Recent reviews by DireWolf

This review will be as such as well as a tribute to the developers of such an amazing title.

I purchased IronWolf VR back in February of 2020. As it was a VR game, it was a part of the first handful of VR games I had purchased and even though I lack a fair amount of hours in it, I have followed the development to date and watched the game grow and continue to grow even after the two person development team endured the loss of one of the developers, Phil, one out of the two-man developer team with the other developer Arron. The pair had been life long friends long before they became developers and despite the tragic loss of Phil, Arron continued to develop and release IronWolf VR into a full release game.


Now, given the backstory of the team behind IronWolf VR, obviously I somewhat have a bias that is fairly sentimental in some ways as I followed the development. Although I did not know Phil personally nor have I met Arron, I respected and admired their work.

I want to be fair for this review as I value honest input just as much as any gamer and or VR gamer enthusiast. So I will list some of the pros and cons of Ironwolf VR from my personal opinion.

Pros
*Offers open world missions.
*Co-op mode where four players can operate a submarine just as a crew would.
*Assists to help for those that play solo and or have difficulty finding others to play with such as myself :(
*A Streamer cam.
*In open world, you have a feeling of progression as you can upgrade your submarine as you acquire credits from successful missions.
*Potential scenarios
*Smooth locomotion settings and preferences

Cons
*Some of the VR controls feel rather janky at times.
*Lacks the ability to change snap rotation to smooth.
*More inventory slots or at-least a way to drop specific items like an oxygen canister to replace it with another.
*Perhaps easier visibility to welding and or a dynamic damage model to see progress on how close to fixing leaks.
*My last and unfortunate con is a rather a personal problem rather than one related to IronWolf VR and that is a lack of players and friends to crew a ship together.


Final statements and conclusions.
IronWolf VR to date still has the ability to offer relaxing and engaging fun moments and given that this was developed by a two-man turned one developer team offers an impressive game all-around and I commend Arron on his commitment to finish the project and bringing it to full release as I can only imagine this wasn't an easy decision given that it was not just a developer delivering a product to its customers but a personal and sentimental project with a small community that was more than understanding and supportive through the entire process.

I still believe that IronWolf VR has major potential to shape into an incredible series, sequel and or DLC but I understand that ultimately this is a sentimental project to the remaining developers and I respect his decision just as I hope many others will as well.
I commend Phil's wife for helping Arron continue on to finish IronWolf VR and I offer my deepest condolences to them and their families and all of those who knew Phil personally. Thank you for such a great game.

The ONLY reason I am currently down voting Arma Reforger is one particular feature/mechanic that revolved around tactical leaning and or positioning. For those that played Arma 3 and possibly Arma 2 (1100 hours in Arma 2 but can't even remember if advanced stances was a thing, I really am getting old) you will know what I am talking about.

I'll try to keep looking to see if I missed anything but if I recall correctly, in Arma 3 atleast, you could adjust how far you sidestep left or right, adjust your height from partially standing or partially crouched as well as when prone you could roll left or roll right and even kind of move left or right while laying on your side giving you the ability to peak around a corner like you would crouched but instead you are in a prone like position.

This was a great FPS mil-sim mechanic/feature that many games within the same realm/genre don't seem to have.

Take for example Hell Let Loose. (I know, different era and theater of war but the example applies all the same.) In HLL, there are many times where I will be aiming out of a window that is partially boarded up and although there are gaps, your height restricts you to one height and only one height as crouching too low where you can't even aim out of the window. Now if HLL had an advanced stance mechanic, you could perfectly aim out of the gaps within the window. This has always been a fairly common issue in a lot of FPS games, mil-sim or not and it felt right having that mechanic/feature in a mil-sim game as it became so damn handy to use in many situations and encounters.

If I find that the the stance/pose mechanic isn't actually in here the way Arma 3 had it and the devs choose to reverse this desicion and implement it, I will happily conclude the rest of my review and give it a thumbs up. If the rumor is true and the devs are trying to appeal to a console demographic and this is why this mechanic was removed, then yes I will absolutely continue to give it a thumbs down. I've seen far too many good games and developers hack away at good features and mechanics to appeal to a wider customer base for a different platform while giving a slap in the face to the community that supported them on the original platform they started on. (I'm absolutely looking at you "Onward" which had dozens of features, maps and mechanics removed to appeal to the users of the standalone Quest 2 platform over the growing community of PCVR players.) I'm sure there are plenty of example that I can think of as and I'm sure that you, the reader, have some that come to mind as well and can understand my frustration.

I'd be hard pressed to find a negative review for free DLC (the only DLC for HLL mind you :P ) for a game that's receiving good support and quarterly updates from the dev team. Good work guys! Absolutely an amazing time.

First ten seconds after a carrier launch, I realized I left my canopy open, it blew off and then I proceeded to finish the mission, Ace ventura style. Then later realized I could clip through the canopy. Finished every mission Ace ventura style.



Seriously though, VTOL VR raises the bar for VR Flight simulators in so many ways and I believe, setting a new precedent for controls (or lack of) with interactive instruments.

1. A little summary of my genre background in VR Flight sims.
I've played DCS world, War Thunder and Elite dangerous but I made the mistake of playing VTOL VR first before the former three I listed and ♥♥♥♥ me sideways on a corndog, despite how beautiful DCS is, after using interactive cockpit instruments in VTOL VR, it's just not the same. Keep in mind, I've played quite a flight simulators with a HOTAS setup (no pedals yet) and the TrackIR 5 + Pro Clip.

2. Why does it raise the bar?
The amount of options and buttons you have to keep in mind and but yet all you need is your (Insert your VR controller) and your are all set. I have yet to try pedals but I imagine it will only get more immersive and fun.

Also more importantly, the lack of having to bind 100+ keys to your controllers or joysticks saving hours of play time and frustration.

This is one of the major potentials of VR, actually being able to work with the instruments and just hit a switch.

Landing Gear? No problem, just pull this level on the left.

♥♥♥♥ has hit the fan and you need to bail? Just pull the eject bar between your legs and ejectulate out of that ♥♥♥♥♥.

Yes, you may have to learn what each switch, lever and button if you don't already know but at least you don't have to learn which key/button/axis said action is bound to as well.

4. Multiplayer? My one downside is the lack of multiplayer but I've seen that feature is obviously a priority for the future so once that hopefully is developed and implemented I will come back and edit it for my review.

5. Graphics. The graphics for a VR experience aren't exactly top notch but still enjoyable to look at to some degree and doesn't take away too much from the experience overall BUT on the bright-side, the game holds together very well performance wise.

Conclusion.
If you are a VR enthusiast as well as a flight sim enthusiast, VTOL VR is a must have for the collection. However, if you also enjoy multiplayer as most do in Flight sims, I would say to take that into consideration of how important that is for your type of gameplay. Obviously this is an early access game but I'm fairly confident we will see multiplayer or at the least co-op modes down the road.

SCORE:
I give VTOL VR a score of 8/10 until multiplayer and perhaps some graphic updates and I will gladly give you guys a 10/10.

Given that this is an early access game created by 8 developers, in that regard, I would say it is an impressive game. By acknowledging that this is an early access game, by no means is this game perfect but I will go as far to say it's certainly different from your average game for the horror-FPS genre it's aimed at while still holding on to that "fun" factor for players that like Stealth and Survival based FPS games.

My first experience started as an interesting one. Currently in GTFO, there is no matchmaking and no means to any multiplayer experiences with your friends and or other players WITHOUT the social gaming app Discord.
Depending on who you ask this is pro or a con. Some players don't like to have to download another platform if they don't use it to begin with, understandably so. Other players I imagine like to start up a game and select matchmaking to automatically be placed in a lobby in order to simply play the game without any obligation and or requirement to interact with other players. In my opinion, I personally like the current system for several reason but I also won't complain if they do implement a similar matchmaking system within the game, if not, one that does it automatically.

This is a new and different approach to matchmaking through discord and essentially it starts in a few steps explained below after you have launched discord and GTFO.
1. In the main menu of GTFO, you will find a link to the main GTFO discord channel.
2. Once in GTFO channel, you will find the subchannel LFG-*Region name* and depending whether or not you have friends, you can choose to host a new lobby or you can choose to advertise that you are looking for a group (LFG) to join a lobby that may also be advertising that they are looking for 3 or less players.
3. Once you find a lobby, the host will send you the ID# for their lobby and in which you will copy and paste.
4. Once you have copied the ID#, in the main menu you will find on the left that the game has recognized the ID# and will display a "join ID# lobby" option.
5. Enjoy.

Note: I will say that the multiplayer-discord process provides a great way to make friends as well with players you enjoyed the game with. I also RECOMMEND finding a host and or hosting yourself with a good internet connection until GTFO has their own servers to host from.

Now that the process of joining others is out of the way, the game-play itself is very tense if you actually want to beat the level. Each player, if they planned correctly will each have different tools and or weapons that will serve their purposes. I also recommend players that have patience as at times the pace can feel slow if you are not careful and don't approach situations slowly, it could mean death in the short term and or long term for the level you are on.

This is a survival game and as you descend into the lower levels, the difficulty will increase and your ammo will decrease faster as more challenges means more chances to ♥♥♥♥ up leaving your team to defend itself at all costs or die, depending on the situation. This is very much a team oriented game as you can't just rely on yourself to make it through without attracting hordes of mutants to fight off and risk your health, your resources and or death altogether.

Unless you are completely sold on the games concept and genre as well as the way it requires discord to play with friends or other players if you don't like solo play then I would suggest holding off to see if the developers continue to provide more content/features but if you are a fan of this type of survival genre, I do recommend it. I'm usually not even a fan of that particular genre but I'm still enjoying it all the same for the time being and I hope to see the developers continue to support it.