Alien: Rogue Incursion Is Still Fun Despite The Bad Quest Port | Alien: Rogue Incursion Review

So Alien: Rogue Incursion has hit a bit of flak for the quality of its port to the Quest 3. I’ve played this fantastic Alien VR game exclusively on the Quest 3 and I’d say that well… yea there is some justification to the criticism.

The game occasionally struggles on the Quest 3 even when not recording, and my recordings of it often came out choppy at points, which is a pretty good indicator for an unoptimized game. Not to mention the most obvious indicator of the visual fidelity being below what you would be accustomed to expect on a Quest 3.

There were some bugs as well. The occasional missed trigger for a mission (defend this area… and then nothing happens for five minutes).

Though I do have to say that despite all of this I had an absurdly good time with Alien: Rogue Incursion, as you can see on Youtube.

I’m not saying that the criticism of the low quality port isn’t valid. I am saying that I really loved this game despite the issues that others, and myself, have with it. I guess you’d call this an Alien: Rogue Incursion review… but I’m really just biasing towards the good parts here (and there are many more good parts than bad).

What Alien: Rogue Incursion Does Right

Blasting Xenomorphs in Alien: Rogue Incursion is an Unmatched Aliens VR Experience.

So ignoring the technical faults of the Quest 3 port, what does Alien: Rogue Incursion do right that makes it such an enjoyable VR shooter adventure game?

I think the foremost thing that it does, and how it utilizes Virtual Reality the best, is it immediately gives you a pulse rifle. No intermittent period of the game where you just use a pistol or something stupid like that, you just get a pulse rifle at the very beginning.

Oh and what a pulse rifle it is. It’s got the sound, the heft, the feel, and the firepower of a hundred round magazine that you’d expect from such an iconic weapon. Alien: Rogue Incursion has a pulse rifle that is really the closest you could get to using a real one, since they don’t actually exist. It’s a magnificent and iconic weapon to any lover of the Alien franchise.

Check out the Pulse Rifle in Alien: Rogue Incursion.

The other weapons in the game, while not as unique as the pulse rifle, are also all well implemented and fun to use. Though it would be nice if there was a way to turn off the “snap aim” feature the game comes with that forces your sight down the barrel of a weapon when your eye gets close enough to it.

I’d rather aim the old fashioned way, thank you very much, but this is a feature that you can get used to. I’ve also heard some complain about how slow the weapons are to move and load, but that’s another thing that I think is actually really great about this Aliens VR game.

Guns are heavy, and you can reload guns ridiculously quickly in many Virtual Reality games because you don’t feel the weight of them. Well Alien: Rogue Incursion is part horror game, just like all Aliens games are, and the horror of trying to reload a weapon as quickly as possible mid combat should be well known to any VR gamer. Drawing that out and giving the weapons some real heft as you try to aim and load them not only increases the feeling of immersion with the items you are using, but also increases the tension of every situation.

Of course these situations wouldn’t be tense without a proper creepy setting, and Castor’s Cradle is a really good choice. It’s a barren icy planet, and you spend your time there inside of a Xenomorph infested clandestine research base. It is about as grim and creepy a setting as you could hope for out in space. The place is trashed, it’s cold, and it’s creepy.

Castor’s Cradle is your classic creepy Alien infested facility… but now in a Virtual Reality shooter!

The Xenomorphs themselves, the titular Aliens, also make a pretty fine showing. Though they may also draw criticism as being “not clever” or running into your gunfire too easily.

Sure the Aliens take chances on frontal charges often, but also consider that in this game you have a motion tracker on you at all times. If you consider the Aliens to be too dumb, then turn that tracker off and never use it. It gets a lot harder to even know when a Xenomorph is nearby, and twice as much so to be looking in their direction as they charge you.

Every sound might be an Alien in a vent sneaking up on you. They really are hard to see, and often flee or try to attack you from another angle when a frontal assault isn’t expedient. Though you can tell that they don’t try to attack you from behind as much as they could. Likely for balance purposes.

Let’s face it, fighting a facility full of Aliens that are as stealthy and clever as those in the movies would be a suicide mission.

Where Are All Of The VR RPGs?

Seriously, where are all of the good VR RPGs?

Okay, sure, you might be thinking that there are “real” VR RPGs out there. You might point to The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners as an early example, or maybe Skydance’s Behemoth or even Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR.

Well the Bethesda VR ports are only decent with a ton of mods so they don’t really count. I’m talking about out of the box VR RPG games with meaningful choices and character customization, but made for Virtual Reality.

Take games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as more recent examples. Games that give you expansive choices, a huge world to explore, and a path of character progression and story exploration that isn’t just a linear series of challenges. Are there any Virtual Reality games that really give you the same level of world immersion and personal choice as those do?

There Are Some VR Games That Are Close To Being Roleplaying Games in Virtual Reality

The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners might be close… but it’s really more of a survival game with a good story than a real RPG.

The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is superb, but it’s not a VR RPG.

Sure there are some story choices that are meant to feel impactful, but you don’t really customize your character, just decide which upgrades to invest in until you’ve got them all.

Maybe you’d point to A Township Tale or Asgard’s Wrath 2 as VR RPGs worth mentioning. Still… where’s the in depth character customization? Where are the decisions that affect the story and world? These games come closer, but they just aren’t quite there.

These VR games all really just give you multiple avenues to get to the same result. Even Medieval Dynasty VR doesn’t give you greater choice than where to build your first settlement.

Crafting doesn’t make a VR RPG, though some crafting systems, like in Medieval Dynasty VR, are pretty great.

Oh, and before Legendary Tales is mentioned… it’s just too shallow and linear of a game to be an RPG. The same goes for Grimlord. You do get stat choices, but these games are just so damn linear at the end of the game that you never get that RPG feeling of exploring a huge world. They’re more binary choices between more health or more damage. Nothing that feels like you’re creating your own vision of a character exploring the world you are presented with.

At the end of the day the choices in those games really boil down to whether you use a bow or a sword or magic. Is this really a bigger choice than what gun you use in a VR survival shooter? Maybe I’m being too picky there, and as much as I love those games they just don’t give much of that RPG feeling.

So What Would A True Virtual Reality RPG look like?

It’s hard to define a genre, so let’s look at a supremely popular recent example for some inspiration. Baldur’s Gate 3.

In this game you get to choose your character and class and background. There are meaningful characters you interact with, and how you interact with them decides what happens in the story and what challenges you need to overcome.

You have equipment and items and stats that are all meaningful and impact what you can do and how you do it. Do you smash your way through the door or lockpick it?

Maybe something like Into The Radius can argue that your choice of equipment as you progress through the game makes it an RPG. Despite Into The Radius being a superb VR game, it’s just still not an RPG. It does give you a great world to explore, but no characters to interact with and no meaningful progression choices that can’t just be changed by grinding out more missions and artifacts for a different piece of equipment.

Into The Radius lets you customize your equipment… but those are the only meaningful roleplaying choices you get.

If you don’t agree with the premise of this article you might start seeing what I mean. There is so much potential for a Roleplaying Game in Virtual Reality.

Low strength score? Then maybe if you try to pick up a huge hammer your VR arms are barely able to move it. High perception score? Then secret doors and tunnels are highlighted or interactable when they otherwise wouldn’t be. Sided with one character over another? Then you get a completely different mission depending on who you picked, and the content of that mission reflects the type of character you decided to side with.

VR games that are RPG-lite don’t make you make meaningful choices with long lasting impact. They more just end up with your grinding to the same conclusion.

Orbus VR is probably the closest thing that we have to a real VR RPG, but its an inherently Multiplayer experience, being a VR MMORPG and all. There’s even Morrowind VR, but it’s a mod and doesn’t really count either.

Why? There are so many ways in which VR specifically can be leveraged to create new and interesting RPG mechanics that haven’t been thought of or utilized yet. Years ago I had hoped that the first big Virtual Reality RPG was just right around the corner, but every project I’ve kept my eye on or hoped for has flopped or been stuck in development hell with a buggy and forgettable demo.

The first developer to put the Roleplaying into RPG in a game made for Virtual Reality will have a true hit on their hands. I just wish we would have already seen one by now.

If I’m wrong and there’s an example out there that I haven’t seen or somehow forgotten about then please let me know. I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong.

How To Play Animal Company On the Meta Quest 2 And 3

So you want to play Animal Company and enjoy a super fun Virtual Reality game.

Good idea and welcome! Animal Company is a great VR game. I can say that Animal Company is really unique in how it lets you move just like in Gorilla Tag, but also adds amazing items, traps, and monsters to make the game so much more interesting.

Oh, and Animal Company is free to play on Meta Quest VR headsets! So you don’t need to spend any money to enjoy it.

Here you’ll learn how to play Animal Company for free on the Meta Quest 2 or Meta Quest 3 (or any other Meta Quest device).

Let’s show you how to install the game on your headset.

How To Install and Play Animal Company On A Meta Quest 2 or 3

If you don’t know where to get the game in the first place for free then keep reading. Here’s how to get Animal Company on the Meta Quest 2 or 3.

It’s really easy, just start by putting your headset on.

When you’re in the home screen then you can open the store by hitting the orange button at the bottom. The one with the shopping bag on it. When you point your controller pointer at it a popup will show up saying “Store.”

Definitely make sure your Quest is connected to a WiFi network by the way. If you aren’t connected then get some WiFi on your Quest. You have to have an internet connection to download Animal Company.

The Meta Quest Store, where you can get Animal Company.

Click on the search icon at the top of the score screen.

A keyboard will appear. Start typing “Animal Company” into the search bar and then hit the blue arrow to search for it.

Once you see it pop up click on the Animal Company icon under “Apps.”

Searching for an downloading Animal Company on the Meta Quest 3.

The window will change and show you some more information bout the game.

Just click the “Install” button on the bottom right.

Downloading Animal Company.

Now Animal Company is installing. If your WiFi connection to your headset isn’t very good it might take a while, but not too long. If you take the headset off it should keep going.

To see how long Animal Company is taking to install, and how to run it, click the button in the bottom right that looks like a grid of 9 squares to go to your app library.

Now you can see all of the apps you have installed on your headset.

You should see Animal Company there near the top, and you can also search for it with the search bar just like you did in the Store.

When it’s installed you can play the game by clicking on it!

There you go. That’s how to play Animal Company On the Meta Quest 2 or 3 VR headset. Easy as that, enjoy the game!

Clone Drone In The Hyperdome Combines Character Drama And VR Sword Combat

Clone Drone In The Hyperdome is the most dramatic VR Sword Fighting Game I have ever seen, and if you want to see some gameplay of it you can on the Reality Remake Youtube Channel.

As for what I mean by the “most dramatic” VR sword fighting game… it’s that this game is basically part Soap Opera, part Survivor episode, and part VR combat roguelike. The bosses you fight aren’t just bosses. They’re characters in their own right with stories of their own.

How Clone Drone In the Hyperdome Works

In Clone Drone In The Hyperdome you are a new clone drone that must fight and scheme your way to the hyperdome.

To make sense of how this all works let me set the stage for you.. You’re a human mind inside of a robot body and you’re the newest member of the clone drones fighting through the never ending “Crash Loop” on an alien planet.

You’ve got to run this loop full of sword fighting robots and other dangers over and over again alongside your fellow “Loop Runner” robots. Each has a special ability “fist” that they drop when defeated. So you start your loop and then fight some generic robot enemies… until you decide which of your follow “Loop Runners” you want to fight.

The runner you pick to fight first is important, because if you defeat them then you’ve “KOed” them. KOs look very bad and nobody wants to be KOed so if you KO a character then they get very mad at you. That’s the basis for the drama.

Your Story Choices Do Actually Kind Of Matter In Clone Drone In The Hyperdome

Unlike most Virtual Reality roguelikes you get to choose which bosses you fight in Clone Drone In The Hyperdome.

Clone Drone In the Hyperdome wants to get you to buy into the drama of its characters through the gameplay.

Of course before you even start picking who to KO and really start playing the game, there’s an introductory bit that reveals and explains each of the other characters who you fight during the loop. They’re all essentially bosses… except unlike in most Roguelikes you get to choose which ones you fight… and there’s some personal story incentive for which one you choose.

Myself, for instance, immediately didn’t like the attitude of a cocky robot called MX2. They and their mentor Overclock immediately rubbed me the wrong way, so I kept KOing MX2 and Overclock exclusively. Due to this they had words to share with me each time a run was finished, and other loop runners liked me more for not KOing them… especially those that were not fans of MX2 and Overclock.

The clone drone that you play as is completely silent, but the others are all extremely talkative. You’ll often enter the loading room between matches and they’re spouting monologues off at each other like WWE wrestlers, going on about their theories and past dramas.

There’s a lot of drama and arguments between characters to be witnessed in Clone Drone In The Hyperdome.

What’s most interesting about all of this is that this drama not only affects your choices of which of these “boss” loop runners to fight yourself, but also who they fight. Overlock will not KO MX2, and MX2 and Knight Mode have a preexisting squabble that causes them to KO each other all of the time.

So you can always play your opponents off of each other and choose which one you fight not only for your own preferences but also for who you think you are most likely to beat. There’s an interesting interplay of drama and roguelike systems in Clone Drone In the Hyperdome, as well as some interesting VR melee combat.

Strayed VR Is Just As Ruthless As Rust

As evidenced by the Youtube videos I’ve released showcasing some gameplay stories in Strayed, it is worthy of being called a Rust VR Game. That’s probably why everyone call is that (it’s also good for SEO).

You can look at a lot of elements in Strayed and say “Oh so they just did what Rust did, but in a Virtual Reality game.” That’s pretty true, and I don’t see anybody else other than Combat Waffle Studios rushing to make another Multiplayer VR Base Building survival game ala Rust. So I’d also hesitate to try and call Strayed a copy of any sort because well… VR is a whole different medium from flatscreen games. Either way somebody is going to make a game like Rust in Virtual Reality eventually.

I’m glad it’s Strayed that is currently really shining as that VR Rust game though. Outside of the fact that you spawn in as a naked baldy and that a lot of weapons and structures sort of fit the scrappy apocalyptic Rust aesthetic, it really nails the Rust feel in VR in the way that matters the most.

It is an absolutely ruthless game.

Strayed Is As Rust Is - A Dog Eat Dog World

In Strayed it’s all about having better equipment than the other guy… and then taking the other guy’s stuff.

Just like in Rust, Strayed nails the feeling of living in a world where the strong prey on the weak. That’s evidenced through the progression of the game.

You don’t get better stats to get more powerful, you get better equipment to get more powerful. You start with a rock that is a barely capable of hurting someone when you hit them with it. You can quickly upgrade that to a bat by hitting a tree. Hit a tree and a rock and gather some plants and you’ve got a bow.

With a bow you can easily defeat anyone with a melee weapon. Boom, you’ve moved up the Strayed food chain. Now you can look down on the people who are just like you just were, practically unarmed. You can take them out with ease.

Someone who has managed to scavenge or craft a gun and ammunition for it though… they’re still a level above you.

Every upgrade feels like going another rung up the totem pole in Strayed, much like in Rust.

Even a pistol is very superior to a bow, unless you’ve got a ton of practice and are fantastically accurate with a bow. Of course even then the armor either party wears can be the deciding factor in who walks away with the other person’s stuff and who respawns in their base with nothing.

Up and up the food chain goes until you’ve got the best armor in the game, pipe bombs, healing syringes, and assault rifles. Even then, when you’re the most powerful player around and you can take anything from whoever you come across… what if you run across a large group of players? There is strength in numbers.

The ability to take what other people have gathered in Strayed with just a little bit of force can easily propel you through tons of otherwise tedious gathering and scavenging, and it’s much more fun to fight than to grind. So people naturally do that in Strayed just as they would in Rust. That is the best way Strayed continues the legacy of Rust, but as a Virtual Reality experience.

At a certain level most people aren’t even threats anymore.

It is this more than anything else that gives Strayed the moniker of a Rust VR game, and why that title is so fitting. People who know they stand no chance against you because of your equipment advantage will mostly beg for mercy, and people above you in regards to equipment will generally shoot first and ask questions later. You’re just a free bag full of gathered valuables to them.

The only separator is stuff. Equipment, armor, weapons, and whatever else you can store in your base is all that differentiates you from the horde of nakeds freshly spawned on the beaches. Lose those things and you are back to square one no matter how much you scavenged or how many fights you succeeded in.

Of course you can always reject violent human nature and try to encourage peace and understanding. You could work together with those you come across and try to succeed more together.

Where is the fun in that? There’s only so much scavenge to go around in any given area and well… any stranger could easily ambush you if you turn your back to them.

Strayed, much like Rust, is an apocalyptic dog eat dog game.