Beat Saber Is A Good Workout - Beat Saber Is Great Arm Exercise

You might be wondering, “Is Beat Saber a good workout?” or, “Is Beat Saber good exercise?” Well we’re here to tell you that while it might not be the best Virtual Reality exercise game, it can definitely be a workout. Whether you’re already an avid Beat Saber player, or are looking to start to use Virtual Reality for exercise. Here you’ll find out what makes a good Beat Saber workout, and how you can benefit from Beat Saber exercise.

Beat Saber Exercise - The Basics

Alright, so what makes Beat Saber a good workout? Well you’ll notice while playing the game that Beat Saber involves a lot of arm movements. This is the crux of what makes a Beat Saber workout possible. Swinging your sabers to hit those blocks as they come at you is a movement that burns calories and works your arm muscles.

Chopping two blocks at once in Beat Saber

So Beat Saber exercise is primarily going to affect your arms. The majority of the exercise that you do in Beat Saber is moving your arms to hit blocks with your sabers. So in terms of muscle categories that Beat Saber exercise will affect, your arms are number one.

A lot of Beat Saber players note that, after a long session of playing the game, their arms will feel like noodles, or they’ll feel sore the next day. So if you’re still wondering, “Is Beat Saber a good workout?” There’s your answer. Though some muscles other than your arms can see some action in a Beat Saber workout. There’s also your legs to consider.

A wall moving by while chopping a block in Beat Saber

Beat Saber exercise will also involve these walls of light that come at you while you’re slicing blocks, which you need to dodge out of the way of. Some songs feature these walls more than others, and sometimes you’ll even have to do a squat to duck under these walls.

So a Beat Saber workout can also feature some exercise for your legs as well, but many songs do not feature these walls prominently. So your arms will most likely be the focus of any Beat Saber exercise. Still, if you really like the idea of a Beat Saber leg workout, there is a mod that adds foot blocks to Beat Saber that you need to kick. It’s called FeetSaber, and wow is it a great way to get your legs moving, burn a ton more calories, and also give your abs and back a little attention as well.

Youtuber Cake VR Dance playing FeetSaber

A Beat Saber Workout - Intensity Tips

Just like with any VR exercise game or VR workout, a Beat Saber workout will only be as good as how intense it is. While one of the great things about Virtual Reality gaming is how you can move your physical body to affect the game world, you wouldn’t classify most games as VR workout games.

The key difference is intensity. Beat Saber makes you move a lot, very quickly, in a short period of time. Ramping up that intensity is what makes Beat Saber good exercise. So basically, the more blocks that fly towards you and the faster they do that, then the better a workout you will have. Though as always make sure to take breaks to drink water and catch your breath as needed.

Chopping a block in Beat Saber’s 360 degree difficulty mode

There are some good tricks to achieve the maximum intensity you possibly can for a Beat Saber workout. There is a modifier you can add to any song that will make the whole song faster, which will increase the speed of blocks and walls coming towards you. Also, you can always increase the difficulty so that more blocks and walls come towards you.

The “Super Fast Song” modifier

Some songs even have a 360 degree or 90 degree mode that causes the blocks to come at you from multiple directions, which will involve your legs even more and force you to move your arms in many different ways. These difficulty modes make for even better Beat Saber exercise.

The 360 degree difficulty mode

Though higher difficulties are, of course, harder. That’s the big downside of a Beat Saber workout, you have to be a good Beat Saber player already to make it an intense workout. Unlike other VR exercise games like Thrill Of The Fight, your ability to turn Beat Saber into good exercise is entirely dependent on your skill at the game.

A Beat Saber workout will still make your arms sore and get you sweating even at lower speeds and difficulties, of course, but it will take much longer and you’ll have less of a workout with less intensity. Though if you’re willing to keep trying and failing until you can beat one of the faster levels, a good way to keep the blocks coming and the workout going with no interruptions is to turn on the option to make the level automatically restart every time you fail. It’s at the bottom of the “Player Options” menu, and is named “Auto Restart on Fail.”

The “Auto Restart on Fail” option

With this option on you can jump into a really hard song and swing away, and if you fail, no big deal, you’ll be right back into the game in seconds and you can keep your Beat Saber workout going.

Beat Saber Exercise - Watch Your Wrists

There is one HUGE MISTAKE that you can make during your Beat Saber workout though. Making it will not only rob you of good Beat Saber exercise, but also is potentially damaging to your body and health. That mistake is not using your entire arm to swing your saber. Especially when Beat Saber gets really fast and intense, it can be easy to fall into a trap of just flicking your wrists to swing your saber, instead of swinging your entire arm.

This is potentially very bad for your wrist, and you should avoid doing it at all costs. It’s also not good exercise, because you’ll be robbing your arms of most of their movement, and effectively you’ll just end up standing there rolling your wrists a bunch, which isn’t exercise at all no matter how fast you do it.

A really fast song in Beat Saber

Beat Saber Exercise - Alternatives

As with any health related matters, consult a medical professional, because everyone’s body is different. Avoid injury as best you can and always take a break if you don’t feel right or you feel thirsty. Overall Beat Saber is a good VR game for working out, but it can be a bit limiting.

Sure you can get a bit of a leg workout, but not much, and just swinging your arms to bash blocks is only going to do so much for muscles on your arms. If you’re serious about using Virtual Reality for exercise, then consider some other Virtual Reality exercise games. We’ve got a list of the 5 best at this link. If you really want a rhythm game that does a lot for your legs, like Beat Saber does for your arms, then check out our Pistol Whip exercise guide at this link.

Well hopefully we’ve answered the questions of “Is Beat Saber a good workout?” and, “Is Beat Saber good exercise?” However you decide to workout in VR, whether it’s with Beat Saber or another game, be sure to enjoy yourself. VR is a fantastic way to workout, and it’s only getting better.

5 Best VR Games For Exercise - The Best VR Workout Games

Want to know the Best VR Games for Exercise? Trying to burn some calories and shed some pounds in the most fun way possible, with a VR Workout? Well then you’re going to need to know the 5 Best VR Workout Games to play to have a ton of fun while you do your VR Exercise. If you’re wondering what VR games to try then don’t worry, because we’ve got the 5 Best VR Games For Exercise right here.

These games are guaranteed to get you sweaty and happy to pull on your headset for another workout session. That’s because these VR Workout Games are not only intense, but a ton of fun. They’re the Best VR Workout Games of all. Oh, and they’re all available on the Oculus Quest 2 as well as PCVR!

Thrill Of The Fight

If you play one VR Workout Game then out of all of the Best VR Workout Games you should play Thrill of the Fight. We’ve spoken about Thrill of the Fight before, and to this day it is still the Best VR Game for Exercise. It’s the most active and the most fun. You’ll find yourself laughing without even knowing why as you attempt to beat up an overweight man wearing boxing pads for your first fight, and then find yourself panting and tired after boxing a skinny Russian man with huge hands.

If you want a VR Boxing Workout, then Thrill of the Fight is the game to get it in, because that’s what it is. The purest and Best VR Boxing Workout of all. Boxing is great exercise, and if you box in VR you get to enjoy the experience of punching and being punched without all of the pain and concussions that normally comes with that.

While there are other boxing and fighting games in VR on the Oculus Quest 2, or other platforms, Thrill of the Fight is the most like actual boxing out of all of them. It’s just as intense as actual boxing too. Your upper body, abs, and even your legs can get very sore from playing this great VR workout game. If you want to get into VR Workouts on the Oculus Quest or PCVR, and don’t mind the idea of throwing some punches, then give Thrill of the Fight a try. It’ll give you a hard VR workout quickly.

For more on Thrill of the Fight and VR Workouts in general, check out our VR Weight Loss Tips and Guide here.

Pistol Whip

Pistol Whip is a game that not only gets you panting and sweating and encourages you to do a ton of squats, but it’s also a great way to feel like really awesome once you get the hang of it. Turning your whole body around to dodge incoming bullets and then snapping off a couple of shots to take down an enemy, all in the span of a split second, feels really cool. You might even feel like John Wick when playing Pistol Whip. All while you get one of the Best VR Workouts out there.

So what makes Pistol Whip one of the Best VR Games for Exercise? It’s the intensity of movement as you’re dodging incoming enemy rounds. Pistol Whip, with the right settings, is basically a 3D bullet hell shooter. That means you’ll have a ton of enemy rounds flying towards your head, and you need to move your head out of the way to dodge them. This involves a lot of moving your entire body so that the rounds miss you, and especially squatting. Sometimes you might even have to jump a little to avoid incoming fire and stay alive.

Oh, but don’t think you only receive punishment when playing Pistol Whip. You’ve got a pistol yourself, and what makes this VR Workout so fun is that you also shoot back at the enemies that try to take you down. The better you get at Pistol Whip then the more you end up doing an intricate dance of dodging and counter fire that feels really satisfying.

If you’re interested in playing Pistol Whip from this list of the Best VR Workout Games, then check out our article on the settings you’ll want to use to make this game great VR Exercise.

OhShape

Want a game where you have to move your whole body quickly and intensely like Pistol Whip, but don’t want to have to deal with all the guns and shooting? Then your choice out of this list of the Best VR Games for Exercise might be OhShape.

What makes OhShape so much fun is not only the arrangement of different songs and levels to play through, but moving your entire body to the beat of those songs to match the shapes that come your way. Dodge out of the way of Big Yellow Blocks, collect coins with your hands, and move your body so that it fits the exact shape of the blue walls that come your way.

OhShape is a VR Exercise game that really shows off the sorts of exercise that can only be done in VR. It’s like dancing with a point system. Normally you can’t dance too wrong, but OhShape feels like a gamified dance that you have to follow exactly or you’ll lose. It’s a ton of fun, and offers the sort of full body movement workout that Pistol Whip does, but with the focus purely on moving your body around without having to worry about all that shooting.

OhShape’s great premise and soundtrack makes it a ton of fun, and that’s why it’s one of our 5 Best VR Games for Exercise. It’s also really easy to make OhShape a very intense game just by selecting a harder difficulty mode, there’s no need to mess around with settings and modifiers each time you play it like in Pistol Whip, making it a solid alternative for VR Exercise.

Until You Fall

Want a VR Workout Game that feels a little more like an actual game? Well then Until You Fall might be just the VR Exercise Game that you’re looking for. Out of all of the Best VR Workout Games listed here, Until You Fall does the best at combining gameplay that feels more like a traditional video game with the intense movements of your body that makes for good and fun VR Exercise in a VR fighting game with RPG elements.

Until You Fall is an action fantasy roguelike set in an ancient kingdom overcome by a strange crystalline evil that turned your once proud people into monstrous versions of themselves. You, as the kingdom’s last defender, must fight your way through it to defeat the evil that has infested your home.

Since Until You Fall is a roguelike, you need to fight your way to the end without falling yourself, and pulling that off is the great hook of the game. You’ll need to swing your arms fully to attack (no just flicking your wrist like in Beat Saber) while also dodging and parrying incoming blows. The result is that in Until You Fall you’ll need to learn to move very quickly with your arms and legs to avoid getting hit, while also working your arms to attack. The game only gets harder the further you go.

If you hit certain milestones then you get more options for your arsenal, and can further upgrade your weapons with better stats using points that you get each time you fail. The progression is very solid for a roguelike, and keeps you coming back for another upgrade to your favorite weapon.

Until You Fall’s greatest strength other than it’s progression is its use of both of your hands in its action combat, and its way of encouraging you to move. That’s what makes Until You Fall not only a fun Virtual Reality game, but a VR Workout.

Until You Fall combines VR Exercise with fun customization and gameplay. Mix and match the weapons you take in either hand. Some are slower, some are faster, and see which special abilities combine for the greatest effect. Until You Fall gives you some opportunities to plan and think about your character build, while also being one of the best VR Workout Games.

Audioshield

Audioshield, as the name implies, is another game that combines music and VR Exercise. It’s also arguably the most straightforward rhythm based VR Exercise Game on this list of the Best VR Exercise Games.

That’s because what you do in Audioshield is move your arms to block balls coming your way. Each of your arms is a shield, both with different colors. Block the incoming ball with the shield of the right color to win! Pretty straightforward, and just like Pistol Whip or OhShape the activity you’ll have to do to win in Audioshield can range from easy to hard.

Varying difficulties and songs are varyingly hard, and the harder the difficulty then the greater the workout. When the difficulty is high then Audioshield is a great VR Workout Game. You’ll be sweating, and your arms will be heavy after you’re done. There’s even an option to add custom songs to use your favorite tracks ingame.

Though while Audioshield makes the cut as one of the Best VR Games for Exercise, it does have some drawbacks. Namely that you’ll be stationary and not have to move your feet. Out of all of the Best VR Workout Games listed here, Audioshield is the only one that doesn’t involve moving your feet at all. That being said, this is a fun VR Exercise game where you can lose yourself in the rhythm and get a great VR Workout at the same time.

Thanks for reading our list of the 5 Best VR Games For Exercise. Now that you know what the Best VR Workout Games are pick the one you like best and have a great VR workout! If you want more information on working out in VR, check out our VR Weight Loss Tips and Guide here.

VR Weight Loss Tips and Oculus Quest Weight Loss Guide

If weight loss is on your mind and you’re wondering how to use VR for an enjoyable weight loss experience, then look no further than this Oculus weight loss guide. Of course you don’t need an Oculus Quest 2 to see Virtual Reality weight loss results, and no matter what HMD you use you can see fantastic results when using VR for exercise and weight loss.

Why The Oculus For Weight Loss?

While you don’t necessarily need an Oculus Quest 2 to see VR weight loss results, using a standalone VR headset like the Meta Quest 2 will give you much greater range of movement, because you won’t need to constantly have a cable tethered to your head while working out in VR.

An Oculus Quest 1 also works as would any other standalone VR headset like the Pico 4. Being able to freely move vigorously is key to a comfortable VR weight loss experience when using VR gaming as exercise.

How Does VR Help With Weight Loss?

Before we get into the details, do note that we are not medical professionals, and that everyone’s body is different. If you are really serious about weight loss then make sure to consult your doctor about your current weight and any underlying medical conditions you may have which might affect your weight loss journey.

That being said, VR is a fantastic way to lose weight by providing a fun and interesting way to exercise. Not everyone likes exercise, and that’s okay. With new advancements in VR technology we now have better and better ways to make moving our bodies a fun and enjoyable experience even for those that are not so inclined.

That’s how Virtual Reality helps you with weight loss, by providing a fun way to burn calories and build muscle. Keep in mind that proper diet and portioning of meals is also a very important factor in losing weight, as well as good nutrition. In this article we’ll be focusing on using standalone, untethered VR with the Oculus Quest 2 to provide you with good and fun exercise that you’ll be looking forward to instead of dreading.

VR Exercise Games With The Oculus Quest 2 - Upper Body

So you’ve got your Quest 2 or other standalone VR headset and you’re wondering where to begin. Naturally we will start with some VR workout games. There’s quite a few, like Supernatural, that are specifically targeted to weight loss fanatics and those who want good exercise. Still, there are much better options that feel less like exercise and more like fun. For instance, do you like boxing?

If you do then there’s a great boxing experience that makes for a fantastic workout in Thrill Of the Fight. Unlike most other VR boxing games you’ll find that Thrill Of the Fight is a very intense experience that forces you to push yourself physically in order to win. Fast punches and quick movement are encouraged in this game, and you will easily find yourself panting and sweating when trying to defeat an opponent. It’s easy to get so lost in the fight that you don’t even realize how much exercise you’re doing.

Thrill Of the Fight is great for working on your arms and cardio. All of the movement makes you work your heart and lungs a lot, and all of the punching will make your arms sore and tired. If you have a big enough play area you can even move around the ring and move your legs a little, though it’s not too much of a leg workout unless you duck and weave a lot.

When playing Thrill Of the Fight be very careful of where you set your guardian boundary so that you don’t punch a wall, furniture, pet, or person. This goes for all VR games. As for yourself, since you’re not punching a physical target it is possible to overextend your arms and pull a muscle or injure your shoulder. So be careful to keep your punches close and not overextend your arms.

If Thrill Of the Fight sounds interesting and you want more background then check out our other article on it here. If you’ve already tried Thrill Of the Fight and want more intense fighting games in VR then Virtual Boxing League gives a less polished but also very enjoyable boxing experience. Dragon Fist: VR Kung Fu is also a lot of fun, though it tends to be a little less intense than these two boxing games, you’ll break a sweat at least though.

VR Exercise Games With The Oculus Quest 2 - Lower Body

While fighting games make for great upper arm workouts and cardio, what about your legs and lower body? They’ll need some love too. While a lot of VR games that are good for exercise and weight loss make you move your legs, there are a few which will really blast those leg muscles and give you a good workout. Chief among these is Pistol Whip.

If you’ve played some Pistol Whip or seen videos about it, you might not have thought that this would be a great game for Virtual Reality weight loss. That’s because Pistol Whip is incredibly easy and slow by default. Just like in Thrill Of the Fight, you’ll need to up the difficulty to really push yourself and get a great leg workout.

Pistol Whip can be really intense because it makes you do a ton of squats. Squats are the best single all around exercise for your legs, and Pistol Whip makes you squat a lot at high difficulties. By setting the difficulty to Hard and putting on some modifiers that make more bullets come at you, you’ll find that your legs will be burning after each Pistol Whip session.

To dodge incoming bullets you’ll need to quickly squad, duck, and contort your body. This gives your legs and even abs a great workout. It’s great cardio too, because all of the fast movements the game forces you to do will get your heart pumping and lungs working.

For more specific tips on how to turn Pistol Whip into an intense workout, check out our Pistol Whip exercise guide here. There are some other games that are great for your legs too. If you love to dance then an intense session of Dance Central VR can be great for your legs. OhShape is a lesser known game that makes you move your legs a lot, and also your arms for more of a hybrid workout.

VR Weight Loss Tips and VR Exercise Tips

These aren’t the only games for VR exercise, if you want more options go to the “Have Fun” tip below for a big list of other games. Now that you’ve got some options for Virtual Reality games to play to get some fun exercise during your VR exercise, here are some more tips and advice.

Have Fun

The best way to get more exercise, burn more calories, and build more muscle, is to have fun. That’s the whole point of VR exercise and why Virtual Reality so so great for weight loss. It makes exercise more fun and makes you want to keep coming back to do it. So make sure you’re having a good time, and if you don’t have as much fun with the games in this article, look a little further. Here’s a brief list of other games that we haven’t covered here that could make for very fun exercise:

• Audioshield

• Beat Saber (Make sure to swing your whole arm and not just your wrist, or it’s not exercise at all)

• BoxVR

• Supernatural (Paid Subscription though, a little too pricey unless you really love it)

• Holoball

• Eleven Table Tennis VR (Great for an after workout cooldown, but not much exercise on it’s own)

• FitXR (A lot like a traditional workout)

• HOLOFIT (Rowing in VR!)

• Ragnarok (Decent for arms)

• Until You Fall (Not the most intense either but a lot of fun and can be some exercise for your arms and legs if you play it really quickly)

Get The Biggest Playspace Possible

It is possible to play most VR Fitness games using a stationary guardian boundary, which is basically just a little circle that you can’t step out of, but you won’t have the most fun you could playing this way. Utilize the biggest play area that you can with a Roomscale Boundary so that you have more room to move around. More movement is key, and freeing yourself to move your entire body naturally while playing will not only get you better exercise and weight loss results, but also make everything more enjoyable.

When you’re picking a playspace though, be careful that no natural sunlight hits the lenses of your VR headset. Natural Light will burn the lenses and leave dead pixels on it that will ruin your immersion and enjoyment. Also make sure that your playspace will be clear of pets and other people, and doesn’t have furniture or objects on the floor around you.

Keep Sweat Out Of Your Eyes and VR Headset

Sweat can be a big problem when you’re wearing a computer on your face and trying to exercise. You’ll find that sweat will pool on your face where it meets the foam cover of your headset. This will make the headset slip on your face and make the whole experience uncomfortable. Not to mention that this sweat can build up in the foam and increase bacteria on your skin that may cause skin problems like acne.

To help with this consider getting a new face cover that is made of silicone or another sweat repelling material. This will keep your headset from smelling and building bacteria. There are plenty of different ones out there, but the most reliable choice is VR Cover, that offers new facial interfaces and accessories not just for the Oculus Quest 2, but basically every VR headset out there.

Make sure to clean your face cover with disinfectant when you’re done exercising (but don’t get any on your lenses) and wipe your face and face cover with a clean towel periodically when exercising in VR.

Avoid Injury

Injuring yourself from exercising not only effects your life outside of weight loss and fitness, but also means that you’ll have to take a break from exercise until you heal. Injuring yourself will cause you to lose more exercise and fun VR play time overall. So avoid injury at all costs by making sure not to overextend yourself or hit a wall or object with your hand. Keep steady and don’t fall over either. If a muscle or joint starts hurting then give it a rest. If you ever have a persistent pain while doing VR weight loss or any exercise at all then consult a medical professional.

Try Adding A Little Traditional Exercise

To hit more muscle groups and have a more complete workout you might want to add some traditional exercise to your VR weight loss regimen after you get into the habit of exercise. Exercises that utilize your body weight like pushups and lunges can be a great way to supplement your VR weight loss adventure. You can try having some fun with a VR workout and then moving on to some other exercise, or do some other exercises in between VR sessions to keep your weight loss exciting and different.

Add Weights For Even Harder Exercise

If you’ve been using VR for weight loss for a while and don’t feel the burn quite like you used to you can enhance your Virtual Reality exercise even further by adding some weights. Wrist weights like these here are great because they include a thumbstrap that will keep them from slipping off of your wrists while you’re playing. Ankle weights like these can make movement harder and more intense as well.

Exercise Consistently and Watch Your Diet

If you want to see weight loss results when exercising with Virtual Reality, then you’ll only ever see progress when you exercise consistently. A little exercise every day of the week is better than a lot of exercise one day of the week. Exercise and weight loss is as much a series of habits as it is your desire and drive to do it. It can be helpful to exercise at the same time every day, or to start with just a little bit of exercise and work your way up. Consistency is more important than immediate results, though consistency will bring results if you keep slowly increasing the intensity.

Also keep in mind that all the VR exercise in the world won’t make you lose weight alone. Getting enough sleep and having a proper diet are also very important. Unfortunately there’s no Virtual Reality app yet that can help you with those, though there are plenty that make for a good workout.

Well there you have it, a guide and tips for VR weight loss by using VR for fun exercise. If you’ve read this and found Virtual Reality to be helpful on your weight loss journey then please leave a comment. It would be great to hear from everyone that VR has helped become more fit and lose weight.

How To Turn Pistol Whip Into an Intense Workout | VR Exercise Guide

The Oculus Quest 2 has brought the possibilities of Virtual Reality fitness to light and made VR exercise possible with no wires to get in the way of flailing arms or legs. Of course, the headset on its own is nothing without games that make exercise fun and exciting. Pistol Whip by Cloudhead Games is one such game, and among VR fitness titles it is often overlooked and underutilized.

Pistol Whip is, whether you know it or not, a fantastic cardio and leg workout on the Meta Quest 2. You just need to know what settings to use to make the game as intense as possible and you’ll be sweaty and sore in no time. Here we’ll show you how to turn Pistol Whip into a workout.

How Can Pistol Whip Be A Workout?

At the end of the day making a VR game a workout is really not complicated. Just apply the correct settings to arcade mode, and turn a game that can be a standing and pointing simulator into a Quad and Glute stimulating sweatfest. Before we get into what settings to use though, you should know what the goal of these settings are. Basically, you want the game to force you to move as much as possible.

In Pistol Whip the game makes you move your arms to aim and shoot your guns, and also move your head out of the way of incoming bullets. While swinging your arms around to shoot isn’t much exercise, it is fun and will keep you engaged and entertained. Dodging is also fun, and forces you to use your leg muscles to duck, dip, dive, and move out of the way as quickly as you can. Both of these motions together burns a lot of calories and becomes a lot of exercise over the course of a level.

The Right Weapon for Sweatin

When you open Pistol Whip go straight to Arcade Mode. Contracts vary widely in intensity and some levels of the campaign can be very intense on harder difficulties, but not always. To guarantee good exercise, stick to Arcade mode. Now that you’re there, go to the settings panel on your left and select the “Customize” tab. Here is where the magic happens.

Start with the weapon you will be using, by default it will likely be set to the pistol, but you want to use revolvers. That’s right, plural revolvers, dual wielding one in each hand. Why dual wield six shooters you wonder? Glad you asked. First of all you want to dual wield so that you keep both of your arms lifted up during the course of a song, and keep both of them engaged.

This way you won’t favor one arm over another. Also using the Revolvers means that you will have to reload each gun after six shots, which means you will need to move your arms more, since you will have to reload more often. Most importantly having only 12 total shots at your disposal before reloading means that if you are very good at shooting in Pistol Whip you won’t be able to easily shoot all of your opponents before they have a chance to shoot at you. This means more bullets coming at you, and more reasons to move your body to dodge out of the way.

Important Magic Modifiers

So you’ve got your weapon selected, but surely just using dual revolvers doesn’t turn Pistol Whip into a great VR exercise game? You would, of course, be right, the real magic happens in the modifiers section. Just a couple of modifiers turns Pistol Whip from a boring slog where you spend most of your time standing still, into a Quad Blasting masterpiece.

The first and most important modifier is Vengeance. Turning Vengeance on means that every time you shoot an enemy, a bullet is immediately fired back from that enemy towards you. This means that no matter how good you are at shooting, how quick you are to on the draw, there will always be bullets coming at you.

This is important, because it means you will never just be standing still shooting whatever comes in your way. The constant barrage of bullets that are coming at you, even if you shoot every enemy before they have a chance to shoot you, means that you will be constantly engaging your legs and back by dodging out of the way.

That’s what you want, to be forced to dodge and move as much as possible by the game, but not so often that you just lose super quickly every time. Depending on your level of skill in shooting you may or may not want to also activate the Bullet Hell modifier. This makes it so that every enemy will fire a constant stream of bullets towards you rather than one shot at a time.

If you tend to shoot enemies very quickly, then Bullet Hell makes the whole experience a little more tense, and forces you to dodge a ton when you miss an opponent. If you tend to miss enemies a lot then the amount of bullets that the Bullet Hell modifier brings to you might be overwhelming. Either way it will definitely get you moving.

With these modifiers the game becomes a sort of dance, a constant symphony of ducking and weaving between the punctuation of the violent bursts from your guns. There is an agility and grace to the game, and in that a deep sense of satisfaction in its mastery that many a Virtual Reality commentator has described as “feeling like John Wick.” You will find with these modifiers, and the harder you push yourself in this game, the more satisfying executing a perfect dodge by windmilling your whole upper body around a stream of bullets before returning fire with precision.

There are also a number of other modifiers that you can add if you would like, like Disorder (which mixes up enemy types) or High Velocity (which increases bullet speed forcing you to dodge more quickly) but Vengeance and Bullet Hell are by far the most important to keep you moving constantly during Pistol Whip. With Vengeance alone you are in for a workout for sure, and both together will get your legs burning.

Difficulty and Level Selection

Difficulty is simple, because you’re here to get some exercise. Crank the difficulty up as hard as you can without instantly losing. Hard difficulty is preferrable, if there was an extreme difficulty that would be even more recommendable, but Hard is as far as it goes.

If you’re newer to Pistol Whip going to Hard difficulty instantly might lead to you just dying a lot and not having any fun. In that case stick to Normal or Easy for a while, whatever is a good mix of challenging and engaging for you. Just remember that fitness requires pushing yourself, and so you should up that difficulty as soon as possible. The higher the difficulty the more enemies there will be. The more enemies there are then the more bullets coming at you. The more bullets coming at you the more you have to move to get out of the way and the more calories burned.

Which level you select also factors into difficulty. Some are naturally harder than others. “Black Magic” for instance, is one of the easiest levels by far, and is a great warmup round. While “Religion” is the hardest level in the game, and has an extremely difficult part at the end which will not fail to either quickly defeat or exhaust you. When you’re looking at the level select menu they will generally be harder the further to the right and down you go. Except, weirdly, for “The Fall”, which is actually incredibly easy.

On a related note the game is generally more fun when you vary up the levels that you play, and even when you vary modifiers. Just make sure you keep Vengeance and Dual Revolvers on at a minimum and you will be burning some calories for sure. Other than that feel free to experiment and keep it fresh.

Pistol Whip and Virtual Reality fitness in general is about making exercise more fun by playinga game that will make you want to move, so that you win that game. VR just gives us the games that involve using our whole body and not just our hands. Keep it fun and keep it interesting.

So that’s how you turn Pistol Whip into a super effective cardio and leg workout. Have fun out there and stay fit!

Having trouble sweating through your headset’s face cover? Try out new ones from VR Cover that repel sweat and are easy to swap in.

Pistol Whip by Cloudhead Games can be bought on the Oculus store or Steam for $29.99 and it is worth every penny.