Yup, I’m super tempted to start stocking up on cheap VR games in anticipation for the Frame, but I need to see the final price and be 100% sure I’m going for it before I commit to games that I can’t otherwise play.

You and your good advice.

Edit: woah I misread your username

Highly depends on your vr experience and what type of games you've played.

Horror on VR is on a completely different level.

But some games that I put in a good pile are:

Arken age, Fujii, Zero Caliber, Contractors, Hotdogs Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, Vermillion, Kayak VR mirage, Until You Fall, After The Fall, Half-Life Alyx, Down the Rabbit Hole, Vanishing Realms, Anthro Heat, and Google Earth VR.

It's hard to find well rounded games that are also fleshed out. You generally get one or the other. H3 (hotdogs horseshoes and hand grenades) is one example, where the guns are top tier (and oh god the mods are so extensive) and the dev is STILL releasing updates weekly, even though the game came out in like 2016 or something, which is basically the first rush of VR. H3 basically has no story or continuity, and is very much a sandbox game. The dev adds in this and that and maybe a new gamemode or map or feature, but that game is really what you make of it. And I've dropped a few hours in, heh.

Arken Age, on the other hand, is kind of the opposite. That's a somewhat linear explorer adventure game with a story (it's also a much newer game... with more Meta money), and while it has SOME depth, it's very much NOT a sandbox game. It's closer to a Zelda game with guns and swords. Not my personal favorite, but still fun.

The Kayak one is cool, but feels like a big dev trying to make a money grab, until you realize it's a very small indie studio of only a few people trying to pay bills and just charge too much for dlc because they're probably too young or overvalue their work.. i personally like their dlc, even if they're really overpriced. Like very overpriced. I think they're charging like $20 for each map that should be 10$ for all of the existing maps. And the progression feels live-service paced (slow). But it really is nice to just sit down in VR and kayak around in a beautiful, and sometimes exciting world.

I could talk about this for a long, long time. I'll try to wrap it up.

Half life alyx is great, but VR has conventions that are developing and coming into popularity over time. An example of what I mean is this:

On a modern pistol, you have several controls. You have the gun itself, the magazine, the magazine release, you have the slide, the slide release, and the trigger. Which buttons do you map to what? The trigger and magazine release are pretty easy, but what about grabbing the slide vs grabbing the pistol itself? What about adding on a sight? What about a scope? What if you want to zero in or adjust the scope? Can you two-hand hold the pistol? Can you partial out the magazine to check how many rounds are in it? Can you add in individual rounds to a partial magazine? Are magazines unique or can you just drop a mag and release and not waste rounds? How far in do you have to load a magazine before it pulls itself the rest of the way in? Can you manually cock a hammer?

Now, what if you have a double barrel, side by side shotgun? Or fire modes?

You get the point. It's a lot different in VR. If you play enough games, you definitely see the trends come and go.

Back to half life alyx, that game is really good, but it's a game from 2019, and technology and conventions can move FAST. Some stuff catches on, other stuff gets forgotten, innovation usually keeps pushing.

I think a large part of VR right now is watching and being part of this insanely young medium figure itself out in ALL of the ways. What a time to be alive.

Oh! Another thing I've noticed, is that older VR games, especially ones funded by meta/oculus, liked to show trailers of players superimposed over in-game footage. It's fucking awful and cringe, but I do understand where they're coming from, trying to show off a very new technology to the masses that HEY, THIS IS VR AND YOU HAVE ACTUAL PRESENCE. Or currently, where trailers try to show off the game by recording players ACT out stuff in game by flailing or physically reacting to stuff in game. Like shielding your face from an explosion or flailing your arms when flying through the air. Unfortunately, it looks just pre-rendered motion and once the potential buyer figures that out, it's like realizing you're being lied to and instantly erodes trust. But at the same time, you have to advertise to NEW vr players, who honestly DO react like that a lot of the time. Even I sometimes still flinch or fight aggressively in games that have you use swords. Like Until You Fall.

Oh, I also forgot to add Into the Radius. Those two games (1&2) are deeply flawed, but really fun stalker-type games. Best in class 100%. They're both somehow still being developed. The mod scene in the first game is much better, but the second one is coming along nicely, and recently just had an update that added in gun PARTS. Like uppers, lowers, trigger assemblies, barrels. Real h3 mods type stuff. But all in a world of horror and supernatural anomalies and death and shooting guns. I'm holding off playing more for the devs to finish the games, which may take a year or two. They're fun now, but they keep adding in big patches that change the game a lot and it messes with the challenge continuity for me.

Ugh. I need to cut off my spiel.

Uh, tldr: buy hl:alyx and anthro heat, and don't sleep on Google Earth vr because it's free. Oh, arizona sunshine is a finished product and worth actually playing through. Sorry for my adhd.