Recent reviews by mech_

paywalling features ive already paid for on christmas eve..for a controller driver.
cant wait for a better alternative to come along

kind of disingenuous to call a game 'free to play' when the only free part is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UI that looks like it was playtested during an earthquake and then shipped to ubisoft so they can wrap their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ data scraping launcher around it. i could overlook that if the gameplay still retained the identity ive come to expect from trackmania, but the cars are heavy and they've replaced the power steering fluid with molasses.

should have known it'd be a skip when it asked to opt-into personalized ads. slimy af the way they make it seem like a TOS where the only choice is yes

greedy devs overpomise and underdeliver while ignoring core base. time to flush their hype train.
like anti cheat in a social game, monthly paid subscriptions do not belong in services so inclusive towards minors.

the default control setting works well enough with index knuckles, but being able to make your own peripheral with little to no added cost kicks the whole thing up a notch. i ended up using a shower curtain rod and some adhesive-less medical cloth tape called 'sports wrap' to fashion an oddly realistic feeling oar. even the haptic still works, as the vibrations reverb through the pole you can still feel it without directly holding the controllers themselves lol

fantastic environment design, great ui, and realistic rowing feel come together to make what is now one of my favorite VR experiences currently available. plenty of settings for graphics and controls allow for a cohesive, immersive meditative workout that sneaks up on you as you gaze up at the stars. or down, to see lively ocean creatures going about their lives underneath the waves. the refraction shader (?) seems to be a bit lacking, and there doesn't really seem to be much in the way in terms of realistic wake physics (like when something big lands in the water off in the distance) but the performance trade off means that the relaxation may give way to a surprisingly potent horror experience frantically navigating a stormy shoreline in rough seas.

the asynchronous multiplayer isn't something i entirely care for; i would rather be able lazily explore around w/ some homies instead of getting my ass handed to me around a surprisingly large number of race courses to choose from. but again, it might be a performance trade off and the implemented ghost-based races run seamlessly. i'd like to have an option to adjust oar length so i can sit higher up in the kayak and not have to dig into the water so much, not sure if that'd be a good option for the competitive side but my arms would appreciate the relative ease.

cant wait to see what it looks like with a few patches of polish/bugfixes!!

fear motivated group problem solving