GHz, 16GB DDR3, Strix GTX 1080, 250GB SSD, 750W PSU.

Lucid Trips is a very interesting program, one that I would hesitate to call a "game" for a number of reasons. To me, it is more of a low-gravity sandbox world where you can go anywhere you like, and there are numerous secret crannies to find and explore. Some game elements are included such as the ability to collect gems and certain types of powerups and abilities, but mostly, the game encourages you to lose yourself in the ethereal sights and sounds this world provides. Some limited direction is given to you before you're unleashed on the gameworld, and by and large, you're expected to kind of hammer out your own direction.

Certain clues are subtly rendered in the game, which largely consist of flashes of light or floating confetti. These clues help you zero in on certain places and items that may or may not be of interest you. As stated before, the entire world has very low gravity, and as such everything has a wonderfully floaty feel. The controls are intuitive, if a bit finiky at times, and before long, you'll find yourself soaring through the air and scrubbing along the ground, marvelling at the alien vistas before you.

The graphics are simple, subdued, and surreal. Motes fly through the air, adding a sense of atmosphere, and the nicely rendered grass is reactive to your avatar's touch, and is super relaxing to crawl through or simply watch swaying in the ethereal winds. In the distance, hills, mountains, and impossible floating rock formations wait patiently for you to figure out how to get to them, and exotic trees, mysterious caves, and enchanting vistas are dotted across the trippy, synethesia-inspired landscape.

The sounds are spacy, echoey affairs, making the place you inhabit seem somehow cavernous and private. There osn't music per-se, just an ambient, haunting howl that somehow reminds me of what voices must sound like in-utero. The result is an experience that is rather alien in feel, but very easy to lose oneself in. Each quiet surprise begs the player to find the next, and hours can easily melt away while playing this game.

As far as VR experiences go, this game is one of those unique, early experiences that help to prove VR is far from a gimmick, and can open us up to not only new horizons and experiences, but entirely new worlds as well.

For anyone looking for a quieter, more serene ride, this experience will be right up their alley. One of the best ways you can spend $8.

Played this and I think the concept is a bit sparse, but funny and a nice distraction. The different implements you can use are funny and widely varied, although I wish there were a few more unique sound effects.

One bug I encountered was my crayon was about 6 inches off the table when it was writing on the registration form, not sure why this is, but it's consistent between playthroughs.

The game moves extremely fast, and there isn't any discernable difficulty curve or setting, so I hope you're really good at whack-a-mole.

The satirical likenesses of the current candidates made me laugh, and both are equally lampooned. The polish of the mechanics is very nice except for the absence of some sort of explanation of controls and a way to smoothly quit the game. Other things to do in the polling place would be nice, maybe throw a basketball or two, or tip ballot boxes over, shenanigans, etc.

It's a great first start, and I look forward to future endeavors from this company.

So, I took a chance on this game, and I must say, it paid off.

Full disclosure: I bought this experience for my hippie girlfriend. She likes to meditate.

I bought it and logged in to check out the features and made sure it ran on my PC as I am running Windows 7 and this game is intended for Win10. Thankfully the game runs and I'm hoping they do some more testing and optimization for Win7 for future updates.

The interface is smooth and clean, though can select the wrong inputs if you "outrun" it or go too fast for the interface to keep up. The number of environments is very decent for the amount this experience is going for. The environments are widely varied and all are in full 3D and can be explored through teleportation. Movement is not restricted to the ground, and you can also teleport and move through the air, giving some very interesting and revealing views on the environments.

There is a limit to immersion though, as no element I could find was interactive. I understand this is intended more as a guided meditation aid, but I think simple activities such as making ripples in a small pond, raking the sand in Temple Adonis, or brushing aside hanging vines would increase the ability to get lost in these environments and find another type of zen stress relief. Not sure if this kind of interaction is possible, but I have a feeling it would be welcome for those who are interested in getting lost in a world.

As for the guided meditation and welcoming nature of this experience, I can say that while my girlfriend loves VR, she has always left one headphone out as a way to ground herself. This was the first game where she put both headphones in, smiled, and allowed herself to go through a few guided relaxation sessions. Afterward, she told me she wanted to make this a daily routine. The smile on her face is all the answer I need.

For anyone who has the horsepower, graphics options and in-game supersampling are included, and effects are applied in realtime, allowing you to adjust a scene for optimal performance.

The amount of options when it comes to music, meditation type, narration, duration, and environment are pretty staggering. There's options for 2-minute routines, 5-minute routines, and much more, with different levels of meditation, and different guides and topics to help you achieve a more personalized session.

There were certain areas where you could "peel back the curtain" and see angles and areas you weren't meant to, but as someone who likes to explore, I actually found that fun. The graphics are well done, detailed full 3D models and are certainly not the same as the geometric cutouts in the main trailer.

As this software is still in Early Access, I am definitely looking forward to seeing what additions and enhancements are made, as well as seeing improvements in the UI and less background noise in the spoken narratives.

All in all, I highly recommend this experience for anyone who wants to get away and find a lot of calm in another world. Although if you're someone looking for a game, with stuff to do and things to win, this isn't the purchase for you. as for myself, I love the worlds on offer here and even as static backgrounds, are fun to walk around in with some cool music in the background. I can't wait for more.

Refunded this game as it has significant performance issues, boring gameplay, unclear intructions, and missing features as compared to the video and screenshots.

The graphics are very simple, but still, in just about any area, there is significant judder and loss of framerate.

The games are not very fun, and some can make you sick. One such game is beer pong, where you play beer pong. The problem is, every few balls, you have to drink a beer and it blurs your vision and makes the player view loll about uncontrollably. I have extremely strong VR legs and this made me feel ill.

Getting started is difficult as there are only a few instructions which are written in broken english and don't give very good directions at all.

Finally, and worst of all, many features shown in the video and screen shots are not in the game, particularly the ropeway to the skull door, which is one of the biggest teases that influenced me to purchase the game. This is definitely not cool, and is a good example of false advertising. If you don't have it in the game, don't feature it.

I do not recommend this game for purchase, there's simply not enough there.