The world of virtual reality gaming isn’t for everyone, and some people may have had a bad first experience because of bad hardware, bad software, or both. However, if you’ve been avoiding VR for any reason, there are some games that might be just right to ease you in and let you see what all the fuss is about.
So if you have a friend with a VR headset of some description, ask if they have any of these games for you to try.
10
Walkabout Mini Golf VR
This is one of my personal favorites on my Meta Quest 2, and I’m not much for golf in real life, mini or otherwise. Yet Walkabout Mini Golf never fails to be pleasant, and is never boring. Since you spend all your time standing still in one spot, and the swings don’t rise beyond putting, this is a perfectly gentle way to get into VR.
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A great stand-alone VR headset that’s still learning how to blend the real world with a digital one.
I find it particularly nice when it’s all cloudy and drab outside, where a few minutes putting on a tropical cartoon island can take the edge off that weather-based gloom.
9
Tetris Effect: Connected
While you can play Tetris Effect: Connected outside of VR on a regular flat screen, that’s like 90% of the experience. This game is basically just Tetris turned into a puzzle game experience. Imagine playing Tetris in the middle of a 360-degree light and music show. That’s what you get here.
Play with headphones in a comfortable chair, and it becomes a transcendental experience. If you play for too long at once, you might just experience the Tetris effect for real.
8
Moss Book II
Moss Book II and its predecessor Moss get around one of the most common issues people have in VR—first-person motion sickness. This is one of the few third-person VR games where you guide the character through their adventure, rather than seeing the world through their eyes.
Not only does this remove that sense of personal danger, but it means you don’t have to deal with fast movements that whip your head around. Instead, you can effectively enjoy an immersive story played out in a diorama.
7
Beat Saber
Be warned—Beat Saber is addictive. There’s a reason this is one of the best-selling VR games in history. I played this game so much that I literally needed physical therapy for my elbows. I wish I was joking.
This is a rhythm game that’s easy to learn, but difficult to master. You have a “saber” (not a lightsaber, for copyright reasons) in each hand, and colored blocks (and other shapes) come flying at you that have to be cut in a certain direction. This is all done to the beat of a song, and the game has a clear and simple visual style, so you won’t get confused. It’s all about the challenge of execution, and once you nail a track the sense of satisfaction is immense. Just don’t ever film yourself playing. It feels cool but you’ll always look goofy.
6
Job Simulator
Following in the footsteps of other satirical “simulator” games, the premise of Job Simulator is that you work in a museum run by robots in the future, and you have to demonstrate what “jobs” were like in the past. Except, they don’t quite get it right, leading to hilarious results.
Job Simulator now supports hand-tracking if you play on Meta Quest, which means you don’t have to hold a controller, making it intuitive for anyone to pick up and play. However, even if you play it on a platform that doesn’t have hand tracking, the game is still very beginner-friendly and really doesn’t expect you to be good at anything it asks you to do. Quite the opposite in fact.
5
Eleven Table Tennis
Eleven Table Tennis is hands-down one of the most realistic VR games I have ever played, in the sense that it almost perfectly replicates the experience of playing table tennis is real life. The caveat being that I’m a terrible table tennis player in real life, but it’s not like I have many opportunities to practice.
The game supports full immersion or a mixed reality mode, it has astounding physics, and almost no lag, so forget about motion sickness. It supports multiplayer with other real humans around the world, and the weight of a typical VR controller is even similar to a paddle, and there are great haptic effects to simulate the impact of the ball. No, it’s not perfectly like real table tennis, but it’s great for VR newbies because
4
Powerwash Simulator VR
Do you like watching those satisfying cleaning videos on YouTube? Do you love seeing the grime blasted away to make things shiny again? Power Wash Simulator VR might be just the right game for you. The VR version of this title is exclusive to the Meta Quest, though you can play the flat version on just about any platform.
Sadly, the developer has dropped future support for the VR version of the game, but you can still play it in its existing form, and it’s a very beginner friendly, slow-paced and chill experience. It’s also the closest thing we have to the Simspons’ yard work simulator. The Simpsons predicts the future once again.
3
Little Cities
Little Cities is a city-building game in the same vein as SimCity and its clones, but built from the ground up for VR. So there are many smart concessions to the control scheme and visual style that make it a much better experience in VR than a 1:1 translation of the genre.
Use your hands to construct your city, and then bask in the enjoyment of watching your little creation run like a well-oiled clock, or a broken, dry clock depending on your skills and/or preferences. I really enjoy watching little planes and cars buzzing around the city, and thanks to the magic of VR they feel like real objects, even if they look cartoony. This is another title that offers hand-tracking on supported platforms like Quest, making it feel even more intuitive.
2
Lucky’s Tale
This is one of the earliest showcase games for VR, and it started off as an exclusive for the now-defunct Oculus Rift, but lived on as Super Lucky’s Tale, which is a flat version of the game.
The original VR version has been brought back for the Meta Quest, and it’s received a visual upgrade for those using a Meta Quest 2 or newer. This game was designed to give people a more comfortable VR experience, and it’s basically like playing Banjo Kazooie or Crash Bandicoot, except you’re sitting in the level and are competely immersed in the world, while in control of the character.
You can play the game on Quest via the Meta Quest Store.
1
Half-Life Alyx
Half-Life Alyx is, in my opinion, the most impressive, advanced, and well-thought-out VR game made so far. Yes, it’s a PC VR exclusive, and yes it’s not a casual game, but if you want to convince someone who love AAA “serious” games on flat screens that VR can do something they simply can’t experience that way, this is the game to do it.
From graphics, to shooting mechanics, to elevating the art of VR game design—Alyx beats out anything I’ve experienced. There are mods out there that let you play Alyx as if it were a regular shooter, but I strongly suggest you experience it as intended, because this is the potential of VR achieved.
I really believe there’s a VR game out there somewhere that will get someone to at least acknowledge the medium’s unique strengths. For my dad, it was a fishing game. For you or someone you know that’s a VR skeptic? It could be any of the above.