6 Powerful Cities VR Tips and Tricks on the Meta Quest 2

While Cities VR isn’t the most complicated city builder in the world, it’s still deceptively easy to end up with a city that has a declining population and no money in the treasury. To avoid that, and generally make your city prosper and keep your citizens happy, use these tips and tricks.

Keep Expanding Your Services

While we have shown here at Reality Remake that it is not exactly necessary to use every service available in the game, it’s helpful to. When zoning new neighborhoods or industrial zones always keep in mind that your services will need to be expanded as your businesses and residences do. An apartment building is going to burn down if it catches fire and the nearest fire station is ten blocks away, and also services a hundred other buildings.

Whenever you build and zone a large new area, first make sure that power and water will be able to reach it once buildings begin to appear. Next go to the services menu and check that fire and police will be able to reach it. For residential areas make sure that healthcare and education are also available. Once these basic services are covered you can increase happiness even further with buildings like parks, and by expanding bus routes.

Take Your Time

Of course these service buildings cost money. If citizens aren’t happy then they will leave your city. To make sure that they stay (and pay taxes) make sure you have some money saved up to build those buildings.

It’s not a bad idea to take your time in Cities VR, and just fly through your city in between building sprees. Not only for your enjoyment of the game, but also so that you can build up some cash reserves before creating a new neighborhood, or modifying an existing one.

It’s also not a bad idea to play on the fastest speed, to avoid having to spend a lot of time waiting for cash to accumulate. Just make sure that your city’s income is in the green, otherwise you might find yourself bankrupt.

Tax as Much as Possible

To avoid bankruptcy you’re going to want as much income as possible, to cover the cost of all of the services you provide to your citizens. This can be done through the taxation menu. A good rule of thumb for most zones is that they can handle around 12% taxes, if your citizens’ needs are all properly covered.

Of course you can always play around with this, and try to see how long you can get away with more taxes, before people start getting fed up and leaving. Different zones have different levels of tolerance for taxes, so see how many percentage points you can squeeze out of your city, so that you can expand it as quickly as possible.

Keep Pollution Away from People

Your citizens in Cities VR, just like real people, do not like noise and they don’t like industrial waste. If they are exposed to too much of either then they’re going to need an ambulance to take care of them. This not only makes your citizenry less happy, but increases the strain on your city’s healthcare system. That means more money and space needs to be used on clinics and hospitals.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to avoid allowing noise and ground pollution to harm your citizens, as they are produced by industrial buildings and industrial zones. This means that it is beneficial to create industrial areas in your city that house buildings such as power plants and water treatment facilities, while also being surrounded by areas zoned for industry.

Where the industry ends just place some commercial or office zones to act as a buffer between your industrial and residential areas. Commercial buildings don’t take any penalties from industry, and residential zones benefit from having them nearby.

Get Ahead of the Traffic Problem

If you don’t start thinking about traffic early, then you’re going to have to use a lot of money and time to deal with a huge traffic problem at around 3500 citizens or so. There are a few simple things to keep in mind that will make dealing with traffic much easier in the long run.

All traffic will flow better with more lanes. Put down four lane roads as soon as you can, and upgrade them to six lane roads as needed. This is because four and six lane roads are the same width. When you inevitably need to increase the size of your roads to six lanes then you won’t have to remove existing buildings and completely change the layout of your neighborhoods, if you already have four lanes.

Also make sure that your entrance and exits to the freeway are very easy for vehicles to access, with a minimum of buildings in front of them. Vehicles coming into and out of your city naturally increase in volume as your population and infrastructure does. If you have a ton of buildings in front of the freeway that also produce traffic then huge traffic jams will naturally follow.

Power plants in particular create traffic through the fuel trucks that constantly need to access them, in order to keep the generators running. Make sure you don’t keep those sorts of buildings right in front of your freeway entrance and exits, but also keep them close enough so that your trucks don’t have to travel across half of your city to reach them, creating more traffic.

Dealing with traffic in Cities VR could fill an entire article of its own, but these tips should cut down on your traffic headaches immensely. Most of all try to always keep traffic in mind, and check the traffic map often.

Avoid Neck Strain

This last tip is less related to the game and more related to yourself. Avoiding neck and arm strain is important for all Virtual Reality experiences, but can be particularly bad in Cities VR, depending on how you play.

The game naturally encourages you to look downwards on your city. Since this is Virtual Reality you will need to physically crane your neck downwards to get a good look at what is happening. Doing this for long periods of time can give you neck strain, especially with the added weight of an Oculus Quest 2.

This can be mitigated by taking breaks from the game (but who wants to do that?) So instead make better use of the camera controls and look at your city more horizontally from time to time. It’s also pretty fun to fly through the buildings.

Hopefully these tips and tricks will help you enjoy the virtual metropolises you build in Cities VR, and keep your people prospering. Have fun out there.

Gym Class VR vs Blacktop Hoops VR - Free Basketball on the Meta Quest 2

First off it’s just great to see basketball games coming not only to Virtual Reality, but to the Meta Quest 2. It would be hard to imagine playing a half decent game of VR Basketball with a wire hanging from your face, so a standalone headset is really vital to bringing the Basketball experience to VR. That being said, let’s see if any of the available options are a good basketball experience for you. To find out let’s look at the two new players on the court of the Meta Quest 2. Blacktop Hoops and Gym Class.

In this article you will find what each of these games has to offer in several major categories as free VR Basketball experiences, starting with their presentation.

Presentation

Blacktop Hoops blows Gym Class out of the water in terms of presentation. I mean, just listen to the intros of both games. Blacktop comes in strong with an energetic hip hop jam and a New York City streetball aesthetic. Gym Class is… well it’s less exciting. It has a more futuristic synthetic look that overall is less interesting. Just watch the intros side by side and guess which one you’ll be more excited to start playing.

The menus are kind of the same way. Blacktop lessens the energy a bit, but still has an interesting menu track, while having that menu be set on the same street-side court that the Basketball games themselves take place on. Gym Class has sort of bland menus, though it does have a bit of an interesting 80s Synthetic look to it. Still it is generic, the menu could work just as well for any other type of game.

As for the Basketball arenas themselves, Blacktop’s is a colorful street-side court with a variety of interesting characters lining the benches. Announcers insert fun Basketball slang laced phrases over the action of the game. The same hip hop soundscape accompanies the action. When the ball hits the rim, or is smacked out of your hands there is a cartoonish splash of color. The people look cartoonishly proportioned, and the colors of the city are surreally bright.

Gym Class has a slightly more down to earth look to it. Instead of a public court you get a closed in Gym, as the name of the game implies. A big sign says “Welcome To Miami” above one of the walls. The walls are painted bright teal and pink. There is no music to accompany the Gym, just the bouncing of balls and squeaking sneakered footsteps.

While the walls are a teal color, the court looks a lot like an actual basketball court, drier and crisper than the court in Blacktop Hoops. There are no splashes of color accompanying a near miss, just the clank of the hoop. Though the satisfying swish of the net when you sink a basket is just like in real Basketball.

It’s also important to note that Gym Class does not have a tutorial at all, just a control layout in the pause menu. Blacktop Hoops has a phenomenal tutorial that you play through the first time you start the game.

Dribbling

The core of everything in Basketball is Dribbling. If you can’t dribble you can’t move, and if you can’t move you can’t play anything other than a game of HORSE or a Free Throw Contest.

Blacktop Hoops makes dribbling even easier than it is in real life. The ball is attached to your hand like it’s on a yo-yo string. Unless you throw the ball or it is knocked out of your hand by an opponent, it will stay in your hand. Still, unless you move your hand up and down to dribble the ball, you can’t walk or run no matter how much you move the joystick on your left hand. Just like in real basketball you have to dribble to walk, and it’s pretty easy too.

Accompanying the dribbles is the ability to crossover. That’s dribbling the ball from one hand to another. Crossing is a great way to bamboozle your opponent and quickly change directions so you can get around them and closer to the hoop. In Blacktop crossing is done by dribbling the ball in the direction of the non-ball holding hand. It takes a little getting used to, and sometimes doesn’t seem to work when it should. Like a lot of actions in Virtual Reality it takes some practice to get consistently right, but when you do it feels great to execute a perfect cross and then sprint past your opponent. Kind of like real Basketball.

As for Gym Class there is no dribbling system as there is in Blacktop to keep the ball in your hand. Attempting to simulate a dribble by slapping a loose ball with your hand into the floor of the Gym will give you mixed results. Often the ball won’t rise back up far enough to keep a dribble going, and dribbling the ball in this way while moving is next to impossible.

You can kind of dribble by using the grip button to hold and throw the ball at the floor and grab it when it comes back up. This method is much easier but still falls apart when moving. Sometimes the ball will not bounce forward with you. With practice this is easier than just trying to slap the ball, but is still really tough.

Due to this most players don’t dribble at all in Gym Class. Instead in games they will just hold the ball and walk as they try to get it into the basket. This makes these games technically not basketball, as every player is always travelling.

That all being said there are people who dribble in Gym Class it just takes a lot of skill.

Shooting

Okay so that might be a little disappointing for some, but what about Shooting? Even without Dribbling, the ability to shoot a ball is one of the core parts of, and possibly the most fun to be had, in Basketball. Seeing the ball arc through the air over the defense, and the anticipation of seeing if it will go in or not is just as good in VR as in real life.

To the credit of both games, they both have excellent shooting. Starting with Blacktop Hoops the shooting is just as intuitive as all other aspects of the game. Just hold down trigger to go into shooting mode, and then hold up your other hand to support the ball during the shot. You can hit a button to make your character jump a little while you release the ball, or physically jump along with the shot to make it a jump shot (watch for ceiling fans).

What differentiates both games is how shooting can be modified in the settings. In Blacktop Hoops there is a setting that changes how hard shooting is. There’s Casual, Pro, and Manual. You originally set this option during the game’s phenomenal tutorial, but can change it from the menu at any time.

The thing is… there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of difference between these difficulty settings. Each of them from Casual to Manual seems basically the same when shooting. No matter which one you choose it’s pretty tough to make shots as a beginner, so you’re best off going with Casual or Pro, just in case it helps more than is obvious. No need to make shooting unnecessarily hard at the beginning, or you’ll be doing nothing but dunking.

Gym Class doesn’t have a shooting mode for your hands like Blacktop does. Instead you just hold down the grip button and let go of it to release the ball. Gym Class does have a more refined approach to shooting settings. Instead of a general setting that affects all shooting, Gym Class lets you select the angle of your wrist and the strength of your shots with sliders.

Increasing the angle of your wrist makes your shots tend to arc higher into the air, while increasing shot strength makes them go further and faster. You can also enable or disable physical jumping. With it enabled you can jump with a button, or you can jump yourself in the real world. (Again watch out for ceiling fans). Overall Gym Class is fantastic for letting you tailor the experience to how you shoot naturally.

Dunking

Dunking is not as vital a part of the game of Basketball as movies and the NBA would have you believe. Mostly because in real life a lot of people just can’t dunk. It requires a really high jump and a lot of precision to do correctly. Though VR is a place to live out new worlds and great fantasies, like being a newcomer to Basketball that is somehow able to dunk.

That is the approach that Blacktop Hoops takes. There are not one but two jump buttons. One brings you up a couple of feet and is good for jump shots. If you press down the left joystick instead you get sent really high up into the air up to the level of the basket, an insanely high jump for most people. You can not only slap an opponents shot out of the air from this high, but you can easily dunk the ball if you are next to the basket.

It’s really easy. If you manage to get next to the basket you practically get a free point by pressing down the joystick and doing a dunking motion with your ball holding arm. They’re not hard to land. Though higher difficulty opponents give you a really hard time getting that close to the basket, and can even smack the ball from your hands before you land the dunk if they’re close enough to you when you try. That only happens on very high difficulties though.

Dunking is also the easiest way to score in Gym Class. By holding down the jump button you can jump as high as the hoop in this game as well. You just need to hold it down for a while before letting go, which is still more difficult than in Blacktop, where the jump is instant. Other than that slamming the ball home is largely the same between the two games.

Opponents

The biggest difference between the two games is who your opponents are. Blacktop Hoops is an entirely Single Player experience, while Gym Class is entirely Multi Player. Both games have practice modes where you have the court and an infinite supply of Basketballs to yourself. As far as opponents go though Blacktop Hoops has AI opponents for you to play against, while Gym Class relies on playing against other players in public lobbies.

Let’s start with Blacktop Hoops’ AI. There are five difficulty modes to choose from. The first two are incredibly easy, and if you want easy victories just immediately run for the hoop and dunk the ball before the AI catches up with you. The next three difficulty modes are much harder, because the AI can not only keep up with you, it is faster than you. If you can’t accurately shoot over its head then you need to figure out how to get around it with fakeouts, crosses, and quick hands.

The less fun part is defending against the AI. It clearly has predefined animations that it goes through depending on your position relative to it. If you are not between the AI and the hoop, it will go in for an easy dunk just like you would. If you are guarding it closely it will try and crossover and skirt around you with a twirl. If you are guarding it loosely it will take a shot. That seems to be the idea at least. The AI seems to act a little randomly sometimes, or will dribble the ball in place for a few seconds for no apparent reason but to give you a chance to steal.

What makes this annoying is not only the apparent loose logic in the AI’s responses to your guarding, but also how it will sometimes basically ignore your presence. It can just jump right through you, if that’s what it’s animation dictates, as though you aren’t there. The AI can phase through you easily, so you can’t really guard it nearly as effectively as it guards you. It’s like defending against a ghost. Your best bet is to just wave your hands around as quickly as possible so hopefully one will touch the ball and send it flying out of the AI’s hands for a steal.

So if the AI in Blacktop Hoops still needs work, how about playing against other people in Gym Class? Well, there are generally a few games open that you can join, though none of them might need new players. You can always warm up on the free half court while the game is running its course.

Since the opponents are human the games are as varied as humans are. It generally plays out like a game of pickup basketball, minus the dribbling. Some people hog the ball, others pass it generously. Some sink almost every shot, and some can’t make a basket to save their lives. The game is hard and other human opponents also have the annoying ability to walk right through you sometimes. Still, it changes constantly as the people you play against change, and so it has a much more dynamic range of competition than Blacktop Hoops does.

In Conclusion

You might be noticing a trend here. Blacktop Hoops tends to be a much more arcadey experience. You can do great crosses, dunk the ball, and have amazing plays right out of the tutorial. A lot of the tools of Basketball that take a lot of practice to acquire are just given to you. You don’t need to accumulate a lot of practice and skill in order to be pretty good at the game.

The backdrop to the game itself is the same way. You’re on a bright, clean court with a crowd watching you. Announcers comment on every play while music plays in the background. It’s all a little larger than life, and definitely larger than the average basketball player. It’s a bright fantasy, and Virtual Reality is a great place to deliver that fantasy.

Gym Class, despite it’s lack of reliable dribbling, is a more grounded experience overall. It’s duller and more constrained to reality in a good way. A Basketball experience for those who want to work for their baskets like they would in real life, or practice in Virtual Reality when they can’t for real. Getting to the point where you can make great plays is more challenging, but also can be more rewarding for it.

Both games are great at what they are trying to be. They’re really just different types of games trying to do different things with the same sport. Whichever you prefer is up to what you’re looking for. Arcadey fun that’s fast and easy to get into, Blacktop Hoops. A grounded and competitive experience, Gym Class.

Both of these games are free on the Oculus store App Lab right now. They are both great games for the Meta Quest 2. Blacktop Hoops is also available on Steam, for free. There are paid addons to Gym Class, which have not been covered here.

Contractors VR Zombies is Hot Garbage and Here’s Why

I’ve got to say that I’m not easily turned away from something new in VR. There are so many unexplored types of games in Virtual Reality that even a half decent version of something new to VR is generally an awesome experience. Even if I have some complaints about whatever it is, like in my Cities VR article. I’ll still usually end up playing it a ton and enjoying myself immensely. There’s just not a whole lot of options in VR, and I’m a huge fanboy.

Now there’s already zombie survival in Pavlov VR, but that’s just a direct port of Nazi Zombies from the Call of Duty franchise. Vanilla Pavlov Zombies is so underdone and incomplete that it doesn’t count. Oh, and After The Fall too, though that game has some issues of its own. Here was another chance to do things right. Contractors VR zombies was going to be something grand and new, from a game that had previously had some really stellar updates, and this zombies mode was going to be built in VR, for VR.

Shame it turned out to be terrible.

The Zombies Are Drunk

Let’s start with the obvious thing. The zombies look terrible. The animations are janky and weird, and they’re constantly doing this over-animated dancing with their arms that makes them look silly. They don’t shamble and they don’t run. They kind of… flail their arms as they power walk towards you. They look like they’re sliding over the ground more than walking. I mean look at them for Christ’s sake.

Not to mention that there is very little variance in the character models of those zombies. The same few variations will come at you over and over again with a different colored shirt. Hair guy, messed up face guy, big bald dude, occasional fat dude, over and over again.

Worst of all is that the zombies make hardly any noise. The occasional moan is about all you get. There’s long periods of dead silence while they eerily shamble towards you, only occasionally punctuated by a single sound other than gunshots. It’s weird.

Look at a clip from Contractors VR zombies, and then compare that to a clip from the Call of Duty Nazi Zombies. The Nazi Zombies have so much flavor, they move in such an interesting zombie-like fashion, with some damn character and some noise. They don’t all look the same when they move. They seem… well not alive, but animated.

Ugh. When the Contractors zombies get close to attack you they don’t even really make a chomping noise or a roar or a screech or anything alarming. Then you have to immediately run away and reposition. Oh and let’s talk about repositioning while we’re on the topic

The Gameplay. Also Drunk.

You will have to do a ton of repositioning in Contractors VR Zombies. Not for the right reasons either. I hope you really love constantly reloading while on the run, because you never get a chance to just stand your damn ground and run the zombies through a choke point. Outside of the early rounds there will be enough zombie spawns for some to inevitably spawn behind you.

Are there maybe some secret spots I haven’t found? The options are either stand in a corner with nowhere to run if you get overwhelmed, or zombies will spawn behind you. One of them will usually start attacking you from behind and you will need to run and reposition.

What makes this so crappy and unengaging is that this means there is really no reason to think tactically about the map and the obstacles on it. As long as you have a place to run away to then you will be fine as long as you don’t get bitten one too many times before you run. There’s no funneling zombies into choke points or traps.

Even just run and gun shooting can be interesting, but unless you are constantly looking over your shoulder every couple of seconds, which makes aiming in VR impossible, then you have no forewarning of a zombie coming behind you. Since they can just pop into existence anywhere and don’t make any noise to alert you to their presence, a zombie could be basically anywhere you aren’t looking at basically any time.

After playing enough you will inevitably spot zombies popping in out of nowhere. They’re probably designed to spawn in behind you or right around a corner in front of you so you don’t see them pop into existence. What this creates is a situation where you have no idea where zombies might come from and so no way to plan for how to deal with them. This is just a shooting gallery where you shoot, run, shoot, run, with no thinking. Over and over again in circular patterns.

The Perks Are Drunk Too

Speaking of patterns let’s talk about the progression systems here. Just like in previous Contractors VR survival there’s a system of Perks and Equipment. You get two perk points a round, and you get money dependent on how many times you shot or killed a zombie. Now I’ll put a little disclaimer here by saying that these problems are largely inherited from the previous Contractors VR survival mode, which has the same mechanics, but they’ve been rebalanced and reworked for the zombies mode. That means there was a chance to do something about these problems before release.

For instance, you would be crazy to not go through the yellow tree. It has extremely good benefits that literally every player would benefit from. From a straight up 30% money boost from each kill, to a 1% damage increase every 500 dollars gained, up to 70%. So basically a long term investment towards a whopping 70% damage increase.

Nobody, no matter what other perks they chose or what weapons they chose, would not benefit from this immensely. So the yellow tree fails to be a choice, and just kind of ends up being something you inevitably need to invest in sooner rather than later. Not to is just irresponsible.

As for the other two trees there’s really not much choice either. You will have to take abilities in the red tree. Without the damage boosts they provide even the 70% increase from the yellow tree will not be enough. You will end up firing insane amounts of rounds into zombies while doing practically no damage. I’ve had to refill my entire storage of magazines twice during some later rounds. At the very least you need to invest in the flat damage bonus and the headshot bonus. So, again, investing in the Red tree is not a choice, but a requirement in order to get anywhere.

The Green tree is kind of optional. It generally makes you harder to kill. The green tree is the only real choice you make. Invest in the green tree so that you can take a little more damage without dying, or spend those points on the things you will have to get to have them a little sooner. You’re better off just running constantly and not spending those points in green at all.

There are some hybrid abilities between trees too, they generally suck and are pointless.

Guns are Approaching Sobriety

The one redeeming part of this game are the guns you get to buy. There’s a great variety, and each path in the tree has a theme to it. The path on the top leans on guns that fire fewer bullets that do a lot of damage. The path below that leans on guns that spray a ton of bullets. It’s fun to choose which gun to go for next.

It would be nice if you could have two big SMG or Rifle level guns, instead of just one big gun and a pistol. There are way more choices for larger firearms than there are for pistols. Some of the paths you can go through the gun trees don’t even have a pistol on them.

Having the choice of which gun to get is nice, but not even that is well implemented. That’s because some of the guns are traps, and they take so long to save up for that you will be stuck with that trap gun forever. For instance, check out the Deagle. You can get it super early on and it does good damage for a long time. Assuming you take the right perks of course.

Now take the M1A, which you can get right after the Deagle. It is a Marksman’s Rifle that fires a really big cartridge, bigger than the Deagle does. Check it out in this zombies mode, it does practically no damage at all, despite being semi-automatic. You can tell some balancing was done for this mode, I mean they changed the whole gun and perk tree around from regular survival. Did this get released in a hurry? Was there still work to be done on this?

The M1A is absolutely horrible. You will end up just using the Deagle instead, and that is the better scenario where you have a good pistol to fall back on. If you get a crappy gun and are using the starting pistol, well you might as well start over.

In Conclusion

So you inevitably learn which guns are best, just like you learn which perks are best, which means there’s not really any choices here, just traps to fall into so you have to play over again to not fall into those traps. Other than that the gameplay doesn’t change much. Rinse and repeat the same rounds over and over. The types of zombies, or the number of them, doesn’t change. Even the placement of the armory and perk locations, doesn’t change.

There is only one map that is the same every time, and you will inevitably realize that you should do the same thing every time, or your chances of surviving to later rounds goes way down. Mostly because if you take the wrong perks or buy the wrong gun you won’t do enough damage to cut through the zombies. So you end up doing the same thing over and over again, which is boring.

Maybe if the process of shooting the zombies was fun, then Contractors VR zombies could remain interesting, but shooting the zombies isn’t even fun. It’s just a repetitive repositioning fest that has no tension once you get good at it in a few rounds. It’s just running in circles, popping off a few rounds, and running again. There are no real build choices to make, and no real tactical choices to make. No chances to take, just boredom.

The Green Hell VR Complete Weapon List and How to Craft Them - Meta Quest 2

Green Hell VR takes place in the extremely hostile Jungles of the Amazon. All sorts of deadly enemies lurk within the bushes, trees, and waters of the Green Hell. A lot of those enemies are faster than you, so that means no running from them, just fighting. If you’re going to fight beasts that are way bigger than you are then you’ll need some weapons. So here’s the complete list of all of them, and how to get them.

Spears

Ah, spears, the ultimate survivor’s weapon. It can do a lot of damage while keeping you a safe distance away from whatever you want to do damage to. Great for smashing spiders, scorpions, and rattlesnakes. Used properly a spear can stop a Puma in its tracks… at least for a moment. You may not think much of spears outside of the jungle, but in the jungle it is a hard weapon to beat.

There are a whopping five types of spears in Green Hell VR, and all of them start with a very simple craft. A long stick of wood or bamboo, and a sharp piece of stone. You can get a sharp piece of stone by bashing two rocks together. You can sharpen a length of wood or bamboo by holding the sharp stone and the wood while holding both triggers, and then running the sharp stone over the highlighted area. This goes for anything sharp enough, a machete will also do in a pinch.

Unless you’re really desperate you probably won’t end up using a bamboo spear. It’s a little shorter than other spears, does hardly any damage, and most importantly you can’t put a spear tip on it. While with a wooden spear you can add a spear tip to make it really strong.

Wrapping a rope around the stone you used to carve the spear gives you a spear tip that you can add to the spear by holding it and the spear while holding both triggers. Just mashing the spear tip on to the spear will create a strong stone spear. You can’t go wrong with a stone spear. It is durable and does good damage.

You can do the exact same process with a rope wrapped piece of bone (aka a bone knife, more on that in the knives section) or a piece of obsidian. Obsidian is pretty rare, and so makes the best spears. Really sharp and really durable, go for obsidian if you have some.

The last, longest and strongest type of spear cannot be made by your hands. Instead you can only get it by defeating a Waraha warrior who is wielding it. The local tribespeople have all of the best equipment.

Knives

Ah, knives. You may find them less useful because you need to get in really close in order to use them. This also invites danger to get close to you. Knives may not be extremely useful against a Jaguar or a Caiman, who will use the opportunity to bite you in half before you can get a few good shanks off. Against people they are actually arguably the best weapons if you know how to use them.

A spear require some pause in between blows because you need to pull it back again and put some force into the next stab. With a knife you can easily stab many times quickly. Tribal warriors, unlike large predatory animals, are no more dangerous when they are right in front of you than when they are at a spears length away. So the ability to do more damage more quickly from up close is great against them.

There are four knives in the game. They are essentially the piece that you make before you add them to a wooden spear to make a better spear. A piece of broken bone wrapped with rope, a piece of sharp stone wrapped with rope, or a piece of obsidian wrapped with rope.

Just like with the spears you will need to defeat Waraha tribal warriors in order to get the best knife, the custom obsidian tipped knife of the tribe. This knife is the most durable and does the most damage. Otherwise you can’t go wrong with a bone knife or self made obsidian knife.

Bows and Arrows

Ah, bows. Really the only truly long ranged option in Green Hell VR. They are great if you are too slow or squeamish to do well in an up close battle. Though regardless they are essentially useless against fast enemies like the Puma or Jaguar, who will close the distance to you very quickly. They are also very strong against the Caiman. Three arrows into a Caiman’s skull will kill it as they ponder over toward you. A bow is essential to fight a Caimain, without one you will almost definitely become lunch.

Bows are also the best weapons for hunting. Otherwise with either spear or knife the only reliable way to catch most prey is to corner them. With a bow you simply have to get a good headshot off before your prey notices you and runs away.

There are two types of bows in Green Hell VR. The first is the one you make yourself. Make a wooden spear with no spear tip, and then instead of adding the spear tip, get a rope to act as your bow string. Then hold the spear in one hand and the rope in the other. Then hold down both triggers. You’ll have to wrap the rope around either end of the wooden spear, and boom, you’ve got a bow.

As for the second type of bow, you guessed it, it can only be obtained from tribal warriors. Kill one that has a bow, and they will drop their bow. There’s not too much of a difference between the two bows, but the tribal bow looks more professional and sleek.

Arrows are easier to make, but the ingredients for them are more rare. First you need a small stick, which you can make by hitting a big stick with an axe or rock until it breaks into smaller sticks. The rare thing you need is a bird feather. One bird feather makes one arrow, and they can be hard to come across.

Sometimes you’ll find feathers laying in the forest near bird nests or trees. Otherwise you can find one of the birds out in the wild and kill it, but you’ll have a lot of trouble spearing or stabbing one. If you need more arrows your best bet is probably shooting one of the birds. Hope you’re a good shot. Luckily if you miss arrows are retrievable in Green Hell VR. So just make sure you note where your missed shots land.

To make an arrow just hold the stick in one hand and the feather in the other. Hold down both triggers and mash the feather into the bottom of the stick. Then boom, arrow.

Axes and Machetes

The axe is the most basic tool in Green Hell VR. When you are first thrust into the jungle it is the first thing the game teaches you how to make. Just shove a stone from the ground into a stick, also found on the ground. The axe can be used to chop down trees and do many other things. However as a weapon it is not the finest. Like knives, axes have the drawback of needing you to be very close in order to deal any damage. Unlike knives axes do terrible damage, and don’t give you the ability to strike quickly like a knife.

Axes are best left as a tool instead of a weapon, keep a spear, knife, or bow on hand instead. Though you should know that you can make an axe stronger by wrapping a rope around it. This means you can chop more trees with it before it falls apart.

As for machetes they fall into the same category as axes. Modern tools are great tools that take a long time to fall apart, but still aren’t the best for use as weaponry. You’re better off with a piece of bone wrapped with vines than the best machete fresh off of the assembly line. While an unrusted machete is decent in a fight, there are much better and less rare options available.

Well there you have it, all of the weapons in Green Hell VR. Thanks for reading. Green Hell VR is a fantastic example of a Survival Game in Virtual Reality. I heartily recommend it for survival game or VR buffs. It can be purchased for 29.99$ on the Oculus Store. Green Hell VR will also be coming to Steam for PCVR in the near future. Happy hunting, and good luck in the jungle.

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7 Best VR Games for Sniping on the Meta Quest 2

Sniping has long been a sacred art among those who enjoy first person shooters. Sniping well takes skill, speed, patience, and great map knowledge to do well. Being a sniper also requires precision in singleplayer and multiplayer games. For an enthusiast of Virtual Reality gaming or the Meta Quest 2, you may be wondering, what games give you a great sniping experience? Well here they are, broken down from not so good, to the best on the platform for an aspiring sharpshooter. Staring with number 7.

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7. Resident Evil 4 VR

You may not think of Resident Evil 4 VR as a sniping game, and you’d largely be right. It is full of tight corridors, twisting hallways, and a bunch of Ganados very intent on getting in close and eating your face. On the other hand a bolt action, and later semi automatic, sniper rifle is available in this game. They are very powerful, and very satisfying to get headshots with. As a Ganados’s head will explode when it takes such massive damage.

There are a few sections in Resident Evil 4 VR where the combat arena is large and the enemies are far enough away that you can use the sniper rifle effectively. These areas come often enough to give Resident Evil VR a slot on this list, since the Meta Quest 2 has a limited selection of games involving sniper rifles (for now). Mostly, however, the sniper rifles work great here as improvised one shot kill shotguns instead of long range weapons.

6. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners

Ah, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is such a great VR game that shows what Virtual Reality games can be. It has a large number of guns, but only one that seems like it could be considered a sniper rifle. That would be the Bolt Action Rifle, which can be unlocked a few levels into the game, or found in the ruins of New Orleans if you know where to look. Like in most games this rifle is hard hitting and difficult to load. Especially difficult in this case, as the bolt is extremely janky and not very well implemented, which is a thing not often said about The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.

Overall there are not many sections that seem much like sniping sections, with the exception of one level in the Aftershocks free DLC that gives the player a view of a battlefield through a window, and a free rifle just sitting there. Hunting season for sure, and very satisfying for sniping. Otherwise there isn’t even a scope for the bolt action rifle, or for any other firearms in the game.

Still, we’ll count The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners as a sniping game, mostly because the AI, human or zombie, needs to get really close to actually notice you. This gives plenty of chances for hiding, shooting, and scooting even from close range. A scope isn’t really needed, and the gameplay can still scratch a sniper’s itch.

5. Population: One

Population: One is the Fortnite of VR, though it is smaller in scope and, luckily, nobody is capable of building an entire apartment complex in the span of 5 seconds. Just like Fortnite there are plenty of sniper rifles in Population: One.

Just like in Fortnite they are far from the best weapons in the game, and in fact aren’t used very often due to their lack of power when compared to other weapons. An assault rifle can hit a target from medium range and do damage much more quickly than a sniper rifle, because the sniper needs to have its bolt cycled after every shot. So assault rifles and SMGs tend to get a lot more love than sniper rifles do in Population: One.

That all being said sniper rifles are the only long range option, and their bullets can be accurate pretty far away. Still, unless an enemy player is already at dangerously low health, it’s not a one shot kill. Also, they are notoriously difficult to aim when compared to sniper rifles in other games. Looking down the scope of a sniper rifle in Population: One is particularly hard, and until you get a lot of practice it can feel like you are aiming at something properly and missing it for no reason.

4. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

Now we are getting into the territory of proper sniping games. Though in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only expect to find sniper rifles in the singleplayer. It would be a mystery why you would still be playing the multiplayer of this game at all, but if you do don’t expect to get any sniper kills. The singleplayer of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond features a couple of different sniper rifles, and due to its World War 2 setting, all are bolt action.

Cycling the bolts on those weapons is pretty smooth, and so is looking down their scopes. The impact of the rifle doesn’t feel, with most enemies later on in the game just shrugging those rounds off and continuing to run around. Though sometimes you can still get a very satisfying looking headshot. Also, the sim-like faces of the enemies aren’t super fun to stare at through an optic.

Most combat in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is done up close or at medium range. Though there are a few segments where sniping is practically the only option, or is heavily encouraged. These segments are great if you love sniping, like one memorable part where you defend a French village from atop a bombed out church. Still, if sniping is all you’re after then Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will leave you wanting more.

The same can be said for just about every other category you could put on a World War 2 shooter. In all aspects Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only delivers a little of what you desire.

3. Contractors

Contractors is a multiplayer shooter that is fast paced and encourages quick fights with fast respawn times and objectives. It is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality. Just like in Call of Duty the sniping is pretty good, but not the best. The game is pretty fast paced, and so you’ll get enemy players sneaking up behind you a lot, so you need to move constantly just like they will. So you can’t really hold down one spot for long. That could be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.

As for the weaponry there is a huge variety of guns you can attach long range scopes to. Even Assault rifles have optics that reach two or four times magnification. Weapons intended for sniping, like the M1A, pack a lot of punch and are very accurate. The scopes themselves are intuitive to use and don’t have that annoying quality of constantly floating in and out of your vision like those in Population: One.

That all being said the maps of Contractors do not have many areas that encourage sniping, because they tend to be closed in and favor short or medium range combat. There are a few spots on some maps that are great for sniping on, but those are not common.

2. Onward

If you’re looking for a multiplayer Virtual Reality game to become an expert sniper in, Onward is it. Where Contractors is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality, Onward is the more thoughtful and slower cousin. It’s sort of like Ready or Not or Squad, or even Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Each team is small and each player is taken down very easily with only a few hits. With a sniper rifle even a single hit is easily fatal, and wow are the sniper rifles good.

They’re modern, and have a wide variety of addons and scopes to choose from. If you want to have a 4x optic for sniping, but a small collimator on the side for up close conflict, that’s possible. As with all weapons in Onward the sniper rifles have great detail, and feel responsive and intuitive to use. There’s even a bipod for some rifles.

Landing a shot gives immediate results. Sniper rifles are powerful, and landing a hit is very satisfying. Due to the slow pace of the game there are many opportunities to set up in a position, or change positions after firing off a few rounds. Communication with your teammates via your shoulder radio can also give you good opportunities to find out where your opponents are hiding.

On top of that most Onward maps feature multiple open areas, where a single sniper can easily take out enemy team members as they try to pass through. Unlike other games Onward gives a sniper many opportunities to take long shots and make full use of their chosen rifle.

With great weapon variety and choices, great weapon feel, and a great selection of maps to choose from, Onward is the best multiplayer experience for sniping.

1. Sniper Elite VR

Unlike all of these other games, Sniper Elite VR, like the name says, is focused on sniping. That is really what makes it a sniper’s paradise in Virtual Reality. The vast majority of weapons are sniper rifles, and the vast majority of areas are geared toward sniping. Enemies are far away and there are ample spots to shoot from. Areas are very often wide open and encourage the use of a scoped weapon.

Sure there are SMGs and Pistols to use as well in Sniper Elite VR, but here they are the weapons that are only used occasionally, as the sniper rifle is in all of these other games. Very often sniping will be the main objective of a map, and sniping is always the way to get the most points and to dispatch enemies the quickest. A soldier that might take an entire burst from an SMG to kill can easily be taken down with a single sniper bullet.

For more on the game in general, check out our review. Though if you like sniping you certainly won’t be disappointed in Sniper Elite VR. The only drawback is that sometimes the rifles feel a little floaty, and move too easily with a slight twitch of your hand. Otherwise they handle beautifully, and the scopes feel realistic and straightforward to look through and aim with.

For a singleplayer sniper experience, Sniper Elite VR cannot be beaten. For an experience focused on snipers, sniping, and sniper rifles in VR, there is nothing else like it.

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