Vertigo (2016)

Far from a perfect game, but it's fun and quick. The action never gives up and each level brings new stuff so you don't get bored.

The gunplay varies between lacklustre and frantically overpowered, with no stop in between. The first guns are annoyingly weak: low damage, small clip and high recoil. But about two thirds of the way suddenly the game showers you with upgrades and then combat becomes almost trivial. (And also I realised you could double-wield!). At the end the game you get a minigun and you're blasting through hordes of enemies. I guess it's a neat power fantasy, but the curve feels wrong.

The levels are mostly linear, with some "secret" rooms and very light puzzles. They are mostly blank corridors but with some nice standouts, like the one you get smallified and get to run around through tiny caves (although the novelty of being small is lost by moving through small spaces, so in the end everything is scaled back down).

Anyway, it's ok by today's standards but I can see why it was a big thing back I 2016, which is the prehistoric era for VR.

After a few hours, the game now feels a bit repetitive and all the little annoyances are starting to pile up without the novelty to smooth them out.

I think the biggest problem is that the weapons just don't feel any good. Not only they don't have any impact, but they are objectively underpowered. Even the most basic enemies can take more than a full clip from the starting pistol and even several shots from one latter game weapon. And to compound the issue, guns have too much recoil so actually hitting the enemies is too hard. Even one with a sniper-like shooting mode failed to hit an enemy weakspot just a few meters in front of me (which lead to a very frustrating bossfight).

The demo for Vertigo 2 convinced me to get it, but then Steam offered me a bundle with Vertigo 1 for the same price so I decided to give it a go. This one feels much more primitive but not bad. Fewer enemy variety. Some level design reliant on teleporting. A lot of emphasis on melee with a sword, which was the motion-control darling for a while (and I don't really like that much).

There's not a lot of complexity but it's got enough weirdness and personality for me to want to know more.