I have recently gotten a virtual reality system. Why? Because I always wanted one and the idea of quarantine weight was getting to me. After having a horrid experience with Vive (they would tack a steep price on air if they could), I got a Windows Dell Mixed Reality system. It is plug and play for my laptop (which is a gaming laptop, procured specifically due to being VR ready and with a glowing keyboard) and, so far, does everything I want a VR headset to do and at the fraction of the price of a Vive. I despise Facebook so Oculus is an automatic no.

The vast majority of games I have is through Steam. The average price of VR games on Steam is either $10 or $20. Unfortunately, most of the games have White hands, which I dislike. I’m Black, I want to be Black in the virtual world, as well. The hidden tag line of VR should not be “You can be anything you want to be … as long as you want to be White”. So games that had White hands, I avoided (if you are a game creator reading this, let me put it this way: You lost money). Games that had robot hands were fine as long as the game was not leaning to any other race (meaning your options were to be White or be a robot).  So I needed the option to be Black or equal robotic/non-human hands for everyone.

I have a slew of VR games, including historical games (what it was like to be a German coal miner, experience the 1943 Berlin Blitz , the works of Dali, etc – it would be nice if there were more reflections of women and PoC for history and art) but these are the games I really like listed below.

Show It 2 Me

It is a stunning rave-type game that is filled with color and sound. Techno-electronica, I love everything about the game. The falling knives, the lights, the fast and vivacious imagery, everything. There is no point to the game except to dance and have a good time. It’s a sonic party and nothing else has compared to it. Available on Steam for free. Watch me derp about and mostly draw hearts.

Dancing Arrow

I honestly call this game “Korean Beat Saber” because that is exactly what it is, Beat Saber but in Korean. I can be a bit contrarian at times and this is one of those times. I like the idea and look of Beat Saber but it’s too popular for me. And you can’t even add your own music like in AudioShield. Dancing Arrow is very similar to Beat Saber in that you have to make slashing motions in dictated directions to the beat of a song but that’s about it. You don’t have to duck or dodge obstacles flying your way because there aren’t any, which is great for me. Just slash the beats and that’s it. And it is cheaper than Beat Saber at $9.99 on Steam.

I took a video of what it looks like in the game. The sound quality is far better than what was captured on film. I don’t super suck at it so yay.

One caveat – Just about everything is in Korean. The menu, the selection options, everything. I can read and understand Korean so it’s fine for me. If you can’t, go with Beat Saber. I think the interface is relatively straightforward but, again, I know what I am looking at. I don’t know about those who hardly know a word of it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait. I found the language options, it’s buried in the settings and in Korean, so you still kind of have to know Korean to navigate it. So English is possible, you just will have to dink about a little bit.

AudioShield

This is one of the first VR games I ever bought. It looked a lot of fun and I was right. Unlike Dancing Arrow/Beat Saber, you punch the beats with your shields instead of slash them. It is a different experience. I can use my own music, which I really like. Here is a video I took doing “Revolution” by P.O.D..

I aim to do whole albums but the movement will tire you out by song 5. That a good thing, I did get it to get fit, after all. AudioShield is $19.99 on Steam

Plannes

It is an intergalactic squash game. I didn’t want a racket game that was normal because it would bore me so much. And if I am bored, I’m not going to play. I had Space Badminton but this is much better. The virtual play space is in an enclosed space so I that made for a more thrilling game for me. The controls are just like rackets, even if I press a button accidentally, nothing happens. Some games have not considered that part yet, which is annoying.

There are different kinds of rackets, including mahou shoujo (magical girl) ones.

Rackets!

I like the mahou shoujo ones most. They deliver fast balls and are cute. You go planet to planet and play ten games per planet. Here is a vid of one game I played on the Sweets planet using the Stun Rackets.

Available on Steam at $14.99

Path of the Warrior

This is an Oculus game so it is not available on Steam. I got it through the cross platform program Revive and it is a great game for me to practice my Wing Chun, mainly the rolling punches. There are cheaper VR brawling games but this was the only one that had the ability to be Black so I went with it.

 

She still looks off but at least she’s present and she’s shown front and center

 

It’s a fun game but I probably would be benefited with leg tracking but that’s me. It works fine enough and the waves of enemies will tire you out if you’re not used to having a lot of endurance. It will tucker out your arms. I wish it had a better save feature because it sucks going up the level and having to leave the game for whatever reason and have to start back at the bottom again.