Always Higher

Full disclosure: I was NOT in the beta, and I don't know the developer apart from a short discussion in the last 2 days about some (mostly self caused) trouble I had with the game. I have about one hour gameplay by now, but considering this game is flying deep under the radar due to the same-day release of a similar but much more hyped VR game I decided to write a review. In Always Higher, you start at the bottom of a cylindrical structure, and must get to the top. along the whole height of the structure are plaforms with inbuilt teleporter which must be activated to move forward. Along the way you meet enemies and turrets, you find new weapons and energy cubes, and from time to time you find a teleporter which sends you somewhere else. So the flow is : shoot enemies, active teleporter through a (so far) easy reaction mini-game, teleport to the next highest platform, repeat. At its most basic, Always Higher is a room scale, 360 degrees wave shooter. Where it differs from any other VR wave shooter I've tried so far is that it includes (if the first, not mandatory, one is representative of something players meet later on, then NON-trivial) puzzles. Also, despite involving teleporti…

THIS GAME WILL REQUIRE YOUR PATIENCE. IT is absolutely fantastic for $1 but you may not understand what to do at the start. Luckly there is a "walk through" in the I wouldn't recommend this game were it even $5 but at $1 (not even on sale) it's well worth it. Develpers please heed some advice: PEOPLE PLAY VR TO FEEL CONNECTED TO THE GAME WORLD: THIS GAME DOES NOT FEEL GOOD TO PLAY WHEN YOU PICK IT UP. CONS 1. The gun is the wimpiest gun I've played in a game. Please fix it. Doesn't have to be a cannon but this is ridiculous. 2. There is almost no reaction when you do hit an enemy. Many laser bolts hit the enemy and you have no idea until he doubles over if your actually landing shots. Even if you don't have the budget for animations add ragdoll or even just a burst of sparks when the laser hits the enemy to acknowledge hit detection. 3. Create a better reload animation (rather than just charging battery bars) and perhaps shorten the reload time. It's hard to anticipate how long your gun will be down for while it recharges and a reload animation would tip that off while you wait helplessly. 4. I found it hard to know when I was getting shot and why I wasn't shielded…

I think this game is very good for the price tag. Graphics looks great and it is very succesfull in terms of immersion. Gameplay and design is original and variated enough with some interesting ideas. Obviously there's going to be much better VR sci-fi games in the future but for now i think it sits amongst the best, therefore worth playing. EDIT: after beating the game i second this evaluation i gave some times ago, i would like to add the reccomendation of going through the optional Tutorial section before the actual game to better understand how things work.

I can't make head nor tail of this. The instructions are gibberish - possible a bad translation and everything is so much more complicated than it needs to be. If a simple game is going to have controls as somplex as this, then the DEVS need to give some really clear instructions on how to play.

Needs to be more intuitive with clearer instructions. May change my recommendation if I actually figure out how to play it. Frustrated with it now.

Is it me or ar the controls on this thing buggy :(