There's a fantastic free VR game demo out this month that you need to try – and it might just be the best shooter the Meta Quest 3 has to offer.
This past month I've fallen in love with Vendetta Forever, been frightened by aliens in By Grit Alone, chilled out with Netflix in VR, and danced Harder, Better Faster and Stronger with Daft Punk in Beat Saber.
If you're looking for other VR game recommendations then check out our picks for the best VR games or my recommendations for July 2024, but for now let's dive into my favorite Meta Quest 3 games for August 2024.
Vendetta Forever
VR is home to many great shooter games, with the headset’s perspective really putting the first-person in FPS. There’s nothing cooler than actually pulling off a trick shot with your own reflexes, rather than a series of controller inputs as you’d have to make do with in flat games – and Vendetta Forever takes this coolness factor up to 11. In so doing, it establishes itself as a serious contender for being the Quest 3’s best new shooter, despite only being a five-level demo right now.
The concept is so simple, yet supremely executed: load up a scene ripped straight from your favorite action movie and start blasting. To move through the level you must eliminate an enemy and steal their weapon – teleporting to their position when you do so. By contorting your body and chaining together teleports to dodge any return fire, your goal is to complete your objective as fast as you can, while taking as little damage as possible. There’s also a hidden VHS tape in every mission to locate if you like collectible hunting and want an additional challenge.
Each mission is also deceptively short. While you can easily complete each of them in under a minute, you can lose hours grinding for the perfect run if you aren’t careful – working tirelessly to shave milliseconds off your time and take fewer hits to earn a better score and rise up through the leaderboards.
I’m also very impressed with the variety I’ve seen so far. There’s a John Wick-style assassination mission, a quickdraw contest in a Wild West casino, a battle against an attack helicopter and a samurai sword showdown waiting for you in Vendetta Forever.
With the promise of more than 60 levels when the full thing launches, I simply cannot wait for October 2024 to get here. If you want to understand my hype, the demo I played is live on the Quest Store right now for free, so you literally have no reason not to give it a whirl.
By Grit Alone
Another VR demo for you; this month I also had the chance to play through a small chunk of By Grit Alone, a new VR action horror shooter being developed by a team of writers and developers who have worked on Dead Space, Resident Evil 8 and Dr Who, to name a few of their projects. It’s a strong showing so far, and it’ll be great to see the finished product when it’s ready.
You can definitely see the team’s experience in the immediately intimidating spaceship environments decorated with squelching, parasitic growths. They're also littered with audio logs ready to divulge details of what went down in this creepy sector of space.
It’s not just about the spooky atmosphere, though; a horror game would be incomplete without its monsters and By Grit Alone's insectoids fulfil this duty with aplomb – crawling on walls and the ceiling to launch themselves at you. Thankfully, you’re armed with a gun and an unending supply of grenades to keep yourself protected.
I just kinda wish there were more Resident Evil-style survival horror elements. You have an unlimited ammo supply, as I mentioned, and while I did find myself feeling tense and creeped out by various moments of the demo, there was always another energy core for my gun waiting in my pocket, which provided an odd sense of comfort. One thing I love in a game like Resident Evil is that you need to make your limited resources really count. The inherent risk/reward of exploration develops directly from this; venturing down that spooky corridor could net you an upgrade or earn you much-needed supplies, but then again it could cause you to lose half your health and your already-limited ammo, because you’re caught off-guard by an enemy.
Admittedly, this is less a fault with By Grit Alone and more a genre preference on my part. If action horror is more your thing, By Grit Alone could be right up your street. Equally this also means it’s not super scary, so you might find enjoyment in this VR title even if horror games aren't usually on your playlist.
Netflix (in browser)
The Netflix VR album was absolute trash. Stuck at 480p there was simply no good reason to use it even if you already had a Netflix subscription. Frankly, no-one should be sad to see the app meet its end – especially since the new in-browser Netflix VR experience is so great.
Finally you can enjoy the big-picture VR experience with full-HD visuals, complete with the option to host your private cinema in your real home with mixed reality or a virtual Quest Home environment. Whichever setting you choose, you have the option to dim the background so you can focus on the film or show that’s playing.
The only downside of the browser is that you can’t download any Netflix content (at least for now), though you couldn’t with the old VR app either, so the VR Netflix experience at least hasn’t lost a feature.
Ideally, apps would be the way forwards for VR video – it's crying out for a good option for 3D content, which is possible but severely lacking on so many platforms because there’s no easy way to access it that doesn’t involve ‘sailing the Seven Seas’ (or so I’m told). However, with the Apple Vision Pro landing exclusivity deals for the likes of Disney Plus, Quest 3 users are stuck with this one solid Netflix browser experience for now.
Beat Saber
Beat Saber is one of those VR games I keep coming back to, thanks to its addictive dance gameplay. I’ve talked about it before, and will almost certainly mention it in this series again, because there’s a good reason it's the best-known Meta Quest 3 title.
I recently picked up the Daft Punk pack for Beat Saber (it came out in March and I somehow completely missed it) and for fans of the techno group it’s well worth it. I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed none of their Tron: Legacy tracks made it in, but there's still a really solid selection of music to dance through, including some brilliant mashups from their live recorded sets, complete with crowd cheers that’ll help you push through the higher difficulties.
That said, while I did buy the whole album I’ll admit I don’t recognize or use all of the tracks, so here’s a reminder that it’s sometimes cheaper to just buy the songs you plan to play, rather than the whole Beat Saber DLC album – as the complete album is only a discount if you’ll actually use every song.
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