In the VR world, there seems to be limitless possibilities of what kind of games you can come up with. Despite this, we unfortunately see the same kind of games being made with little to differentiate between them. Sure, rhythm games are fun, but after the 50^th one, they all start to feel the same. Shooters suffer from the same tiresome act as well and it seems like there needs to be a new breed of the genre in the VR world to shake up the established norm. Marathrun is still raw in an Early Access form as of now, but what it does is inject parts of other games that have succeeded before it into one of the most fun and unique experiences I’ve seen in quite some time. Marathrun takes the craziness of among us, the parkour elements of Stride VR, the climbing physics of The Climb 2, the obstacle courses from American Ninja Warrior and toss in a little bit of trap-based chaos from Dark Souls and you’ve got a recipe for what could be a surprise hit.

The Basics

Marathrun gives you the option to get right into the thick of it, but I would recommend a tutorial to start you off. It is here you get introduced to the physics that makes the game tick. There is quite a bit that goes into the piecing together of these random obstacle courses. First off, disappointingly you do not use your arms to run here. I was hoping for a natural locomotion-type system like Blade and Sorcery uses as well as Stride VR, but here I was unable to find that option, but it’s possible it gets implemented on the full release. You are given two hooks that you can remove from your back to use as climbing tools as well as using them in a zipline type of way. There are climbing physics, force physics and momentum physics are at play here and the combination they create makes for an amazing VR experience. You can face up to 5 players in any particular course and when a room is full, you will see the most that this game has to offer as you see your fellow players struggling right alongside you in the course. It’s fun stuff and every game plays out a bit differently depending on who your opponents are.

What it feels like to play?

If you’ve ever seen shows like Wipeout or American Ninja Warrior or MXC, you know just what you’re getting into here. You are pitted against 4 others on an obstacle course right out of one of those shows and though the graphics aren’t that amazing, the vibe of the game is great and the creativity of the levels helps keep each run feeling fresh. It’s not inaccurate to say that this is VR’s answer to Fall Guys and if it’s possible to expand the player limit of 5 right now to something closer to 10 or 15, you might find this game being the next Gorilla Tag VR and based on the popularity of that shock of the year in the gaming world, that isn’t a bad thing. Swinging from bars, climbing frantically, and running from boulders is surprisingly fun and when you have a full game, the action is really intense and something that might’ve been a more laid-back experience becomes a frantic and physical experience that could easily become the next big craze in VR.

What will keep you playing

The focus on multiplayer here means you will be playing Marathrun for a while and considering it’s just in its Early Access phase and already has 5 maps and a decent following on Sidequest, there is a lot to expect from this game going forward. The physical aspect of it makes it so you can incorporate it into a daily workout routine as you will find some of the more tense races will have you working extra hard to finish first. The content isn’t that numerous right now, but the potential is pretty much as good as it gets in the multiplayer VR scene and since there aren’t too many games that look like this one on the market, there is plenty of room for Marathrun to make its mark here.

Preparation-

More so than most VR games, Marathrun will have to move around quite a bit and during the thick of one of the courses, you can easily find yourself losing your place in the room and possibly hurting yourself. Because of this, make sure you have a 5×5 space or larger available to you as I found myself frequently needing a reminder of where I was in the room.

Intensity – 9/10

I recorded my 30-minute workout with a Fitbit and played on an Oculus Quest 2 Headset.

Calories burned: 300
Calories burned per minute: 10
Average Heart Rate: 120
Max Heart Rate: 136
Active Minutes: 27

I didn’t expect Marathrun to have me sore and out of breath after playing it, but during some of the more intense races I experienced, I would find myself not only having to figure out where I’m going to go obstacle wise, but also trying to gauge which would be the fastest path for me to get through physically. Believe it or not, climbing in VR is strenuous and here the story remains the same as having to climb obstacles and use your hooks to latch onto long ladders is a tough task after a few games in a row. Overall, the experience won’t have you panting for breath, but you certainly will be tested physically at times.

Arms- 9/10

Although you aren’t going to be using your arms to run, your arms will play into just about everything else. Climbing, swinging, pushing yourself up onto platforms, all involves your arms here, and believe me when I say you should absolutely be stretching before you get things going here. Climbing using the hooks gave me the most tiring exercise here caused me the most trouble and because of that, I found myself only able to play for a limited amount of time. All of this is fairly difficult to get the hang of though, as the lack of actual wait and solid objects being present makes certain things tough to grasp. Climbing was easy enough, but pushing yourself up from ledges I found to be extremely difficult at times and really hampered my progress when it happened.

Legs- 6/10

Marathrun doesn’t explicitly use your legs much, but because of the constant movement that will be present throughout your time with the game, you can easily incorporate your legs into the proceedings without much hassle. Because of the amount of running involved, I was often jogging in place as I tend to do during most VR games with natural locomotion and this made for a solid leg workout after a while. To add to this, when ducking to jump in-game, I did the same in real life to both stay immersed and keep my legs engaged. I did the same while climbing the ladders too, mimicking where my feet would be not only to keep immersed but also to keep myself from falling off balance here.

Core/Balance- 7/10

If you’ve ever tried rock climbing before, you know that you need a very strong core to be any good at it. Here that fact is true to a lesser degree. You will be reaching and shimmying all over the place while playing Marathrun, so while you aren’t going to get a shredded core during the gameplay, you will feel a solid core workout after playing this one for an hour or so. Balance-wise, you need to be on your game here as you’ll be leaping and falling and jumping so your center of gravity will be fluctuating wildly here. For those who find heights to be a bit of an issue, here you might find some trouble, so take it slow at the start until you can get your bearings.

Time Perception- 8/10

I thought Marathrun did a great job in knowing just what kind of game it wants to be. It doesn’t dance around with tons of modes; it shows you what it’s all about right from the get-go. The races themselves don’t last all that long, so that makes play sessions with Marathrun easy to jump into and out of without any trouble. I found the action here got pretty intense after 30 minutes of playing and I would tire out soon after that. While in-game, the atmosphere is great and feels like a futuristic obstacle course should and when the races start, there is little else that will be on your mind besides how you can finish first.

Fitness Scalability- 8/10

The only way to scale your physical workout here is by figuring out how much you want to put into this experience. Simply put, if you aren’t willing to get into it here and really work your arms during the obstacle courses, you are not going to win. That’s fine for some people, as they might be fine with just the VR experience as is and have little care about who is winning or losing. For the competitive types, the more you put into this physically, the more successful you will be. It’s great when a game rewards hard work and this is one of those games where you will be rewarded for the burn you’ll be feeling after you are done with a lengthy session.

Dizziness/Nausea- 8/10

This category will vary for certain people as the problems with height in VR don’t always affect everyone. It should be noted though that every time you fail here, you will plunge into the pits below and while the fall doesn’t stay too long, the feeling of dropping a great distance might churn the stomach of some VR players. I didn’t find many issues with the action happening here though and despite all the jumping and climbing, things seemed to stay pretty smooth throughout my time with the game. The high speed at which you move throughout the courses though might give some pause, luckily there is a demo to try it out with no risk.

Social Competition- 8/10

Marathrun is looking like one of the most addictive multiplayer titles in the entirety of VR and the small offering at the table right now is just a hint at what the final product might end up looking like, so if you are looking for a unique experience and to compete against 4 other players online in a futuristic obstacle course, there is no better option right now. The problem with a game like this is the player base is going to be what drives the sales and while playing, I had trouble on occasion finding a room and unfortunately in this game, when you don’t have a room to play in, you won’t be able to play it. For the full release, there needs to be some kind of basic campaign mode so that people struggling to find games can actually play the game.

VR Fit Score

Game Score

The Good

Marathrun gives us a glimpse at what could become the new craze in the multiplayer VR world. The combination of physical ability and strategy come together to create a fun and intense race to the finish against other players and each race feels different depending on the skill of who you are playing with. The graphics are fitting for what amounts to a futuristic obstacle course. The physics at play here are as good as they get and whether it is the force physics at work or the climbing physics, the immersion is helped because of it. As far as games of this style go, Marathrun stands alone as the most intriguing and fun to play and there is a lot more to come from this title since it is only in the Early Access stages.

The Bad

If you are unable to get internet or are unable to connect to a game, you are going to be out of luck when it comes to playing this as the only option to play outside the tutorial right now is in multiplayer matches. While I had a ton of fun with the game, there were times when no games were available and it rendered the game effectively useless. As far as content goes, there is not a ton at the time being with only 5 courses available and that is coupled with only one mode as well, so you may want to hold off a bit before diving in here.

Marathrun is available on Sidequest and playable on Oculus Quest 1 and 2.

Editor’s Note:  Marathrun is also available via the Oculus Store App Lab.

As we move into the next stage of VR following the amazing Half Life: Alyx, we are expecting the next big thing that can make VR the gaming platform of choice. Unfortunately, the next big thing doesn’t always come often, so in the meantime, we have tons and tons of indie VR projects to keep us busy while the next juggernaut of VR is being made. Today we take a look at Shinobi Breaker, which is just an insane experience that combines rhythm games with a fighting game and the result is a visual onslaught that basically puts you into a game that might’ve come out in 1989. It’s definitely a fun experience though, so let’s take a look at what makes the game tick.

The Basics

Oh, where to even start with this one. Throughout the various levels, you will be doing a mixture of fighting and dodging while equipped with ninja weapons and it’s all done with a truly bizarre visual style that combines cel-shading with some ideas that look like they were ripped out of Minecraft. The gameplay is plain insane. You’ll be using swords, bows, ninja stars and more as you fight against these wild-looking creatures made out of blocks and each one has its own strategy to defeat it. At a glance, seeing what’s happening on screen is pretty indecipherable, but as you complete each level, you will get the hang of everything and you will find yourself being pushed to keep on playing.

What it Feels like to Play

It’s a wild experience playing Shinobi Breaker as it as much a test of your ability to handle the crazy visuals taking place on screen as it is to beat the levels themselves. The gameplay is pretty intense and can be very difficult at times as you need to pay attention to many different things happening on screen at the same time and it is very easy to get overwhelmed. The enemies are very interesting as you’ll see gigantic cube birds, frogs and all sorts of crazy creatures flying at you through space and each one has a different attack pattern, so you need to learn the rhythm in order to beat them. Each one attacks by sending slash patterns at you that you need to slash in the correct directions to defeat them. When it’s rolling on all cylinders, the experience is kind of a VR translation of a very old-school game. There are no worlds to explore here and there is very little variety in the gameplay, for the most part, so you’re really getting an old school experience in VR that is easy to jump into and easy to get addicted to and those types of games still have their place in the current VR landscape.

What will keep you playing?

If you remember how old school games worked, they weren’t built on the appeal of amazing storylines or breathtaking graphics. The main appeal came from the intrigue of what lied beyond in the next level. The mystery of what new creatures await you in the next level and how much tougher will the next challenge be is what will push you to keep playing here and luckily, the levels are fairly short, so you won’t worry too much about needing to spend a lot of time in this one as your play sessions will last exactly as long as you want them to. In addition to this, Shinobi Breaker is a truly insane workout, so you can utilize this as a nice addition to your VR workout.

Preparation-

Shinobi Breaker will have you moving around a lot and whether its ducking and dodging or slashing with your swords like a mad man, you should have a good amount of room available to you when playing this as it can be very easy to get lost in the gameplay and lose your place in the room.

Intensity- 9/10

I recorded my 30-minute workout with Fitbit and played on an Oculus Quest 2 Headset with Airlink.

Calories burned: 161
Calories burned per minute: 5
Average Heart Rate: 90
Max Heart Rate: 129
Active Minutes: 31

Surprisingly, Shinobi Breaker gives you an awesome workout that utilizes every bit of energy you’ve got at times. Trying to get through these levels and the addictive nature of it means you are going to be pushing yourself constantly to see what is coming next. The bosses can be incredibly challenging and when these more elite enemies appear, get ready to sweat as the intergalactic battles are incredibly intense and you will rarely go more than 2 seconds without having to swing your swords or shoot your various weapons. This constant motion mixed with the wild imagery taking place on-screen creates an awesome workout experience that is tracked fully within the game via a calorie counter.

Arms- 9/10

Your arms are going to be on fire by the end of your playthrough sessions with Shinobi Breaker. It’s the constant action on screen that will have you slicing and dicing with your sword at nearly all times and this intensity kicks up a notch for some of the tougher enemies and when the bosses come to play, all bets are off and you are going to work to get your prey. Stretching is absolutely a necessity when playing Shinobi Breaker and there are few VR games that will get your arms involved in the way this game does. To increase the challenge, you might consider adding weights to your wrists so there is more balance with your swings, as I have found having little to no weight resistance led to me almost throwing my arm out at times from the intensity on screen. Depending on the level you are on, sometimes you will be asked to do a time attack, where the enemy will escape quickly if you don’t act fast enough and when this happens, you will be launching your ninja stars by smashing them with the sword like a windmill from hell as you desperately try to erase these enemies from existence before they can escape.

Legs- 7/10

Your legs aren’t directly involved in the gameplay here, but they can be utilized if you want to be. For example, most enemies attack with a pattern of slashes that will try to interrupt your nonstop volley of ninja stars and while you can dice these away fairly easily most of the time, sometimes you will be too engaged with the other activities at hand and might need to just dodge out of the way instead. Considering these attacks come from all different angles, you can definitely duck and jump out of the way if need be, opening the enemies up for an easy counterattack if you time it right.

Core/ Balance- 6/10

There are parts of Shinobi Breaker that can involve your core, but this is all dependant on your body positioning. For example, when activating a power-up for the ninja stars, sometimes you’re going to have to launch them very quickly and for me, I held the ninja stars up like I was serving a tennis ball and I delivered my launches via the sword in the way I would swing a racket, creating a ton of torque each time and heavily engaging my core muscles. This isn’t going to get you a six-pack, but you knew that going in and for what it is, it’s a hell of a time.

Time Perception- 8/10

While I cannot claim to remember what it was like to game back in the early days of gaming with arcades and such, but I can see the early influences shining through here as the gameplay is so simple, yet effective as it pushes you to see what the next boss has in store for you. The levels are pretty short with none of them really exceeding 10 minutes at any time and there is a timer for them letting you know how much time you have left to complete your mission, though I never really needed the time given and felt like most could be completed in around 5 minutes or less if you really know what you are doing.

Replayability- 7/10

There are a decent amount of levels available with Shinobi Breaker and each one offers a unique twist to it. On top of this, you can unlock tons of different bonuses to your arsenal including weapons and tweaks like additional damage done. The catch is you can only take one of them into battle with you, sp each battle could be a bit different depending on what equipment you decide to take with you into battle.

Fitness Scalability- 7/10

The scalability of your workout relies on what kind of player you are going to be. Are you going to be slow and calculated, timing your shots as carefully as possible while avoiding enemy attacks? Or are you going to be a fast-firing maniac slashing at your ninja star launchers like a crazy person, trying to take down the bosses as fast as possible? If you’re the former, you aren’t going to get a huge workout in this game as your movement will be very measured and there won’t be a lot of sweating going on. If you’re like me though, you want to take these enemies down fast and when that happens, you are going to tire yourself out faster than you might expect with a game like this.

Dizziness/ Lack of Nausea- 9/10

Despite the pretty wild visual style that harkens back to the days of Nintendo, the dizziness factor that is always present when we are talking about VR really didn’t seem too present while I was playing and while some of the harder bosses can overwhelm you a bit visually speaking, nothing was ever moving too fast or flashing too bright that I felt sickness of any kind and it was a pretty smooth experience throughout.

Social Competition- 7/10

Although there isn’t a multiplayer mode as of yet, there are leaderboards so you can compare with other players on how fast you completed the levels, how much damage you took, and what bonuses you took in with you all add up to your final score. If this is the type of thing that drives you, you can find yourself playing again and again to top the best players in the world and while it is an old school way to interact with others, it is a nice driving force behind giving a tough level just one more try.

VR Fit Score

Game Score

The Good

Shinobi Breaker is a unique experience that combines elements from many other VR games and puts them in a package that is both bizarre and addictive at the same time. The graphic style is wholly its own and you likely won’t see many games looking like this in VR. The combat is fun and frenetic and requires precision aiming and the recognizing of visual cues to succeed. There are a solid amount of levels to take on, with the later ones making for an especially challenging physical and gameplay experience. You can get a solid workout in here for your arms if you get really into it, and having the flexibility to have a hard workout or an easy one depending on your playstyle is a great thing for a game to have.

The Bad

Shinobi Breaker certainly does not come to you with top-of-the-line visuals or any real VR physics involved, so if you are expecting something that feels like the evolution of gaming as many come to VR to find, you aren’t going to get much out of this experience. The gameplay while fun, is very repetitive and if shooting ninja stars at gigantic block monsters in space doesn’t sound all that appealing to you, then there is little else that will catch your attention here. There is a fitness tracker in the game, but it seems to be pretty random as it seems rather impossible to get an accurate depiction of the calories burned just by success within the level, and despite multiple playstyles throughout, my calories burned number was always pretty similar.

Shinobi Breaker is available for $14.99 on Steam and playable on Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest 1 and 2 headsets.

VR is in need of some invigorating ideas these days. While you can have endless shooters, rhythm games, and sword fighting games, at a certain point these genres can get a little bit stale. VR is somewhat limited in how each game is played because the mechanics of every game aren’t created by some set of systems, but rather you. This makes a lot of VR play out similarly and it no longer becomes the mechanics that driving your experience, but the environments, stories, and graphics that take hold of you. Because of this, sooner or later, those VR games are going to lose a bit of their luster unless something new comes along. Thankfully, something new has come along in the form of Akyrikon. It’s a workout game, a rhythm game AND an RPG all balled into one. It’s a bit rough around the edges at points, but when Akyrikon is firing on all cylinders, it shows that there is far more to VR rhythm games that have been shown up to this point.

The Basics

Akyrikon gives you the choice of taking part in tutorial levels before you dive in or you can go right into the story mode and get started. How it works is each level starts with a little dialogue between a few of the main characters shedding light on what’s going on before you’re tasked with defeating your foes. The story here is light to be generous, but it’s cool that they are at least trying to add a bit of narrative into what can usually be a genre that ends up feeling really repetitive after a while. This isn’t Final Fantasy, but the effort that is there is appreciated. The fights play out in a simple fashion. You punch the various orbs coming at you according to their color like most VR rhythm games and occasionally duck and dodge obstacles. Each time you hit a certain amount of orbs, you launch an attack. If you fail at hitting them, you take damage. Both you and the enemy in the level have a stock amount of hit points. As you get damaged, these points subtract and you fail the mission once they are all gone. To add to the complexity a bit are abilities that you can equip that have different effects from increased health to launching spells like a lightning bolt at your enemy. These are activated by hitting a certain amount of orbs in a row, adding the emphasis on being perfect. You can also use the training mode to just do a normal-style rhythm game with a variety of songs available.

What it feels like to play

Akyrikon won’t be taking the mantle of best VR RPG from Skyrim VR any time soon, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite fun to play. The hook here is that with each level, the enemies get harder, and sometimes, you simply cannot advance past a certain enemy no matter how perfect your round is. When this first happened, I thought this was a serious design flaw as I couldn’t figure out how to get any further. However, I soon found out in order to increase your abilities, you had to go to the training mode in the game. It’s here where you get the more conventional VR rhythm game and through doing these, you actually increase your health as well as your level which allows you to both do more damage and unlock more abilities. This begins the fighting and training back and forth that drives the experience. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but that doesn’t matter as it’s fun as hell and the start of something extremely promising in a genre that definitely needed a refreshing slant to it.

What will keep you playing?

The drive to fight new monsters and progress through the story will definitely keep you coming back in the short term, but in the long term, you’ll keep coming back because of the endless rhythm game you can engage in here. There are a bunch of different environments to train in and things can get challenging awfully quickly here and it quickly becomes one of the more intense VR experiences. So, whether you are fighting monsters or just training to level up, you are going to get a great, full-body workout here.

Preparation-

You should give yourself a good amount of space while playing this as you are going to be moving very quickly while also dodging and ducking obstacles and you can quickly get overwhelmed and lose track of where you are, so don’t have anything in the immediate area that can cause harm to you.

Intensity- 9/10

I recorded my 30 minute workout with Fitbit and played on a Samsung Odyssey Plus Windows Mixed Reality Headset.

Calories burned: 302
Calories burned per minute: 10
Average Heart Rate: 124
Max Heart Rate: 150
Active Minutes: 30

Akyrikon is a hell of a workout that pushes you forth by giving you enemies to fight through and the challenge presented by each one. How long it will hook you is debatable, but the actual gameplay here will leave you breathless and sore after a while. Your entire body will be totally engaged during everything here and the training sessions actually will make you sweat more than the main questline and that goes along with the idea that you are training hard to overcome your enemies.

Arms- 9/10

Like most rhythm games, you are going to be having a pretty arm-centric workout here as the way to do damage against your enemies is by hitting the orbs. I didn’t find the strength of me hitting them to be much of a factor, but when you have a goblin staring you in the face it definitely makes you want to hit that much harder, regardless if the game tracks it or not. In the training, you can amp things up and really get your arms moving fast as some of the difficulties have a rapid-fire style to how the orbs appear and this can get incredibly tiring after a little while, so be ready to stretch before getting into the thick of things here.

Legs- 7/10

Your legs get involved in the action here through the use of obstacles to dodge and duck throughout each level. As the levels get tougher, these obstacles get more frequent and eventually, you will be using a combo of punches and dodging to complete your missions and some of the later ones are incredibly tough to get through and it will likely give you a solid leg workout in the process.

Core/ Balance- 8/10

Your balance during the entirety of your gameplay is as important as anything here as it can get pretty tough to remember your place in the room once things get intense, so make sure you know your place at all times. Your core can get a solid involvement here specifically during the harder training levels as the amount you’ll be keeping low to the ground will be pretty frequent and after a while, this creates a pretty solid burn that you’ll appreciate at the end of your workout.

Time Perception-7/10

While it’s not the most polished title., Akyrikon gives you a really fun and different feeling experience that will push you to get to the next level just to see what’s going to happen with the quirky story going on and what new enemy you will end up facing. The graphics here are modest, so you won’t be getting lost in any visual experience here, but for some short sessions at around 30 minutes each, Akyrikon is a fun diversion and a new kind of experience in the workout game genre that will keep you invested for quite a bit.

Replayability- 7/10

Akyrikon has some interesting ideas at play for sure, but after you finish the campaign, the only real option is to replay missions using newly unlocked abilities or perhaps engaging in the training sessions. The problem with that is this is definitely not the best rhythm game out there. Once you strip away the different enemies that you fight and quirky narration scenes that break up the action, you are left with a VR rhythm game that is definitely raw and doesn’t really stand out amongst the crowd in any defined way. The story mode and the dichotomy of training and fighting is the main pull here, but once that’s over, you’re left with not much else to entertain you and it won’t be too long until you’re onto your next game.

Fitness Scalability- 7/10

This game basically scales with you as you play it, so you won’t ever have to worry about scaling it for your workouts. Depending on the level that you’re at in-game, the battles against the monsters can be incredibly tough or a breeze. If you train a ton before going against the enemies, then you will likely dominate the game. This training though is going to be incredibly tough physically, so you actually feel like you’ve earned your victories after leveling up from it. If you want to just sweat relentlessly without having to deal with much else, then the training modes will keep you plenty busy here, so even those seeking the most intense cardio workouts will have plenty to like here.

Dizziness/ Nausea- 8/10

I noted earlier that this is a bit of a rough experience at this point and that’s definitely true, but it did not affect my experience all that much when it came to VR sickness. You will be moving extremely fast at times during this game, but aside from some choppiness in the action on occasion, the gameplay was never too overwhelming as to make me feel nauseous at all. The highest difficulty training modes are intense too and the only times I felt a little queasy was when I was forced to dodge under constant obstacles behind thrown at me. Other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing.

Social Competition- 0/10

Akyrikon was not designed to support any multiplayer from the looks of it and despite it still being in Early Access, that does not mean this feature is coming any time soon. Perhaps a leaderboard of sorts might appear at some point, but for now, it’s strictly a single-player experience.

VR Fit Score- 7.7/10

Game Score- 7/10

The Good

Akyrikon gives us a glimpse at how the VR rhythm game genre might one day evolve. It has a fun little story mode complete with an actual story and is supported by an entertaining cycle of training and fighting and unlocking abilities. The different environments give the feeling of progression and the training levels are intense and really make you earn your new levels. The ability to use music from the game or music from your own computer is a nice touch and adds a nice amount of customization to the proceedings. You can tweak the difficulty in any way you’d like to make things a bit easier or harder for you depending on how the game is going for you.

The Bad

It is not the longest experience right now, but keep in mind that this is only an Early Access experience and we are anticipating much more content to come from this one. The graphics are a bit on the rough side, so if you were hoping for a VR rhythm game on par with the visual mastery of say Beat Saber, then you will likely be left wanting. The rhythm game within is not all that entertaining when left on its own, so once you finish the brief story mode, you might find yourself looking elsewhere for your VR rhythm game entertainment.

Akyrikon is available on Steam for $4.99 and playable on Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, Valve Index, and HTC Vive headsets.

 

VR allows us to do things we could not imagine in our wildest dreams. Apart from useful real-world capabilities, it lets us soar through the sky, become superheroes, play out our wildest action movie fantasies, become our favorite athletes, and countless other things. For me though, VR has always been about being transported to another world. While plenty of games claim to let you do this, it’s often in small bursts and it’s really hard to find a game that lets you lose yourself in an entire world that will last you a nearly infinite amount of time. A lot of people say VR is niche because of that and to all of these people, I say, “Have you played Skyrim VR on the PC? No? Then you haven’t seen why VR is amazing.”

Although it was released in 2017 initially for PSVR, Skyrim VR came to the PC, and with it, the infinite possibilities that modding can bring to it. Playing the game these days is like almost playing a sequel to what was already one of the greatest games of all time. If you have somehow managed to avoid playing Skyrim in some form (you can play it on Amazon’s Alexa even), the only way to play it the right way in my eyes is with a VR headset. Let’s explore what made one of the most unexpected ports the most thrilling experience in all of VR.

The Basics

How do you even begin when talking about Skyrim VR? It is one of the most open-ended, do whatever you want type of experiences in gaming history. You start off escaping a terrible fate at the chopping block via a crazy dragon attack sequence, and if you’ve experienced this in the flat-screen version, you know this is an iconic opening sequence, but living through it in VR is just a completely different entity on its own.

From here, you can continue following the story of you being the Dragonborn, which is just this game’s version of the chosen one essentially, or you can make your own path. By this, I don’t just mean you can wander the world at your leisure, although you can do that if you’d like. I’m talking about forging your own career and life path in-game. If you want to steal vegetables from farms and sell them in towns, you can do that, if you want to become a bandit and demand money from every traveler you meet? You can do that. If you want to marry and have a family, you can do that. If said marriage doesn’t work for you and you want to instead ride on the back of a dragon and torch the town you had previously call your home? You can do that too!

The only limit here is your imagination, so if there is something you think you can do in Skyrim VR, you most likely can do it.

What if feels like to play

Vanilla Skyrim VR is pretty wonderful on its own, but it is when you get into the meat of modding the game that real adventure begins. Seeing yourself decked out in the full armor sets in the game as well as the endless amounts of armors added by mods creates one of the coolest feelings in VR and the fun doesn’t end there. You can choose to go about your fighting in the game in one of three ways. You can use magic, use a bow, or use melee weapons like swords and daggers.

As far as the combat goes, the melee is less than thrilling as Skyrim VR does not use physics-based swords and enemies, so the result is your blade passing through enemies doing damage when the game dictates you pulled off a swing. Things get far more fun when you use spells and bows though as spells have you conjuring up the spell in your hand, creating a thrilling vibration as your powers begin to swells and then unleashing it on where your aiming reticule is located. I don’t know about you, but the feeling of being an elemental god is pretty damn cool and thankfully, the physics of Skyrim VR come through here so whether you’re blasting someone with a fireball or turning someone to ice, it works amazingly well and creates some truly awe-inspiring visuals.

If you are more of the archer type, well you are in luck as well as the bow and arrow physics are among the best in VR, and with mods, you can add a scope to your bow, iron sights, as well as arrows that act like grenades, can summon hurricanes, arrow showers or ones that freeze foes completely. You actually have to draw back the bow as well, meaning it will go exactly as far or short as you pull and this control is just amazing.

What will keep you playing

I started playing Skyrim VR in 2017, I haven’t gone more than a month without playing it since. This game is easily 200 hours plus worth of content on its own in the vanilla state, but once you start adding the mods to it which give you entire new lands to explore, enemies to fight, quests to take on, and followers to befriend, you will find yourself in a medieval fantasy world that has a scope that is unlike any game you have ever seen. You will become hypnotized by the snow-covered mountains and lush forests and find yourself lost for hours within the countless crypts and dungeons and ruins that are just begging to be explored.

Playing Skyrim VR is like living another life, where you are a master of magic and ride dragons and fight a war against a false king, to me, that’s enough reason to come back time and time again to this masterpiece of gaming.

Preparation-

Skyrim VR is playable either seated or standing and depending on your playstyle, you might not be moving around all that much or you might be moving quite a bit, so either way, have a nice space set aside for you to play in. You are going to be spending a lot of time in this world, so you should have a safe area available to play in.

Intensity- 6/10

I recorded my 30-minute workout with Fitbit and played on a Samsung Odyssey Plus Windows Mixed reality headset.

Calories burned: 164
Calories burned per minute: 5
Average Heart Rate: 104
Max Heart Rate: 125
Active Minutes: 30

The intensity in Skyrim can vary wildly depending on what you are doing at that particular time. For example, you aren’t going to be sweating much when you are visiting a local tavern to find out about the quests in that area and soaking in the atmosphere and unlike most VR games, you will be spending far longer amounts of time within the game, so a more accurate depiction of the workout you’d get would be over the course of an hour or more. You will however start feeling the sweat coming on when you are neck-deep in the Falmer enemies in a desolate cave somewhere, unleashing every last arrow in your quiver in an attempt to fight off these dangerous foes. Melee can actually be pretty intense as well, especially if you edit your .ini settings to make the threshold options for swinging far higher than you initially have, allowing actual strength to come into play with your swings.

Arms- 8/10

Skyrim VR is very arm centric and although you will go long stretches of time without doing much of anything resembling exercise, the combat scenarios are awfully tough at points and this is exaggerated in VR especially if you are an archer and you can find yourself tiring out pretty quickly if this is the style you prefer to play as. As a warrior, you find yourself swinging like a mad man to beat your foes and while this is mostly done with one hand, dual-wielding will bring the other hand into the fight and can be a hell of a time when fighting in this style. This can be amplified by lowering your .ini melee threshold settings too as you can make it so hits will only register if you are using a certain amount of force in your swings, making certain that you will have to earn your kills as a melee character. Mages won’t really be getting much of an arm workout here, but the real fun comes with Weapon Throw VR, a mod that allows you to throw any weapon in any hand and the result is an exhausting and incredible visual experience as you are launching your weapons left and right like you’re Thor. Overall, there are plenty of ways to get your arms involved in Skyrim VR.

Legs- 8/10

 

You might be thinking “Skyrim VR? Legs? WHAT?” and normally you’d be right, but with a  few tweaks to the gameplay and an extra app downloaded, you can actually get a solid leg workout from this game. First of all, we have the setting to apply physical sneak. This means for all you archers and assassin builds out there, means you will actually have to be crouching to get your sneak to activate. Doing this will have your legs barking for relief in especially tough scenarios, though the payoff of getting your double damage hits off is pretty worth it I’d say.

The other big way to use your legs in the game is by actually running in place. Through an app called Natural Locomotion, you can turn your flat-footed experience in Skyrim VR into one that is actually very active. Using Natural locomotion, your movement becomes solely controlled through the movement of your arms and legs. Swinging your arms in a motion you would use for running or walking will cause your character to start moving and you can adjust in the settings just how fast or slow you want this to be. The leg sensors require additional controllers to sense them, but if you are using a device with full-body tracking such as an HTV Vive, you will have your legs tracked naturally in this regard. I was able to mix this in with a treadmill to create an amazing running experience as I was able to sprint through the lush forests and dark caves of Skyrim without any trouble, all while being able to stop to fight when needed. A manual treadmill is recommended for this experience, but it is well worth it, especially with the VR treadmills of the world being quite expensive at the moment.

Core/ Balance- 7/10

In terms of your core being involved while playing Skyrim VR, you are going to have to play a certain style to get the most out of it. For example, if you are playing as a warrior or a mage, you won’t be engaging your core all that much here. As a stealth-based archer or assassin though you can utilize the sneaking technique and by enabling physical sneak, you will have to be crouched over while moving to get behind your targets unnoticed. If you do choose a mage path though, you can still get your core involved, but it won’t be the game forcing it on you, instead, you are going to exaggerate your motions when launching a spell. That means torqueing your body as you thrust your hand forth to launch a fire spell. It adds to the immersion for sure as you wouldn’t expect such power to fly forth from you with meek gestures to begin with.

Time Perception- 10/10

I’ve been playing VR for 4 years now and I still have yet to find a game that is as inviting as it terrifying, calming as it is cruel and awe-inspiring as it is pulse-pounding. Skyrim VR might take a little while to get acclimated to as there are tons of menus and systems to learn at the start, but once you do, this will become your second life. I have seen the hours fade away as I’m exploring a newly discovered crypt or trying to find the right items to craft the ideal weapon. Things get even better with mods like HIGGS ( Hand Interaction and Gravity Gloves for Skyrim VR), which lets you physically grab items in the world like bowls, cups, and also allows you to take the armor off of enemies as well as weapons instead of just navigating through the classic menus. The result of all this is an experience that can grip you for hours at a time and the relatively light physical exertion allows for this.

Replayability- 10/10

A perfect score in a category like this is tough to justify a lot of the time. That changes though when the content in question has the potential to house over 300 hours’ worth of gameplay. The thing about Skyrim VR is that you are never going to finish every single thing in the game, it’s borderline impossible because some of the quests are radiant, which means they just keep regenerating in slightly different ways, the best example of which happens during the Dark Brotherhood questline, which is among the best in the game, so you’ll be happy it never truly ends. If you get to modding, you will have an experience that will last you for the rest of your life. There is a reason that players still have Skyrim at the top of Steam’s charts a decade after its initial release. It is a game of wonder that will be etched forever in gaming history as the game that never lost its fanbase.

Fitness Scalability- 7/10

There are certain ways to get a workout in Skyrim VR, and those revolve around the type of player you are. If you want the easy-going and breezy experience, that is readily available as you can go large stretches of time in the game without even touching combat, and instead, you can enjoy the atmosphere, browse the markets, follow questlines that feature little to no combat, and explore at your leisure. If you want to get the heart rate going though, there are plenty of opportunities to have this happen as opportunities to fight are ripe all over the place, and with some mods that add monsters to the world, you will never be wandering too far without a fight to take part in.

Dizziness/ Lack of Nausea- 9/10

In Skyrim VR, your options for movement are vast and if the basic teleporting mechanic causes some uneasiness in you, you can easily turn it to natural locomotion and play that way instead. In addition to this, you can turn on tunnel vision in the options menu to limit your peripheral view, which has been known to help VR sickness as well. As long as your frame rate is staying steady, you won’t feel any sickness while playing Skyrim VR. However, some of the less polished ideas in the game such as horseback riding, dragon-riding, and getting punched by a giant (please do not let this happen to you), do not translate great to VR and can definitely cause your stomach to turn a bit.

Social Interaction- 6/10

Skyrim VR is not a multiplayer game in the least, but that does not mean it doesn’t involve any social interaction. If you peruse the internet for information on the game, you find countless message boards and Reddit pages detailing and discussing everything you can imagine, and the best way to describe the experience to liken Skyrim to the videogame version of Game of Thrones. For fans of that world, you know that although you likely digest the stories on your own, the true joy of it all is discussing everything with friends and strangers alike and the same goes for Skyrim VR, which has a background of lore that would make any fantasy fans fall in love with.

VR Fit Score- 7.8/10

Game Score- 9.5/10

The Good

Skyrim VR does the impossible, taking one of the greatest games of all time and directly translating it into VR in a way that is easy to learn and hard to master. It gives an almost endless amount of quests to play through with tons of different weapons to collect and magic spells to acquire. In terms of writing, you won’t find a more compelling RPG in VR as the side content and stories they weave are by now iconic in their own right. The main quest on its own is not that lengthy, but exploring the different guilds, joining in a civil war, or fighting against the vampire army in the DLCs will keep you busy for years to come, and with the modders constantly working to improve the game, the VR experience gets better and better.

The Bad

Skyrim VR is certainly behind the times with VR physics, so if you are looking for something that gives full VR immersion without having to use mods to get that experience, this won’t be it. The graphics are also less than impressive at first glance, so without a strong enough system to support some serious supersampling and visual mods, you will be looking at a game with graphics from 2011, up close and personal and that isn’t the best visual experience, to say the least. You might just be burned out on Skyrim by now as well, so it is possible that the allure of reliving the experience in VR may just not be worth it for you.

Skyrim VR is available on Steam and the Playstation Store for $59.99 and is playable on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Oculus Quest 1 and 2 via a link, PSVR, and Windows Mixed Reality Headsets.

VR is maybe the most impressive technological achievement of this past decade. To be able to put on a headset and become immersed in a whole other world with graphics that are wildly impressive at times is something that a lot of us could not dream was possible, and now it has become one of the main platforms to game on.

VR games have been hit or miss for the most part though, with a lot of games failing to find the balance between entertainment and VR interaction. Some games just nail the idea of putting you in a game though and with Swarm VR, you get a very gamey experience that is both completely insane and also beautiful chaos that fully utilizes the VR platform to create an experience that just would not translate the same anywhere else. As VR titles seem to continually copy each other with few new ideas being pushed forth, Swarm VR is certainly a breath of fresh air.

The Basics

We get started with a short tutorial here that shows you how everything works. In Swarm, you are essentially Spider-Man with guns. That’s the phrase the developers use to describe the experience here and while that is pretty lofty of an expectation to create, it is not that far off. You’re equipped with two guns equipped with grappling hooks on them and if you are thinking that this sounds pretty damn cool, you are not wrong.

The basic gameplay comes down to swinging around like Spider-Man practicing his moves while lighting up robots with dual guns in slow motion and the result is a dizzying spectacle that truly feels like you are being thrust into a game from the old days of gaming. That’s to say, Swarm feels like a VR version of something like Space Invaders. Rather than focus on the incredible worlds you can create in VR and the amazing physics systems that can be utilized, Swarm focuses on one thing, having fun.

What it feels like to play

 

Playing Swarm is a mix of amazing ideas mixed with varying levels of execution. The levels go down like this, you’re thrust into an arena that is filled with tons of platforms for you to latch onto, and from portals in the sky, robots spawn to attack you. Simple enough right? This is all driven by the grappling hook gameplay and the idea here is that you can latch onto these platforms to launch yourself all over the arena to take out the enemies coming at you.

Though it is a bit jarring at first, you will soon be swinging and shooting like a pro and the feeling is simply exhilarating. The graphical style is also pretty unique in that it is somewhere between cell shading and straight-up comic book visuals and while that might not be that great looking on a flat screen, in VR, this effect truly makes you feel like a superhero. The enemies are nicely varied as well and with each level, you can expect to see a new variant or two to change up the gameplay as well as a massive, hulking boss to contend with. This is where I really started to respect the game’s vision here. It would have been easy enough to just throw the same old robots at us over and over, but here, we get new weapons and new enemies to use them against to keep the experience fresh.

What will Keep you Playing?

With a nice variety of levels and a great number of thrills even in the replaying of previous ones, Swarm definitely is a small-budget title with big-budget ambitions. The developers at Greensky Games are also dedicated to increasing the content and they have a strong rapport with the community, often reaching out to YouTube reviewers for feedback and that connection with the community is a great thing that usually yields great results.

There are leaderboards here as well which lend themselves to the arcade nature of the game and it really adds to the old school feel they have going here and is a nice addition in a game where you wouldn’t normally assume would have one.

Preparation-

In terms of playspace needed to play Swarm, you really won’t need all that much. Most of your movement in this game will be vertically with your arms and maybe leaning from side to side as you are flying through the air. You might be turning around a lot as well, so at least be sure that you have a 360-degree area cleared of objects because the action ramps up pretty fast and intensely.

Intensity- 8/10

I recorded my 30-minute workout on a Fitbit and played on an Oculus Quest 2 headset.

Calories burned: 164
Calories burned per minute: 5
Average Heart Rate: 104
Max Heart Rate: 130
Active Minutes: 23

Swarm probably won’t be too intense for most in a physical capacity, but from a visual and purely experience perspective, this is one of the more intense games you can play in VR. Whether it is the wild visuals in VR or the fast-paced gameplay that has you literally soaring through the air pulling off moves that would belong comfortably in the Matrix, the game is as intense as it gets. Playing on the harder difficulties will also get the heart rate going as the enemies are that much deadlier and you have to be extremely quick with your grapples and swings to make sure your dodges are on point.

Arms- 8/10

Most of the action taking place in Swarm has to do with your arms. Swinging, pulling to gain momentum, and aiming and firing your weapons all are done via your arms and it is heavily recommended that you stretch to start out. While you won’t be building any real muscle tone with this game, there is a good chance you will be tiring out those arms and shoulders awfully quickly with enough game time here, so if you are looking for a good way to get active in VR quick, this is a great way to do it.

Legs- 5/10

There is no actual need for your legs in this game and because of it, you can easily play while seated. This might be an advantage for some, but immersion-wise, it definitely takes you out of it a bit for sure. I played standing up and I actually decided to use my legs a bit to dodge out of the way when enemy gunfire and missiles were coming my way. Now, this isn’t exactly realistic at all since you can’t really jump to the side while flying through the air, but this is a comic book game about flying through the air with two guns with grappling hooks attached to them, so it doesn’t take away from the experience all that much.

Core/Balance- 7/10

One of the biggest things you need to take note of here is your balance. This game has you flying through the air like a superhero and turning around 360 degrees all the time and craning your neck to see enemies coming at you from above, below and all sides will constantly have you disoriented here and more than a few times I was thrown off balance from the absolute insanity taking place in my headset. Swarm won’t be working out your core all that much, but balance-wise, this is a true test of how well you are acclimated to VR and I would not recommend this game to new players to VR as it really tests the limit on both your toleration for heights as well as your balance. Make sure you won’t have anything in the immediate area that would hurt falling into. This seems like an obvious statement, but with Swarm, it is particularly true.

Time Perception- 8/10

If there is one thing Swarm really nails, it is the feeling that you are this superhero swinging and shooting through the air while trying to take down the alien menace that is attacking your world. With the fun little comic styled cutscenes and the energetic music and visuals, it is very easy to find yourself getting lost for a bit in Swarm and the energetic gameplay just does not let up one bit throughout your time with the game. As far as how long you will be able to play through, that is a bit tough to say because different people will have different feelings about how much they can tolerate here. As far as my play sessions went with Swarm, I usually hopped in for 15-20 minutes or so outside of my initial fitness test with the game and that felt like the sweet spot for me.

Replayability- 8/10

Swarm has an interesting gameplay loop to it and although the initial content isn’t all that lengthy, the gameplay itself has kind of an ageless feel to it that harkens back to the days of old-school arcade games. If you are familiar with how those games worked, they were pretty much endlessly repayable simply because of the fact that you could rack up high scores every round and the addiction to beating your previous best scores became one of the prime factors for creating the first generation of gamers. Swarm has that sort of appeal with the leaderboards and the variety of ways you can choose to approach each level. Will you constantly swing from platform to platform, slowing time in mid-air to take out your enemies or will you go slower, hanging from a particular platform as you carefully pick off each enemy from there? It’s a great mix and allows for multiple playthroughs.

Fitness Scalability- 7/10

As stated before, you can play Swarm while seated. That being said, you will get way less out of it from a fitness perspective. If you play standing though, the biggest thing to alter the kind of workout you will be getting is the difficulty. While the easiest difficulty will be a rather light affair in the fitness department, the hardest difficulty will have you working up quite a sweat as you’ll be frantically swinging as fast as possible to dodge the more damaging fire from the alien army. You won’t be getting any amazing workout here in general, but for those looking to work up a sweat, the hard difficulty will definitely give you what you want.

Dizziness/ Lack of Nausea- 7/10

This category is where Swarm gets into a bit of trouble because although the developers have done everything in their power to make sure you have plenty of options to lower nausea and dizziness while playing, there is still nothing to get you ready to literally soar through the air as you do in this game. As a veteran of VR, I found myself a bit taken back at the start, unsure if I would be able to handle the intense action taking place in front of me and being completely thrown off balance by the initial level. After a while though, I was able to get acclimated to the various systems at play and got my bearings and from there, I had an awesome time with the over-the-top VR spectacle before me.

Social Multiplayer- 7/10

While not an actual multiplayer game, Swarm does a solid job in trying to come up with ways to stay connected to the VR community and that is done with the leaderboards. It is here where you can see your scores calculated at the end of each level and this is impacted by everything from speed completed to the number of hits taken and gives you a reason to keep returning to try to get the top score in the world.

VR Fit Score- 7.2/10

Game Score- 7/10

The Good

Swarm is an incredibly original VR shooter with some impressive swinging mechanics that creates an exciting experience that gives you a true thrill that only a VR platform could deliver. The enemies are unique and there are more introduced the more you play and between that and the addition of new weapons and gameplay mechanics like slow motion, there is plenty here to entertain you and friends new to VR for quite some time. The developers are adding more content as well and seem very dedicated to keeping the game updated which means well for the future of the game.

The Bad

Some people just will not be able to handle the wild gameplay and might find themselves sickened at the high-flying action taking place. A very specific type of player will enjoy this game as there is very little story here and repetitive gameplay will possibly grate on some people very quickly. To add to this, the $24.99 price tag might be too much to pay for what seems like a limited experience.

Swarm is available for $24.99 on the Oculus Quest Store and playable on the Oculus Quest 1 and 2.