Although I’ve had a passing interest in Virtual Reality before now, nothing has quite hooked me in quite like my new Meta Quest 2. Sure, I’ve tried using the original PSVR. Which, looking back, was a convoluted mess of wires that bound me to the Playstation 4. And sure, I’ve tried a few games in VR at game events like WASD Live. These never really gave me a clear indication of what VR could be. And it seems the Meta Quest 2 has shown me the light.
Two main factors stopped me from purchasing a dedicated VR set-up in the past. In short – the price, and the seeming necessity of being tethered to an external machine. Take the PSVR 2 for example. The device itself costs almost as much as the base Playstation 5, and it still needs to be connected via wires! Everything about the Meta Quest 3 is appealing. Everything except the price of course. I wanted something cheap, cheerful and standalone.
Enter the Meta Quest 2
Ok, my Meta Quest 2 has been set up. What games to play? The free ones, of course! After a short search I found a good bunch of demos including Beat Saber, a game I very much anticipate playing. I also picked up Republique VR, a full-fat standalone version of the regular game. Which I initially played on Google Stadia of all places.
To round it off, I downloaded Elixir, Gravity of Gods, First Contact, First Hand, Shapes XR, and Meta Horizon Worlds (more on this last thing later). All eye-catching and engaging diversions, but I quickly lost interest in the majority of them. I was hoping to maybe have a major pack-in game included in the initial price. I guess not.
Fanatical Quest VR Bundle – Summer 2024
As luck would have it, Fanatical had a Build Your Own Quest VR Collection bundle live on their website, so I decided to buy 2 games to start my collection off. And with 20 potential games on offer, I had a difficult choice to make. After some research and some time with various demos available directly from the Meta Quest 2 shop, I made my decision. In the end I chose BoomBox and Startenders Intergalactic Bartending, both of which are colourful and fun. I was tempted to get a few more, but I stood my ground. I’ve listed the rest of them below.
- Trover Saves the Universe
- Zero Caliber: Reloaded
- Swarm
- Pixel Ripped 1995
- Shadowgate VR: The Mines of Mythrok
- Ghost Giant
- Death Horizon: Reloaded
- Not For Broadcast
- AMID EVIL
- Yupitergrad 2: The Lost Station
- The Last Worker
- Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown
- Sairento VR : Untethered
- AVICII Invector: Encore Edition
- Per Aspera
- Gambit!
- Tiger Blade
- Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition
BoomBox is a delightful rhythm game, where each note of a song must be hit with either of your virtual drum sticks. Think Beat Saber but with less well-known songs. The upside to this is that every additional song included is free to download and play. And they are all DMCA-free too, so they should be free from Copyright strikes on places like YouTube and Twitch. Plus they have a bunch of hardcore Celldweller remixes that really gets the sweat flowing.
Startenders Intergalactic Bartending on the other (virtual) hand is a bartending simulator set in space. With aliens. And all manner of extraterrestrial ingredients to mix into cocktails. Both these games really do sum up the kind of VR experiences I want on the Meta Quest 2. Strange and wonderful adventures into bright and colourful worlds.
Meta Quest+ Free Trial
After a while playing the games I’d picked up thanks to Fanatical, I noticed something called Meta Quest+. A subscription service much like Xbox Gamepass, this gives players access to a rotating selection of games, as well as two games to keep per month. For as long as the player pays the subscription that is. The usually £7.99 monthly price tag was being wavered for my first month, so why not try it? There were a few games on there that I wouldn’t mind trying.
The first game I played was Fruit Ninja. Meh. It was a fun experience slashing at the fruit being thrown at me, but it didn’t hold my attention for long. I managed to get about 7 of the total 19 achievements in my short time playing, so I guess that’s something? Definitely one for the kids. Next I tried Stride. This is a first person parkour simulator, a little like Mirror’s Edge. Almost immediately I could feel myself falling victim to motion sickness. Yeah, I skipped out on this game pretty quickly too. Hmm, what’s next? Tetris? In VR? Worth a punt. Beyond the flashy lights and groovy soundtrack, Tetris Effect: Connected is…just Tetris. Solid and enjoyable gameplay as ever, but I’ve played enough iterations of Alexey Pajitnov’s masterpiece to last me a lifetime.
Things can only get better…right?
After several false starts, I was wondering if this free trial to Meta Quest+ was actually worth it. Out of the 17 total games on offer I had already skipped out on 4 of them, besides the ones I’ve already mentioned. These games were ones that didn’t appeal to me. Mostly shooters and sports games, I didn’t even bother to download them. I was nearly halfway through the available games and I hadn’t found anything that held my interest. Luckily, things were about to look up.
I booted up Demeo. I’d read that this Dungeon & Dragons inspired table top RPG had been well received. And I did genuinely enjoy my experience with it. Moving and zooming the camera down using hand motions was a treat to do.
Until You Fall was next. This arcade hack-and-slash-er is very entertaining. It has slick combat and a great neon drenched aesthetic. A thumping synthwave soundtrack helps drive the combat even further. The biggest downside is that it has roguelite elements. Ew, randomised rewards and gameplay. Gross!
Even more games to try!
I played Green Hell VR for about 20 minutes until it crashed and sent me back to near the start of the game. Couldn’t be bothered to replay it all. The Climb was boring. Just a big standard climbing wall simulator. Enough games seem to have that mechanic in it that I don’t need a climbing-specific one. A Township Tale wanted me to create a new separate account. Nope. Not wasting time doing that.
Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister was another chunky and satisfying experience. I don’t know enough about that universe to really understand all the lore but I think it was entertaining enough for a Warhammer noob like me. And duel-wielding both a chainsword and bolt gun was an experience I never knew I wanted.
I skipped out trying Hand Physics Lab. It looked like a short tech demo experience kinda of game, and I’m bored of that now. Red Matter was a much better way to spend my time. One of the more visually impressive games I played, plus it reminds me of Atomic Heart in the themes and design.
Unlike most of the games I’d tried on my Meta Quest 2, I have a previous experience with the Jurassic World Aftermath Collection. It is one of the few VR games I’ve played at the many WASD Live events I’ve been to. And back then, it was a good experience. In fact, it is one of the reasons I picked up a Meta Quest 2 to begin with. It was a lovely surprise that I got to play it for free thanks to this free subscription. And it’s actually an enjoyable game too. Sneaking around, trying to avoid whatever dinosaurs are hunting me. And yes, I finally got around to playing Beat Saber…
Steam Link
Another feature of the Meta Quest 2 is the ability to connect to a computer, either through a USB-C cable or via Wi-Fi. This allowed me to access my Steam library and try out the scant amount of VR games I have on my account. I briefly tried this and it seemed to work well, although I want to spend some more time experiencing it.
Meta Horizon Worlds
Ok. Here we go. The thing I had most anxiety over. Heading into Meta Horizon Worlds and potentially meeting other Meta Quest users. I’m not a very social person to begin with, so even meeting virtual people is daunting. I’d also heard that this Metaverse thing is overrun with screaming kids.
After jumping through some hoops setting up an avatar and doing the tutorial, I dropped into a concert-themed world. It starred a band that I’d never heard of and was sparsely populated with about 12 other people. This low number of people would become a recurring trend. Only found one screaming kid though, so off to a pretty decent start.
The band quickly got boring. I searched for some other worlds, not entirely sure of what I was looking for. And then I saw…something.
That sinking feeling
Morbid curiosity pulled me towards it. And suddenly I was on board a recreation of the Titanic, watching the iceberg absolutely ruin my journey to America. The ship started sinking. The people on board (mostly kids) started screaming. As the ship began tilting, the freezing cold water edged closer and closer. I bundled myself onto a lifeboat with another random passenger. We awkwardly stood on that digital lifeboat, watching the blockily recreated Titanic sink below the waves, as ‘My Heart Will Go On’ non-diegetically blasted out from unseen speakers.
It was a strange experience. Both amusing and disturbing. I’ve watched the Titanic film plenty of times, but experiencing a facsimile of the infamous sinking in VR seemed different. As the kids say, it hit different. Not quite what I was expecting from Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse project.
I tried other experiences. Mostly horror-themed ones as they seemed less likely to be populated by kids with their microphone turned on. The Universal Studios Arena world was bereft of any other souls, but it was fun looking at the stylised digital wax-works of The Wolfman and The Mummy. Likewise, the Universal Studios Halloween Horror experience only had myself exploring it. Maybe because it wasn’t Halloween as I explored it. Although it did give off a great single player survival horror vibe, even if the scares were a bit tame.
A strange experience…
Meta Horizon Worlds is, I think, a good representation of my time with the Meta Quest 2. A series of random, disjointed experiences, some good, some bad, some incredible mediocre. Many of the ‘games’ for sale feel like glorified tech demo gimmicks that I wouldn’t waste money on. But then there are the games like Red Matter, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection, Demeo and BoomBox. Genuinely entertaining games that keep me slipping on that headset time and again.
Maybe this Metaverse thing is the Next Big Thing. It kinda feels like Something. Although I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Meta being in control of it all. At least it’s not called the Zuckerverse.