Recent reviews by Jun Nagase ´ ω`

A powerful experience.

I've played this a fair bit, one of the first games I got after I bought a VR headset and I gotta say, overall one of the best VR experiences I've had so far.

I love that the devs are mod-friendly and openly embrace modding of their game, and the 1.0 release proved to be so much more than just a 'simple' story mode.
They really tied together the game with new mechanics and an overall story experience that's interesting and enjoyable. Outside of the occasional bug or glitch, rarely anything more than a "haha" or mild nuisance, it really is fun from start to end.

9/10 would bonk NPCs in the face with my pommel again

If you like guns, this game is probably for you.
I'd say the game isn't without criticism, for sure, but by and far also the best game when it comes to handling firearms in VR in a way that's a good mix between intuitive and realistic.
It's realistic enough that if you don't know how to handle a firearm, chances are you'll struggle with some of them and plain wont be able to use a few of the more complex or unique in function firearms.
But not so realistic that you need a manual to hop in and pop caps in some sosigs.

On the other hand, whilst I understand the developer Anton does not want human shaped targets in his game, I personally would've preferred to at least have the option available to modders. As far as I've seen, the idea of human opponents is not condoned nor script-wise possible(or at least feasible) right now. It gets a little tiring shooting fleshy tubes whom you can't tell ass from face 95% of the time.
Even if it was just robots, or sausages with sausage arms and legs for that matter, that'd be great, just so I at least have some better idea of what they're doing and which way they're facing.

Also the placement of some firearms compared to where your controller is is a little weird sometimes, often placed too high which for some smaller firearms, small pistols in particular, can lead to difficulty reloading because you cannot physically move your loading hand up high enough, as it's blocked by your other hand.

All that said, whether you like to gun-kata up close and personal with pistols, or lay down with a scoped rifle, or pretend to be a Smart Gunner from alien with an MG42, it's all possible with many fun ways to augment and tweak your experience to suit you.
And to top it all off, Anton is very much pro modding, and the game reflects that with it's in-depth modding capacity. Mods are thriving on H3VR, and you'll find new exciting things every week, be it new maps, new firearms with entirely new mechanics, new characters for Take&Hold, et cetera.
It's quite possibly my top played VR game, with the only contestant for top spot being Blade & Sorcery which is basically the same but with swords and magic instead.

Until they can fix the AI, I don't recommend this game.

While some have criticized the game's mechanics and balancing, and particularly RNG (which isn't necessarily unfounded), I think the game as it stands is pretty close to where it ideally would be.
Yes, sometimes you run into unfavorable situations given to you by RNG; a poor choice of weapon like the Detective Special with limited ammo and blocked cylinders on later levels, making it near impossible to hit drones which end up being the primary enemy you face which, indeed, do not drop any ammo.

However.
Having played this for just shy of 40 hours at the time of writing, I have learned that a lot of how you progress when this happens comes down to your own tactics, knowledge and patience.
When you're given this unfavorable situation, you must adapt and change your tactics to play more into your favor.
It's harder, for sure, and you'll run into situations where you find little to no tapes or ammo in what feels like every room you come across, but you have to learn that not every enemy needs to be dealt with, and even then every enemy has a way to be dealt with.

Hacking drones is not impossible, but improbably enough on functional drones that it's very much a last resort. But, drones are clumsy; they stumble, crash and get caught on the geometry on the levels enough that you -should- be able to outrun a drone unless you back yourself into a corner.
Hacking turrets can be tough, or impossible, but I find most of the time, with the right timing, you can hack most turrets if need be. And the ones you can't, you can usually either ignore because they're in an optional section of a room, or you can sneak past.

But at the end of the day, it's fun!
Sure, sometimes you get given a raw deal by the RNGods and RNGesus himself delivers it with an extra slap of blocked cylinders or magazines, but I think it's important to understand that each level you level up or down with only gives a relatively wide possibility for difficulty; a level higher will almost always be more difficult, but the same level 5 times will have a varying difficulty each time, entirely down to RNG. Will you get an M9 Beretta with a full blocked mag and extra rounds, with an unblocked mag in the next room and 3 tapes in the same room a little later on? Maybe.
Or will you get a Detective Special with a blocked cylinder and hardly enough ammo to fill the rest of the cylinders with drones on nigh every room ahead and behind and no tape to be seen for what feels like miles around? Maybe.

The point of the game however, is that while many things are out of your control, you must be aware and make use of the things you -are- in control of; Your tactics, your patience, your body, your mind and your firearm. And all of them must work together, much like the tapes later on will tell you, in order for you to reliably face every level you play or replay, because they wont ever be the exactly same no matter how many times you replay them.
Using what you -do- control, you can learn to reliably face what you -can't- control;
The level layouts, the ammo scarcity, the drones and turrets and their positions, the frequency of tapes etc.
You cannot rely on the world to give you what you need, instead you must rely on yourself to conduct yourself in a way that you don't -need- the world to give you things to succeed, you can succeed by yourself.


But that's my take on the game. It's fun, it's well designed and you get a feeling of some depth to the story, like there's more behind the curtains that you can't see, and I like that. It can definitely be frustrating especially early on, but you have to be open to what the game tries to teach you about it's mechanics and take them to heart, and at least in my case, I rarely feel frustrated or annoyed with the game anymore, and mostly simply enjoy it now.

Holy crap, how did they make Xen SO GOOD?!

The first half of Black Mesa is for the most part the Half-Life we all know and love, but like if a legally blind person got laser eye surgery and suddenly has 20/20 vision and sees the beautiful world for what it really is now. It's truly faithful to Half-Life, to the point where if you know where a secret is in Half-Life, you'll find it in Black Mesa in the same spot.
It's not completely the same, it does take advantage of some of the Source engines features, particularly the physics simulation to add new puzzles and mix up the old ones a bit, but every step of the way in Black Mesa it feels like Half-Life but in modern tech.

That is, until you step through the portal and land in Xen, suddenly it feels different than anything you've ever seen in Half-Life. If not for the iconic enemies and HEV suit, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a completely separate game all-together, and yet somehow they've taken what little was built of Xen back in the late 90ies and built massively upon it, not just visually but lore-wise too.
It's of course unofficial, but you get a much deeper understanding of the Xenian species you come across, particularly the Vortigaunts.
And the game mechanics; it feels like a different game not just visually but mechanically too, the movement is totally different with a focus on fast-paced high-speed movement and dodges by help from the jump pack, which too has had a redesign mechanically.
Enemies you once knew how to fight now act differently in Xen, and you find yourself thinking "Good crap, how do I beat this guy now?!"
And they ease you into the new mechanics perfectly; at no point was I standing there completely lost on what to do, they hinted at it enough to get you on track without holding your hand the entire way.
And of course, there are new enemies. But what those are, are spoilers~

In all honestly, Xen feels like Xen. It feels alien, it feels fresh and different, and it feels really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. Even ValVe would struggle to make something as epic as Xen was, and yet this team built up from a handful of people with a grand idea managed to pull it off way better than I had ever believed they could.

TL;DR, it's worth every cent and a whole lot more.

What's to say? It's a Spitfire, it's maneuverable, it's not as fast as the G-4s you'll meet but if they ever try to turnfight you, you'll have the upper hand. Just don't waste too much ammo, without any ammo indicators you'll quickly find your trigger going 'click', particularly with the cannons.
She looks and sounds so beautiful though :Q

Take-Two just ordered a cease and desist on Open Forge, aka modding in singleplayer is now illegal.

As other reviews have pointed out, it does not yet muffle footstep sounds, but I'd say it's definitely worth it. It looks cool, I haven't had any weird skintone problems and it's quite fancy with some white-camo weapons :3

♥♥♥♥, should've played an hour more.