1. To The Top
This was a pretty big surprise. It's a time trial VR platformer with elegant movement mechanics: pulling the trigger makes your hands reach waaaay out (like ten feet) and grab specific surface types, and once you grab with both hands and then let go, you'll leap in the direction you're looking. There's a good amount of air control during these leaps, too, and doing repeated leaps quickly allows you to build and maintain speed. In practice this means you spend most of the game flinging yourself through the air towards nearby anchor points, but if you wanna be fast you're always looking one jump ahead and feeling out anchor points around you without directly looking at them. It's a really unique yet intuitive control scheme that couldn't possibly work outside of VR, and once you start getting the hang of it the sensation of near-flight is wonderful. The structure guiding you through the stages is very Trackmania: there are ways to fall or get stranded at every turn so the courses are dotted with checkpoints you can respawn at with a quick button press, and each stage has goal times that'll get you closer to unlocking the next stage. Unlike Trackmania, though, these stages are aesthetically varied (future rooftops, giant-sized toyrooms, deep caves, cyberspace, etc) and I was surprised at how creative they get in the second half (hopping from flying toy rocket to toy rocket and then scaling an incline while dodging missiles was pretty fucking great). They layer on more obstacle types and mechanics as you get deeper into the game, and while they aren't the most consistent (some of the off-on grip sections suuuck) the highs are great (climbing while having to juggle an orb is really fun). Catchy soundtrack, too!
The game's got some plain visuals and occasional rough edges, and it never gets terribly tense, but it's very good overall. I hope they build on this, I almost want this movement in an action game with a broader scope.
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