Vertigo 2 VR Review - The Best Singleplayer VR Game of 2023
You might wonder how an Indie game made by a solo developer, a VR game made by a solo developer even, managed to get almost 1000 reviews on Steam with an Overwhelmingly Positive rating, and little marketing other than articles like this one talking about how great it is.
The 5/22/2023 reviews for Vertigo 2
Well I'll tell you, because Vertigo 2 is one of the most finely made VR singleplayer games out there. Here we'll go through a few of the big categories that, combined, make for a great singleplayer VR game when done well, and exactly just how Vertigo 2 knocks them out of the park.
Vertigo 2 Review - Weapons
Let's start with the weapons, and since Vertigo 2 is primarily a shooting game, weaponry is one of the most important categories. Vertigo 2 has a wide variety of weapons that fill different roles.
A revolver that functions as a long range precision weapon, a shotgun that does a lot of damage and is easy to aim but can only be used up close, and quite a few others that you collect over time. There are a lot of different weapons to choose from, and even some secret weapons that you can find if you're careful or google a guide. What's truly revolutionary though is how your ammunition works.
The antimatter shotgun is very effective at close ranges
You regenerate more over time. So you don't have to constantly be looking for ammo in your surroundings, and you can choose which weapon you want to use in any given situation without depending on what the game gives you. Since it takes time for ammo to regenerate though, you'll be forced to switch weapons in a prolonged fight. This keeps you from overly relying on a single weapon. You're forced to switch between them when one runs out of ammo.
Still, most of the weapons are pretty versatile at different ranges, and so you'll never find yourself completely out of ammunition for an effective weapon in any given fight. While I tend to overuse the shotgun whenever possible. I've been forced a bunch of times to change to an alternative simply because I ran out of ammunition, or the fight became longer ranged. You can still completely ignore some weapons if you want to, and that's a good thing, because you'll still have choice.
Storming a castle with an AK-47
Not having to rely on ammunition pickups gives you that choice, and you have even more ability to decide how you want your weapons to work, and which favorite weapons to focus on, through the upgrade system. You'll find a few upgrades to improve weapons as you go on through the game, and which ones you choose to upgrade and which way you choose to upgrade them further defines and refines your playstyle.
There's a perfect balance struck here between your ability to choose how you want to play, and you not being able to play constantly in a single way by using a single weapon, which would inevitably make you bored with the game.
Vertigo 2 Review - Enemies
What enemies you face and how encounters are designed also reinforces this notion. Vertigo 2 does tend to focus on close to medium range encounters, thus why the shotgun is so easy to rely on for me, but it also switches things up and moves enemies further away by giving them powerful ranged attacks so that you can't rely on an up close fighting strategy all of the time, even if you try and close the gap with your teleportation ability.
Some enemies are dangerous up close too, and so you'll never fully be focused on keeping your distance or trying to close the gap. You can play one or the other way if you like too, risking it all by dashing more closely, or carefully taking aim from cover and winning a battle of accuracy.
A naval based gunfight
Sometimes you are forced to fight up close or far away by the enemies you face and the environments they are in, sometimes you have to fight from afar, but mostly you have a choice of which way to play it. Balancing your decisions, and occasionally getting you out of your comfort zone, is a careful balancing act that Vertigo 2 pulls off very well.
The look of the enemies is also constantly interesting, and in Vertigo 2 you run into new types of enemies all of the time, from different assortments of robots to a massive variety of aliens. None of them outstay their welcome either, and the opponents that you face change constantly as you proceed from place to place to match your environment.
A secret weapon
The different creatures of Vertigo 2's quantum reactor feel like a part of the strange world they are in, and will fight each other just as quickly as they'll fight you if they are hostile to one another. The enemy encounters are interlaced with the story of the game to not only vary what you're fighting, but where you're fighting and why you're fighting.
Vertigo 2 Review - The Story
The story of Vertigo 2 is strange, there's really no denying that, with some humor mixed in. Not everyone will like the story itself. It is a very overall pulp science fiction sort of story, but there is more character drama built in then you would usually find in a video game.
Nani
There were multiple occasions where I felt real emotion at what happened to different characters, especially those that helped me as the player. Not to mention you're not completely a character in the story that is purely acted upon. You have some moments of agency just like the other characters in the story do, and can make choices that affect what challenges you face, and what happens in sections of the story.
If you've got no tolerance for a little silliness then you might not like the story and just roll your eyes through it, and that's okay, because the story of Vertigo 2 not only creates reasons for why you're fighting, but also reasons for the constant changes of scenery.
A beautiful vista to introduce a new setting
There are some really truly impressive setpieces scattered throughout the game, usually to introduce a new area with new challenges, enemies, and weapons to acquire. Each place feels really unique, though there is occasionally an overreliance on industrial robotic corridors. Still, you're taken from different locaton to different location a lot. Not too often to get overwhelmed with constant change, and not too little that you get bored of fighting the same enemies in the same place.
Vertigo 2 Review - Pacing
That leads us to our final component of what makes Vertigo 2 a fantastic singleplayer VR game. This is a very well paced game with highs and lows all over. Combat is intersperced with periods of quiet, of rest. There is hardly ever too little or too much action. It can be hard to notice while playing, but Vertigo 2 is a very well paced game. It even is in terms of these other categories.
Brian is a crazy man
Enemy types don't stay around too long until they get old, and what sort of opponents you are fighting change often. The story moves fast enough to change the scenery often enough, and you acquire new weaponry at a pace that gives you time to get used to the new piece in your arsenal before you get a new one. Pacing in a video game is a very fine balance, and Vertigo 2 strikes it very well.
A Game By Solo Developer Zach Tsiakalis-Brown
These are the reasons why Vertigo 2 is such a fantastic singleplayer VR game, and you can tell that a lot of creativity and a lot of love went into making this experience. So, my hat is off to Zach Tsiakalis-Brown for the monumental effort and skill it must have taken to create this masterpiece.
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