Arizona Sunshine 2 Meta Quest 2 Review 6/10 🐕 @pixelhunted #IndieGame #GameDev #VRGames

The VR dream isn’t dead, but it’s starting to look a bit wonky. The Metaverse is a joke, PSVR2 is dying on the vine and, almost four years after the release of Half-Life: Alyx, there hasn’t been a title that comes close to its production values and ingenuity.

Enter Arizona Sunshine 2. The first game released in 2016 across multiple VR platforms and, while an utterly boilerplate zombie shooter, at least delivered on its promise of letting you mow down hordes of the undead with a variety of high-powered weaponry. 

We’re now eight years on and the sequel has finally arrived. So, what’s changed?

The 7th Guest VR Meta Quest 2 Review 9.5/10 "Feeling…looooonely?" 🏚️🩸 @the7thguestvr #IndieGame #GameDev #MetaQuest2 #VRhorror

This is probably one of only a handful of reviews that I’ll ever write with my current mindset, due to my personal history with the game in question. The 7th Guest was - and is - a constant presence in my life.

I initially played the game on the Philips CD-i back in the mid-90s (with a friend called Brett, nonetheless) and I was completely mesmerised by what was - to me at the time- absolutely the future of gaming, in that it felt like a movie that you could control yourself! Between this and Burn Cycle, my young mind was blown wide open, and although I didn’t complete the game at the time, when I managed to get hold of a PC version a while later and play it through - with headphones - The 7th Guest made me feel like no other game had before.

I was completely pulled into its atmosphere and world, full of wonder and terror at what it offered both visually and sonically.

Over the years - thanks to Games Freezer - I’ve been in the position to interview George Sanger (the esoteric and wonderful composer of the music featured in the original game) as well as cover fan versions of The 7th Guest. In fact, I’m currently waiting on the release of an industrial rock vinyl of the soundtrack, as well as (hopefully, eventually) a hinted-at vinyl release of the amazing 7/11 album by Team Fat.

The 7th Guest soundtrack still often haunts the halls of my home, and I firmly believe it to be one of the most evocative and singular soundtracks ever laid down - so, what I’m trying to get at here, is ‘I like The 7th Guest’.

Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission VR Meta Quest 2 Review 7/10 "The Wolf is Back!" 🐺 @Virtuallyz_G

Operation Wolf is a game that pops up quite often whenever my family – my Dad, especially – talk about video games. Some of my earliest memories are of him hunched over that plastic Uzi, blasting away at a myriad of enemy soldiers….and never quite getting past the second jungle stage.

With these fond memories swimming about my mind, it was quite exciting to discover that Microids would be releasing this new VR version of the game, and whilst it may have its flaws and visual differences to the original, this captures the sense of mindless blasting action that Operation Wolf provided to so many fans back in the ‘80s.