Post X-mas, Pre New Year

            I figured I’d get started on my New Year’s resolution early (which is to go back to writing more). It feels good and I get to share all of those lovely, wacky experiences that I have in the wacky world of VIDEO GAMES.

            Like many people this holiday season I’ve fallen into the VR hype train. The particular games that have me flailing around my living room include I Expect You to Die, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, and, of course, Super Hot; all are on the PSVR. I Expect You to Die was my first foray into VR and effectively sold me. I played the game at a friend’s house fresh, with nobody having a lot of experience with VR. The result was hilarity. The cool thing about VR is that it has an inherent fun factor when being watched. It’s one thing watching a friend play a single player game on a controller. It’s a completely different thing watching your friend roll to the ground or prod a person nearby with the PlayStation Move ball. With I Expect You to Die, you get the potential for all these things and then some. While it’s certainly a hilarious game to watch someone attempt for the first time, I slowly began to realize that this game is a clean VR experience. I eventually realized we were past simply being silly. Games on VR can be a well thought out experience. The puzzles in I Expect You to Die aren’t just enjoyable to solve. They have a sense of style. They commit to the cartoonish antics of some sort of Spy vs. Spy comic strip. The game can go from hilarious flailing to serious conundrum solving, depending on who is playing. It was/is a fine first game for my VR experiences and only convinced me to buy a PSVR and try other games after.

            The next two games were both played on Christmas with my family and close relatives. First was Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Now, mind you, I’ve never played ANY iteration of this game. I know it’s been out awhile, but I guess I just never had any FRIENDS to play it with.

…

I’ll just tell myself that I have friends and we never got around to it.

But the game is great! A couple of people had already played it and those who hadn’t got really into it. The idea is that the person in VR is defusing a bomb only they can see. Everyone else has their tablets or phones with a manual open on how to defuse it. The people who have played the game before spear-headed the explanation to start, but slowly people became more familiar with the manual and more confident in explaining what to do. It’s a really enjoyable time with a group of people. It can also get very tense if people are really into it! It helps that the music just swells as the countdown nears its end. With that tension some quality lines from your friends often come up. Like this from my sister:

“How much time do we have left,” I ask.

“None,” said my sister.

BOOM!

Good times.

The last game I’ve played and by far the most fun is Super Hot VR. Very lite on plot, very big on action is a good way to describe it. If The Matrix and John Wick made a third Keanu Reeves, he’d be playing this game. The concept is, at its heart, a puzzle game where the objective is to take out a bunch of dudes with any grabbable object. These objects range from guns to ash trays to tea cups. The final kicker is that time only moves when you move. This gives you plenty of time to dodge

bullets, deflect, grab, or punch your way out! Even the most timid of my relatives became a death machine! It was horrifying! But very fun.

With this I’m very much looking forward to continuing my foray into VR. Hopefully games like Ancient Amuletor, Arizona Sunshine, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew keep me coming back for more.

Oh! One last thing. I will be participating in a Final Fantasy play through with other people. I’ll be playing FFIX. I will stream it, which isn’t the best because it’s a turn-based and older jrpg, but I’ll keep the recording I suppose or cut something together. Wish me luck!