What will this article cover?
This article will cover the best VR experiences currently on the market, but mainly through the three bastions of VR gaming: the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR. Note: If a Vive-bias seems apparent in this article, it’s important to note that the Rift shipped without its Oculus Touch controllers. The Vive, meanwhile, shipped with tracked motion controllers that allowed 1:1 player controls and motion in VR. For this reason, many developers jumped on the Vive train instead. However, once the Oculus Touch releases, it’s not a long shot to expect many of these Vive-exclusive titles to get ported over.
Accounting
Note: Accounting has strong language and some gore. Be aware of that before watching its trailer! Platform: HTC Vive Accounting is a game from Spuanchtendo and Crows Crows Crows, AKA, the minds behind Rick and Morty and The Stanley Parable. Accounting is also completely free! For a few brief hours, Accounting puts you into the strange, hilarious and sometimes horrific world of Accounting VR software. While more a fun diversion than anything else, Accounting is a must-have for any HTC Vive owner.
Audioshield
Platform: HTC Vive Audioshield is the latest brainchild from the developer of Audiosurf and shares a fairly similar concept. Audioshield is a rhythm game fueled by both an in-game rotation of music and your own on-device music. Take that, then add better graphical effects and extremely immersive controls, and you have Audioshield. Audioshield has been billed as one of the best VR games as proof of concept for the new things you can do with VR. Careful, though, you’re gonna get winded.
BLARP!
Platform: HTC Vive BLARP! is an oddity of a game. Imagine yourself placed inside a large, black sphere that steadily grows in size as you score your objectives. To do this, you control “blarps,” little balls that are controlled by the swinging and dragging motion of your controller. The goal is to hit these blarps against other blarps which adds to your collection and grows the size of the room. The twist is you can’t let the blarps themselves come in contact with you! The developers describe it in a way akin to swinging a racket, playing with a yoyo or holding a rope. My explanation doesn’t do it much justice, unfortunately: you’d have to try it out for yourself. (Fortunately, it’s only $3 USD!)
Fruit Ninja VR
Platform: HTC Vive That’s right. Fruit Ninja, the classically-addicting mobile title, has come to VR. This time, though, you aren’t swiping on a screen – you’re controlling two 1:1 motion swords! This is a fairly simple concept, but Fruit Ninja VR pulls it off quite well, with multiple little gameplay complexities allowed by the extra-precise control scheme. If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a sword-wielding boss, this is the best VR game for you.
Tilt Brush
Platform: HTC Vive Tilt Brush is less a game and more a VR art creation app come to life. If you dabble in art, though, Tilt Brush is a must-buy for the amazing, three-dimensional visuals you can create within the application.
DiRT Rally
Platform: Oculus Rift DiRT Rally is an otherwise-ordinary AAA game, but if you own an Oculus Rift headset, you can play the game in VR. Doing this allows you to experience the top-class visuals from the driver’s seat, and adding in things like steering wheel peripherals allows the game to reach a whole other level in terms of immersion.
The Climb
Platform: Oculus Rift The Climb is one of the few titles supporting the Oculus Touch right now, and coincidentally that makes it one of the best titles you can play with the headset. The Climb puts you in a first-person perspective as you climb a treacherous mountain in VR, an experience at its best when standing up and using the Oculus Touch motion controllers. The sheer sense of vertigo makes it one of the best VR games out there.
Rez Infinite
Platform: PSVR Rez Infinite is based on the classic game Rez, except restored in full HD and VR support on PlayStation 4. Rez has mesmerizing visuals and rhythm, and this earns it the title of one of the best VR games on PS4.
Thumper
Platform: PSVR Billed as “rhythm violence,” Thumper is an intense rhythm game supporting VR on PS4. Expect hard-hitting bass and scare chords as you blast through visually-stunning mesas at Mach speeds – the physicality of this game earns it the title of one of the best VR games on PS4.
Until Dawn: Rush Of Blood
Warning: this is a horror game with jumpscares and gory visuals. Viewers be advised. Platform: PSVR A VR-exclusive spinoff of the hit horror PS4 title, Rush of Blood takes Until Dawn and turns it into what’s essentially a VR rail shooter. Thanks to the visuals and the controls, however, Rush of Blood still manages to get the heart thumping, and while PSVR may not be capable of as much as the HTC Vive in terms of controls, Until Dawn brings star power to the device on PS4.
Batman Arkham VR
Platform: PSVR The Batman Arkham series is quite popular across consoles and PCs alike, but Arkham VR is a brief narrative experience available only to fans owning the PSVR. With Arkham VR you spend some hours in Batman’s shoes as you investigate crime scenes, grapple around town and confront his greatest enemies. This game is a must-have for any fan of Batman.
The Future of VR
Wrapping up this article, I’m left wondering where VR will be going in the future. The HTC Vive has some truly excellent, immersive experiences on offer, but with the headset itself costing $700 at the time of writing and a PC capable of pushing that power costing a little bit more, VR gaming simply has too high of a barrier of entry for the non-rich for the time being. PSVR alleviates this by being much cheaper, but $800 (for the console and headset combined), plus the cost of the controllers and more-expensive AAA games, is not exactly a “budget” solution either. As time goes on, the manufacturing of VR-capable hardware will become significantly cheaper. For the time being, however, whether or not you can afford to leap VR’s bar of entry depends on your budget. If you have a high-end gaming PC already, upgrading to VR could be a nice way to enhance your gaming experience beyond what it is now- the same if you already have a PS4. If you don’t at least have the base non-VR hardware for these applications, though, we’d advise you wait for the time being.
