The backbone of any good VR game is the overall feel of immersion. If the game can successfully create this feeling, in many cases, it’s considered a success. Swords of Gargantua is one of the few cases that creates the immersion, but is then failed by the remaining factors that didn’t receive the same amount of polish.

Where it Comes so Close

Within the first few moments of the game play starting, SoG feels almost overwhelming. Game play tips and guidance is given slowly over the first few levels, and even then it comes as a slow drip. Much of it you are required to learn for yourself. Luckily the combat is explained up front and you are given some time to acquaint yourself with the expectations. I can honestly say I loved the feel of the combat. The weapons felt like they had weight and did the appropriate amount of damage. Tracking of the headset and motion controllers was spot on so parrying and blocking felt incredibly accurate. For me, this was the highlight. Not once did I die and have anyone other than myself to blame. Except for the controls, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

There are a variety of weapons and each feels fantastic. Swords, shields, nunchuks, and many other weapons are at your disposal. Beware, they do degrade over time and just when you need this the most they will shatter leaving you almost defenseless. I say almost for one reason in particular. You can carry several weapons at one time, which was an excellent design choice. One weapon, or shield, can be carried in each hand, one on your non-dominant hip, and there are two throwing knives/daggers on each shoulder. So, for example, if you’re in the middle of a fight and your main weapon or shield shatters, you can replace that empty hand with the main weapon attached to your hip, dual wielding to your heart’s delight. If your next weapon breaks, you can grab one of the knives from your shoulder to carry on. Blocking an enemy strike with your main weapon and using your free hand to remove the knife from your shoulder, the slipping that between your targets ribs is a glorious feeling that is hard to beat.

There is multiplayer mode that is also a good time. You and several friends can team up against the evil hordes that never seem to run out. This function works well, and I would consider it much more enjoyable that the single player portion. Having the ability to flank enemies, revive each other, and plan attacks adds a new dimension to the game play that was much needed.

Where it Falls so Far

Even though the combat feels excellent, there are certain aspects that don’t mesh with the overall tone. Mainly, it’s the aspect that going for head shots don’t make any difference. Striking the enemy on the head will do the same amount as striking their arm. There are combination moves, but they involve hitting randomly generated target areas on the enemies they glow at the appropriate time. Since these areas are entirely random, they can sometimes appear far out of reach, effectively eliminating any chance of completing the combination.

In many other fighting games the way to solve this issue is to maneuver around the enemy in order to get a better vantage. In this case, the controls on the PSVR make that virtually impossible. To move in any direction you have to use the four buttons on the face of each motion controller. Up/down, left/right, and pivoting left and right all require a different button press. This is, by far, the most detrimental issue with SoG. I do understand why it’s like that, the PlayStation motion controllers can’t hold a candle to any other motion/VR controller and lack any type of decent navigational thumb stick. So I don’t see this as much of a choice as a lack of options. In any event, fluid motion is nonexistent and the game suffers greatly for it.

The only other area of suffering I came across was the environments. There is a small diversity of arenas that rotate between each level, but each amounts to roughly the same concept. The color pallet, for the most part, remains drab and repetitive. Any levels that look like they may be in a forested area are completely green with only slightly different shades scattered around. Any that look like an old stone temple are a light beige. The floor of each arena is a different story. Normally this wouldn’t jump out at me, but in this case it was impossible to overlook. The best example can be found in the forested areas. The terrain of these levels looks exactly like and N64 title would. My first thought was the “grassy” areas from Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye. It’s possibly some of the worst environment texturing I’ve seen in a decade.

Where it Lands

Overall the game is an excellent alpha or early access. The core game play for SoG tries so hard to get out and shine, but unfortunately it’s buried beneath several issues that can’t be ignored. If you can overlook these issues, you will have a blast with this game, especially if you have the convenience of using the motion controls of the Oculus. If you’re on the PSVR like me, you may be better off spending the $30.00 on something more refined.

About an hour into Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Dry Twice, I realized something. I’ve actually played this series before. It’s been over two decades since I last booted up a Leisure Suit Larry game, and now I’m actually old enough to understand them. Unfortunately, even though I understand it now, I’m still not sure I get it. The game plays, as it always has, as a classic point-and-click adventure game with lovably nonsensical puzzles and quirky interactions. For fans of the series, the game’s plot will be a direct continuation from the previous game, Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, but Wet Dreams Dry Twice can easily be enjoyed as a standalone title.

After escaping an arranged marriage, the titular Larry finds himself shipwrecked on a resort island that is an amalgamation of all tropical destinations—it’s vaguely Hawaii, vaguely Mexico, and vaguely everything all at once. The story springboards from there, and Larry finds himself haplessly roped into all sorts of characters’ problems. Your first mission? Earn the resort a five star review on the famous website Gulp (an obvious pun on Yelp).

The game is so jam-packed with sexual innuendo that it is barely worth mentioning. Nearly every interaction holds a double entendre, and all the backgrounds are jam packed with smutty goodness. Sadly, this is sort of where Wet Dreams Dry Twice starts to lose me. It’s relentless. Sure, the occasional witty joke lands, but for the most part, it starts to feel like a slog. The game is as much a survival game where you battle against terrible puns as it is a point-and-click. For the right audience, this game could be a laugh riot, but on my playthrough I find it missing time and time again. I end up clicking my way through most of the dialogue.

Apart from the onslaught of sexual puns, Wet Dreams Dry Twice is actually fairly enticing. The story is intriguing enough to keep me interested, and I find myself wanting to keep going to figure out how it all will end. But this is no easy task. I distinctly remember how difficult these point-and-click games were as a kid, and twenty years later it’s no different. There’s no two ways around it: Wet Dreams Dry Twice is hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if most players were checking guides fairly regularly. I certainly was.

The puzzles are both inventive and exceedingly strange. Your first puzzle is to fix a guitar with an old electrical wire, but the solutions get increasingly odd. At one point, to trick a stubborn environmentalist into leaving their post, I combine a lewd rubber ducky and a plastic six-pack ring to lure out a rooster. I throw said rooster into a vat of oil, call the environmentalist, and, voilà, problem solved. If your mind can figure out those sorts of puzzles easily, then congratulations, you’re quicker on your feet than I am. Again, for someone dipping their toe into point-and-click like myself, these puzzles are frustratingly difficult. But, for the inveterate player, these might be perfectly crafted.

The charm in Wet Dreams Dry Twice stems from the little details. The game is replete with a myriad of pop culture callouts. In only a couple of hours, I’ve encountered references to Blade Runner, Austin Powers: Gold Member, and even Finding Nemo. There’s also several on-the-nose nods to our current society. Larry finds himself constantly on the outside of societal norms. He’s constantly confused about the proper way to navigate everyday life in the modern era. He, like the Leisure Suit Larry series, is a relic of the 1980s marooned in the 21st century.

You’ll also encounter all the classic stereotypes of our time. You’ve got the ludicrously picky critic who is weaponizing their reputation on a review platform, the rave obsessed backpacker, and the tried-and-true aloof hipster. It’s all fine, but it feels like it’s been done a million times before. It’s not exactly unfunny, but it certainly isn’t fresh.

Wet Dreams Dry Twice is an odd experience. It oscillates between totally enjoyable and completely tedious. I am either enjoying the challenge of a certain puzzle or flocking to the safety of a guide to get me through. Like most games, I can imagine a perfect audience for Wet Dreams Dry Twice, but to me it feels dated—and not in an intentional manner. Sure, loyal fans might be thankful that CrazyBunch has stayed true to their roots, but newcomers will find a game that feels too deeply couched in a bygone era. I haven’t played a point-and-click in over two decades, and yet the genre feels completely unchanged. Is that a good thing? Possibly to long standing fans of the genre. But to most, it’s all going to feel a bit stale.

Prepare for trouble! Make it double! Nexomon: Extinction, a monster-capturing and battling adventure burst onto the console scene in 2020 to try to take the genre in a new direction and challenge a juggernaut to a duel.

So let’s address the Pokemon-shaped elephant in the room. There are some very obvious similarities with this title and the Pokemon games, not only in its monsters but also in its camera angles and battle system. Nexomon: Extinction, a sequel to Nexomon, takes those aspects and aims to differentiate itself with a more complex offering than its wildly popular counterpart with cute visuals, a suggestively apocalyptic story and humorous characters to appeal to a larger demographic, one including children and adults. 

Your customizable character steps out of an orphanage to become a tamer within a guild set on reclaiming a world terrorized by tyrants, huge monster Nexomon, despite realizing they are way out of their depth. Working their way up through the guild’s ranks, you learn that the world isn’t simply black and white, with allies and enemies with similar motivations shifting alliances as the plot thickens. The game’s insistence in showing you that your actions are likely immoral combined with its amusing characters and presentation make for an enjoyable experience.

As your character doesn’t speak, your companion – a highly memorable cat – does all the talking for you. Hardly unique for the RPG genre, this feline makes up for it by sarcastically shooting down enemy retorts with as much ease as complaining about the ‘lack of effort’ the developer has put into the game and is just one example of a unique cast of characters full of charm and personality that exist in the story’s dark tone and setting.

Contrasting with said tones are the game’s effective visuals that combine clean and vibrant environments with silky smooth monster-fighting animation making it the best showcase of the Unity engine’s capabilities that I’ve ever seen. The cutscene stills, character avatars and chibi-characters further add to a great visual presentation while the soundtrack is the catalyst that brings everything together, the jet fuel that gives each area character, while each section of the story is boosted by tracks that convey the scene’s importance and emotional weight perfectly, giving the feeling of a truly epic adventure. The upbeat and high tempo Egyptian and Japanese-inspired tracks for their corresponding maps, in particular, are highly addictive and are constantly on loop on my Youtube playlist.

Despite my playthrough of the main story only lasting 17 hours, it’s quite impressive how much content the developer VEWO Interactive included. It actually would have been shorter if it weren’t for me getting stuck for embarrassingly long periods in the game’s puzzle sections. The large cast of entertaining and exaggerated characters entice with just enough backstory without feeling overwhelming and provide context to a story with depth and heart. It’s executed so well that you’ll wish the game was longer.

Every single NPC has something to say and that conversation changes throughout the story, referring to your most recent actions in the region. This is also true with other tamers who you can challenge again after a period of time, which is where the majority of your experience will be gained, giving a real sense of a malleable and living world. In addition, there is a great mixture of things to do, with a large list of side quests, even extensive ones that start immediately after the main story game has been completed, extending the game’s life considerably. So enjoyable is it to just explore this world, and the desire to learn more about it, that completing side quests feels as rewarding as the main story.

The battle system differs little to others in the genre but does include a system of cores – or buffs – assignable to your monsters. Working as percentage increases to your stats, they can be created with materials that you mine throughout the game and are essential to aid your progress. Ironically though, they are actually too useful, removing much of the challenge from the battles.

Despite having the standard amount of 6 Nexomon in my team, I managed to defeat 95% of all the main story enemies with one character, even with elemental differences, and only used the others to occasionally heal and revive it. Another disappointing aspect with the battle system is that aside from the high-level Nexomon in the story, there is a complete lack of interaction with and information about most of the 300+ basic level beasts, which makes them feel entirely separate from the story and a necessity only for the gameplay mechanic. The Shin Megami Tensei series, while far darker in tone to Nexomon: Extinction, allows the player to communicate with its demons, linking them to the story and its world excellently and I can’t help feeling that Nexomon: Extinction could have benefited greatly from a similar approach during battles, whether that’s through general conversation or negotiations. Even the trading function currently in the game could have included Nexomon and would have been a welcome addition.

Rather than feeling like a rip-off, Nexomon: Extinction is a great little title that pushes the genre in a story-driven direction while also providing the freedom and addictive gameplay that it’s known for. With a custom-mode on the horizon that’ll allow players to completely change the parameters of the game in New Game+ capacity, it will address any issues with the game’s difficulty and adds yet further value to an already feature-rich game.

As such, this is an easy recommendation for fans of the genre and with a focus on humour and storytelling, it also comes recommended for those wanting to test the monster-infested waters for the first time.

This was my first time playing a PSVR game like this, one that was based it’s value solely on the device’s tracking and motion controllers. I was a bit skeptic when it was first loading up, but within the tutorial my concerns were both put to rest and validated. The game itself plays a lot like Fruit Ninja. You stay stationary, only able to rotate by turning your head, and targets are thrown in your face until you destroy them. The main difference here being that you are now expected to block attacks that are coming at you from almost 360 degrees. Oh, and of course, your targets are evil ninjas that you can now chop into several tiny pieces. Yes, it’s as fun as it sounds.

The Good

The overall game play loop is incredibly fun and addictive. It essentially breaks down into this: Complete one level, fight a boss, unlock a new weapon, onto the next level. Each level takes only a few minutes to beat, but I don’t recall ever actually being bored with it’s repetitive nature. Playing in a group seemed to be the best way to play. Verbally yelling out our own personal scoring of each other’s ninja skills, worked way better than the online scoreboard that was provided.

The combat itself is glorious for this type of game. Several ninjas rush you at once so it’s up to you to keep track of everyone around you, deflecting their strikes as efficiently as possible. Enemies flank quickly and can get behind you if you’re not paying attention. Luckily, time slows down giving you time to parry each attack. Most of the time, these attacks come in the form of enemy blades, but once in a while a ninja star will come flying at you. Blocking the star in just the right way sends it right back to the thrower.

The rag doll body effects, as well as the dismemberment, are fantastic. Nailing a successful strike will sometimes reward you with legs or arms flying in every direction, portions of heads flying off, and even the upper torso going vertical after a quick spray of blood. One of my favorites was slicing the enemies in half, from head to groin, and then watching each half crumple to the ground into two separate piles. The enemy designs are a little too polygonal for my taste, but overall it wasn’t hard to overlook.

For the most part the environments are pleasant to look at. Most are stereotypical of any ninja or samurai movie that’s ever been made, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The colors are exceptionally vibrant, increasingly so in the mission entitled “Ambush at Dawn”. The sunrise bathing everything in shades of red can’t be beat.

The Bad

Ninja Legends does have it’s fair share of problems. The main one being the inconsistent tracking. Normally I wouldn’t attribute this to the game, however I can honestly say I’ve never had motion tracking that was this hit or miss. This goes for the motion controllers and for the VR headset itself. I changed my room layout and lighting several times, but nothing seemed to correct it. Even during the opening tutorial I ran into an issue that persisted the entire game, a notice appeared so close to my face I had to sit down, then lean back to be able to look down far enough to find the “next” button. Several times my in game height would alternate from being average to a 10 foot tall giant.

I did run into several enemy AI glitches that were rather frustrating. Some would run around in circles in an attempt to dodge my projectile attacks, and they would get stuck in their pattern, endlessly running in circles until I restarted the mission. This wasn’t an every few minutes issue, but it persisted several times over my first session of a few hours.

If you’re not a fan of arcade style games, this will probably get a little repetitive for you. Now while I will say that I didn’t find myself getting tired of it, I can definitely see where this could become a problem. The overall weak AI doesn’t help as enemies just charge in your general direction over and over again throughout each level, so the only variety you will see is the environments and a few different types of enemies.

The Verdict

Ninja Legends is a good time that almost anyone can enjoy. How long before it gets repetitive is the more important question. Repetition is not always a bad thing, however for $25.00 I would’ve hoped for a little more, especially with the inconsistent tracking that is the backbone for VR games relying on motion controllers.

The racer isn’t all that’s tiny.

There’s a commonly seen phenomenon in video games journalism where reviews never give a score lower than six. This leaves review scores in a mathematically unusual position. Rather than showing a game’s percentage ‘goodness’, with 5 being a perfectly average game, the score makes any game look good at a glance, with the mapping realistically reflecting 10 being perfect, 6 being bad and anything less than 6 being atrocious to a level that merits exceptional treatment. Now would be a good time to refer to the score I’ve given Tiny Racer.

On first impressions, there’s nothing to complain about. Tiny Racer is an arcade racing game, inspired by the likes of Micro Machines, Re-Volt and Mario Kart. It has a heavy emphasis on physics-based action and a cute cartoony aesthetic, complete with comic book style 3D “Pow”, “Wham” and “Thump” pop-ups whenever there’s a collision. Unfortunately, though, the chasm between the Tiny Racer’s first impression and the gameplay itself is so yawning that it could accommodate every unwanted copy of The Da Vinci Code ever bought, or something less voluminous, like the sun.

I don’t entirely understand Tiny Racer. Arcade racers are fun because they’re not fair. They have items which allow you to cheat massively and rubber banding so strong that a slingshot in their universe would be regarded as a weapon of mass destruction. This leaves you in a position where anyone can play and expect to do reasonably well, having a lot of friendship-ruining fun along the way. It’s the reason why Mario Kart is one of the most popular party games ever made.

Tiny Racer’s arcade gimmick (and the only thing that separates it from a pure racer) is its extreme physics. There are no items, pick-ups, boosters or anything else you’d expect from a standard arcade racer. However, rather than that gimmick being balancing and fun, allowing players the choice between taking a risky manoeuvrer and potentially suffering the wrath of the physics or taking a longer route that’s less perilous, the physics are insane, unpredictable and, frankly, really irritating. You’ll go flying off cliffs, crashing into walls and other vehicles and sometimes just flip over with no rhyme or reason to why any of it is happening.

What’s worse is how unoptimised the physics have been for the AI. They don’t seem able to deal with it at all. They’ll crash constantly, taking you with them. I played a race where one car was driving in circles over the start line for the entire race, still there every time I finished a lap. When you respawn after falling off the track (again), you spawn above the track and are dropped back into the action. However, when another car falls in the same place at the same time (which happens all the time, again, the AI can’t deal with the physics engine) you’ll both spawn in the same place, which the physics is woefully unequipped to deal with so it just sends you both pinging off, at incredible speeds, to opposite ends of the map.

Other glitches I encountered include: choosing to play as the muscle car but spawning in as a van, broken multiplayer controls when using two joycons and more misplaced invisible walls than that time I worked as a glazier for Loki the Trickster God. The game also has very few tracks, only three modes and nothing else to encourage replayability. It didn’t take much more than an hour to ‘complete’ the game and experienced everything it had to offer, including all the glitches listed above.

One last nit-picking comment: Why is it called Tiny Racer? The game clearly wants to conjure images of Micro Machines and Toybox Turbos, but those games have Micro/Toybox in the name because they play with scale. You’re racing tiny cars around tracks built to a real-world scale, looping around all the junk stored away in the attic or a kitchen midway through making a Sunday roast. Tiny Racer is entirely to scale, the cars are on the same scale as the tracks and the backgrounds. There is nothing tiny about anything. Having ‘Tiny’ in the name makes about as much sense as the career and popularity of any given Kardashian.

Somewhere deep down in the development brief for Tiny Racer there is a glimmer of a good idea, but, unfortunately, a good idea on its own does not make a good game. A poor physics engine, uninspired gameplay and glitches up the wazoo make Tiny Racer difficult to redeem. If you want an arcade racer to play with friends, Tiny Racer is several continents away from being in a position to compete for Mario Kart’s throne.