Unlock all Hidden Recipes in The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners

In The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners you unlock most recipes and schematics by upgrading your crafting tables. Except for the green recipes at the bottom of each table. These have to be found out in New Orleans before you can craft them. Wondering where to find them? Well then look no further, because we’ve got the complete list here.

If you want to find the new recipes that can be found in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution then check out the article with those locations here.

While slight details in the environments might be different, the recipe locations are the same on the Quest 2 and PCVR versions.

Table of Contents:

• .45 Revolver and Ammo

• Jambalaya

• Beignet

• Gumbo

• Lever Action Rifle

• Samedi’s Hand

• Noise Maker Bomb

• 4th and Pain

• Esteemed Mortal

• Improved Bow

• Explosive Arrows

• Sticky Proximity Bombs

• AR-416 and 5.56mm Ammunition

.45 Revolver and Ammo

Arguably the most straightforward recipes to get your hands on, the .45 revolver and .45 ammunition schematics are found in a safe in the Blue Palace mansion in The Shallows. The Blue Palace is the only building you can enter on this map, and is also the location containing the item you need for your very first mission in the game, a microphone for your radio.

The first time you enter The Shallows a woman will greet you, saying that her husband took off with their children into the Blue Palace, and that she will reward you for finding him. Your reward will be the code to the safe, which is located in the first room to the left of the main entrance to the Blue Palace. The room also contains a portrait and many books, and the safe itself is set in the wall next to some bookcases. There is also an entrance to this room through the crawlspace beneath the house, through some broken floorboards.

To access the safe and get the schematics you can go to the attic of the Blue Palace, get the dead man’s wedding ring, and return it to her for the code. Or if you prefer to not have to walk between her, the mansion, and back again, you could just kill the woman and take the code off of her corpse.

Jambalaya

Jambalaya is arguably the most useful food item in the game, as eating it reduces how quickly your weapons deteriorate for an entire day. If you want to save on materials for weapon crafting, this is a great food item to consume to get your stamina back.

The Jambalaya schematic can be found on the Via Corolla map. This is also the second map that you unlock when playing the game, and also contains the first tower stash that May wants you to steal. The house itself is pretty conspicuous the first time you show up to Via Corolla. Some Reclaimed soldiers will attack the front entrance, and the house itself has a huge banner saying “TOWER”. It is also filled with Tower grunts.

The Tower stash can be gotten easily enough by sneaking through a broken wall at the side of the house and taking it from the fountain, but the Jambalaya recipe is harder to retrieve. That’s because it is inside the house itself, on the counter in the kitchen. You might be able to sneak to get the stash, but sneaking in far enough to get the recipe is extremely difficult. If you’re not ready for a fight to get into the building, then come back another time when the Tower troops are gone.

Beignet

Eating the Beignet will give you a stamina buff for one day, which is pretty good if you want to chop your way through a crowd of walkers without taking a break. You won’t even have to wait for day to get this recipe, as you can get it the first time you meet May outside of the church after the first time you bring Tower intelligence to her.

The first time you enter the churchyard through the catacombs walk past May, and search through the buildings on the left hand side of the street. One of the buildings will have a large kitchen, and on the floor or counters of that kitchen will be the Beignet recipe. While you’re at it you might as well take all of the scrap items you find nearby with you back to your bus.

Gumbo

Gumbo gives you a maximum health buff a day, and can be useful if you think you’re going to be getting into a lot of gunfights.

The Gumbo recipe can be found in Old Town. There is a small building in the corner of Old Town, which is marked red on your map. There is a gate in front, a car in the driveway, and the walls are exposed brick. Inside the house will be a couple of Tower grunts that won’t let you pass without a fight. Kill them and the Gumbo recipe is inside of the refrigerator.

Lever Action Rifle

The Lever Action rifle schematic, like the .45 Revolver and .45 Ammo schematics, is really easy to find because you will have a mission that is right next to it. The first time you go to The Ward you will have a mission to get some Tower intelligence from a warehouse that they occupy there.

The intelligence is in a small room behind the main yard of the warehouse that the Tower soldiers are patrolling. There is a lot of shelving in the room, with a lot of good loot spawns on them. When you’ve found the intelligence for May make sure to get the Lever Action Rifle recipe from the top of the red toolbox right next to it.

Samedi's Hand

Finding some of the recipes is a little more complicated than just knowing where it is located. Samedi’s Hand is a clawed melee weapon that looks extremely cool.

While the safe containing the recipe is in Via Corolla, the code to open the safe is found in The Ward. There is a large shipping office you can explore in The Ward, and you can find the code on top of one of the desks inside, in an office about half way down one of the long hallways on the lower floor. You’ll find it if you just search the top of every desk while you’re inside. Also this is a great opportunity to get some of those juicy keyboards while you’re at it.

Once you have the code the safe is back in Via Corolla. Go to the house that has a front door with lions on either side. Go around the right side of the house and pay attention to the wall. You’ll notice some hand holds in the wall of the house that you can climb up into a little room, which contains the safe with the Samedi’s Hand recipe inside.

Noise Maker Bomb

The Noise Maker bomb is an egg timer strapped to the back of an PWNBOT toy robot. You set the timer, throw the thing, and it makes noise until the time is up and it explodes. Very useful against Walkers. The recipe is easy to find, as the main mission will run you right by it.

In the Rampart High School map, while you’re in the gym looking for Casey’s squadmates you will find the recipe with the last squadmate (Trent) in the little room in the corner of the gym. Get into this room through the top of it by climbing the bleachers and going down through the hole in the top. The recipe is on the floor next to the last squadmate.

4th And Pain

The 4th and Pain axe is arguably the best one handed melee weapon, it is at least the most durable, and it is super easy to use. Basically it is an upgraded version of the Cleaver.

To find this recipe go to the nurse’s office in The Rampart High School. After entering the front room of the nurse’s office go into the bathroom in the back of the office and the recipe will be on the counter next to the sink. Once you see white tile you can’t miss it. To find the nurse’s office go to the west wing of the school. It is on the bottom end of the first floor.

Esteemed Mortal

The Esteemed Mortal is a weird name for what is basically a giant axe made of saw blades. It’s a little cumbersome… but it’s pretty sick.

Before going to the safe you’ll need the code for it, which is located at The Rampart High School. It is on a music stand in the school’s band room. There are a ton of stands and instrument cases in the room, centered around a little podium for the conductor. If you’ve ever seen a band room you will know it when you see it, though it will be pretty dark in there. Make sure to check the music stands thoroughly for the code. (It may be on the ground in the quest version, instead of on a music stand)

Once you have the code the safe containing the recipe is in Old Town in the huge house in the center of the map that is blue on the map. This house is full of Tower soldiers the first time you enter the map, so coming back another time if they are there can be advisable. Once you make your way past any threats the safe itself is on the second floor in the room with a missing wall. There are also good ammunition spawns in the dressers next to it.

Improved Bow

The Compound bow is basically a better version of the first bow you can make. It can fire more arrows before breaking. To get to the recipe though, you will need a key, and that key can be found in Rampart High School.

The key is found next to two dead people in room 201 of Rampart High School, past some doors barricaded with wooden planks, so make sure you take a weapon that can break through them. The room is on the top of the left side of the west wing of the school. Basically the top left corner of the school itself. Once you’ve found it look around the bodies along the opposite wall of the way you came in, the key will be next to them.

With the key in hand go to Memorial Lane and enter the Red House. On the first floor of the house will be a long room to the right of the entrance, with a book case at the end. A key hole will be in that book case. Enter the key and it will swing open, revealing a hidden room. This room will have some worn down weapons, but also the Compound bow schematic.

Explosive Arrows

You’ll find the safe containing this recipe really early on in the Jazz Park, which you can get to through the catacombs in the Cemetery. Getting the code to the safe requires you to get much further on into the game.

Eventually one of Casey’s missions will take you to The Bastion, a map centered around a fortified apartment block in the middle of the map. There is one other building in next to The Bastion though, a little house with a car crashed into it. Around the back of that house you can break through some boards blocking the back door and get inside. The code will be on a little table against one of the walls of the Living Room with the crashed car in it.

Once you have the code you can go back to the Jazz Man park any time of night. If you don’t remember where that is just go down into the catacombs from the Cemetery with your base in it, and take the route that does not go to the church. The safe will be next to the delivery truck on the road just in front of the hole in the ground you enter from

Sticky Proximity Bombs

Sticky bombs are pretty sweet, because you can throw them and they make very effective explosive traps. When you throw one it will stick to the first surface that it touches. Then when anything comes near it it will explode in a pretty wide radius. This recipe is very useful for setting ambushes on patrols and just causing explosive mayhem in general.

The Sticky Bomb recipe is also really easy to find, assuming you get into a lot of gunfights. Eventually Tower and Reclaimed grunts will just start dropping this recipe. If you don’t get it by the first time you visit The Bastion, then human enemies will definitely start dropping then. Though it can drop earlier, even as early as the first time you access The Ward. Just make sure to look around the bodies of any slain human enemies to see if it is on the floor.

AR-416 and 5.56mm Ammunition

Now who in their right mind wouldn’t want a completely automatic assault rifle during a zombie apocalypse? Unfortunately you get the AR-416 schematic around the end of the base game. Though fortunately for you you get plenty of chances to use it during The Aftershocks DLC.

The most straightforward way to get this schematic is from The Reserve’s armory. The recipe for the weapon and ammunition will be sitting there next to all of the other goodies for you to loot. Of course if you want to be a real Saint and save Casey, or just flood all of the Reserve and leave nothing behind, then does that mean you can’t have your fun AR-416 too?

Nope, the recipe is still really easy to get after your assault on The Reserve. After completing The Reserve and starting The Aftershocks DLC, you will get a lot of chances to get into shootouts with human enemies. Each of these enemies has a good chance to drop the AR-416 and 5.56mm ammunition schematics, just like the Sticky Bomb recipe. It’s even possible to get both during the first Aftershocks mission. Just pay attention to the bodies of your enemies after you shoot them, and you’ll be spraying and praying in no time.

There you have it, each recipe in the entirety of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. As a final note, a lot of these recipes can still be found after clearing the main story without going to their locations as listed here. What you get will vary, but defeated Elite Patrols and Death Squads as well as enemies in Aftershocks DLC locations will sometimes drop certain weapons recipes such as 5.56mm ammo, AR-416, Lever Action Rifle Ammo, .45 Revolver Ammo, Lever Action Rifle, and more.

Having trouble sweating through your headset’s face cover? Try out new ones from VR Cover that repel sweat and are easy to swap in.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is available on Steam for 39.99$. It is also available on the Oculus Store for 39.99$. This is one of the best Virtual Reality experiences out there right now, with extremely polished survival gameplay and a compelling story. Not to mention an unmatched melee combat system, focusing on piercing the skull of course, because zombies. If you like zombie games then this is one you should not miss. Even if you aren’t a huge zombie culture fan, this is a game that is well worth its price tag for even a single playthrough. There’s even an Arena Survival Mode, and more free updates.

7 Most Powerful Weapons in The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners

Here is a List of 7 of the Most Powerful Weapons in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Tourist Edition. There are a ton of weapons to be had in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, but from firearms to fire axes these 7 take the cake as the most devastating and effective.

Cleavers

As far as one handed melee weapons in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners there is none that is more durable and as effective than the Cleaver. There’s no need to stab a pointy thing through a walker’s brain with these, that’s too hard, and needs you to be so precise. Instead just swing wildly at their neck or skull for easy disposal! Cutting straight through skull into brain is so straightforward with the Cleaver.

You can acquire the basic Cleaver by upgrading the Survival Bench to level 7. There is also a better version of it called the 4th and Pain. You can get the recipe for it by going to the Nurse’s office in Rampart High School, which is on the 1st floor of the West Wing in the southernmost room.

Cleavers are sharper and last way longer than other one handed melee weapons. Not to mention they also knock down wooden barricades pretty easily. Once you get the hang of it decapitations become second nature, just time it right and aim for the neck. The only downside is that they are hard to throw, but that’s what guns are for!

Nova 1014

There is no zombie killing weapon more iconic than a good old pump action shotgun. Well the Nova 1014 delivers here in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. It has a perfect match of spread and accuracy, holds up to 9 shells (including the chamber) and is the #1 easiest way to get headshots on walkers whether they are alone or in a crowd.

You simply cannot beat the Nova 1014 when it comes to an all around damage dealer from afar. Even your old grandma could use one of these, you hardly even need to aim, so it doesn’t matter if she has cataracts. Just work the pump each time you fire and aim high. You can mow through an entire crowd of walkers with a fully loaded Nova.

AR-416

Ah the AR 416. There’s really nothing to compare it to, it exists on a level of its own. It is the only fully automatic weapon in the game. In terms of getting more bullets down range it is unmatched, unbeatable. It is also accurate, and able to take down enemies at longer ranges than the Nova 1014.

The downside when fighting against walkers with the AR-416 is that you still need to take your time and place shots in order to get that perfect headshot. Of course against other humans with guns that doesn’t matter. Against people there is no firearm more capable than the AR as even the most heavily armored enemies go down in a burst or two from this powerful weapon.

Grass Cutter Katana

There’s just something special about a Katana slicing through a zombie’s neck. It’s just so… visceral and satisfying at the same time. There is no better way to experience that than by using the Grass Cutter Katana in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. The exquisite melee combat system and the shiiing noise the blade makes when chopping through a walker’s neck cannot be beaten. Watching the head fly off is an added bonus.

As far as Two Handed Melee weapons the Katana is unbeaten. Other two handed melee weapons tend to break apart quickly and be very unwieldly. Spike bats and Fire Axes are all heavy, making them not only slow to swing but very draining on your Stamina.

The Grass Cutter is the perfect solution to all of this. Razor sharp and durable, it can take a walker’s head clean off or chop right through their skull. It is fast to swing and does not drain a ton of stamina, hopping from walker skull to walker skull and slicing through them has never been easier with this blade. You’ll feel like an anime swordsman cutting through a crowd of enemies.

Oh, and those with the Tourist Edition of the game can get the Absolution, a replica of Michonne’s Katana from the The Walking Dead TV show. It’s just as good, and looks like an authentic sword all the way from Japan!

Nail Bomb

Admittedly there are some drawbacks to explosives. They’re loud, which can attract walkers and hostile humans alike. They’re also dangerous, and used improperly they can blow you up just as easily as they can blow up your enemies.

But the Nail Bomb also makes a big explosion that can take out a crowd of walkers or guards in an instant. What’s more powerful than an explosion? This is a list of powerful weapons, not quiet ones.

The Nail Bomb makes limbs fly off and causes instant death to anything living or unliving in a respectably large radius. If you’re here looking for power than that is definitely power. It’s easy to use, just chuck The Nail Bomb far away, and wherever it hits the ground, boom.

FS92M 9MM

There are a few handguns in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, but none can possibly beat the FS92M, because all of the alternatives are six shooter revolvers. This isn’t the wild wild west, this is the walker infested ruins of New Orleans, and six bullets just doesn’t cut it compared to 16 in the clip and 1 in the chamber.

The FS92M nine millimeter pistol is semi-automatic, has low recoil, and carries by far the most ammunition out of all handguns. If you want power in your weapons then you want more bullets put into your enemies in less time. That is what the 9mm pistol delivers. Sure the .45 revolver does a little bit more damage, but once you’ve hit someone twice with that cannon the 9mm has already pumped half a magazine into them.

Timed Noisemaker Explosives and Sticky Bombs

Alright so you’ve already heard about explosives here with the Nail Bomb, so why another entry on this list for the other explosive weapons available? Well because nothing there is more powerful than an explosive. A cool sword isn’t, a stream of bullets isn’t. Nothing destroys more completely in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners than a big explosion. Especially when that explosion is in the right place at the right time.

Let’s say a patrol of Tower Elite Troops is coming down the road toward you, armed to the teeth. You can ready your gun or charge them with your melee weapon of choice… or you can just throw a sticky bomb into their path and wait. The lead Tower grunt walks into the bomb and boom, half of the patrol is turned into body parts.

Now let’s say a huge group of walkers is right on your tail. Your Cleaver just broke apart in your hands and your shotgun is out of bullets. You could keep running until you’re exhausted, hoping to escape or hide before they pull you apart… or you could pull out an Explosive Egg Timer, set it to 5 seconds and toss it behind you as you run. The walkers will be distracted by the noise and crowd around it before… boom!

There’s nothing more powerful than blowing your enemies to bits. The Sticky Bomb Schematic drops from human enemies around the mid game, and the Explosive Egg Timer recipe is in the Rampart Gym beside a dead body behind the locked double doors (you can get in by climbing over the bleachers). Unless a rocket launcher is added later on, it doesn’t get more dangerous than that.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is available on Steam for 39.99$. It is also available on the Oculus Store for 39.99$. This is one of the best Virtual Reality experiences out there right now, with extremely polished survival gameplay and a compelling story. Not to mention an unmatched melee combat system, focusing on piercing the skull of course, because zombies. If you like zombie games then this is one you should not miss. Even if you aren’t a huge zombie culture fan, this is a game that is well worth its price tag for even a single playthrough. There’s even an Arena Survival Mode, and more free updates.

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.