Shadow Uprising is a casual-friendly but still enjoyable addition to the VR stealth genre with a "Sly Cooper 1 but cyber Japan" aesthetic and a very fun twist on movement.
The Good:
1. Movement -- The Spiderman-like dual wrist grapples and the climbing gloves make moving around the world just plain fun. Scramble up a wall and then go hand over hand underneath the edge of the roof? Sure. Fire both grapples to suspend yourself above an unsuspecting guard you're about to drop down on and murder? Go for it. How about grapple and pull yourself to behead a guard as you swoop past? Gets a malicious laugh out of me every time I pull it off. The icing on the cake is the fact that the controls are so intuitive that doing maneuvers like this is strictly a matter of player creativity and reflexes, not overcoming janky inputs.
2. Controls/Customizability -- The game's control scheme beyond the grappling/climbing stuff mentioned above is overall just as fluid. Weapons are stored in 4 different hotspot virtual holsters on your body (and you can freely customize what's stored in each), and are retrieved with a simple gesture. Quick and easy, and lets you focus on what you're trying to do. Might seem a little odd to spend the wordcount bringing this up, but it's still annoyingly common to hit bizarre, awkward control schemes in VR games, especially when using controllers that didn't exist when a given game launched.
On a similar note, there's a decent variety of control/comfort options in the game. For users who need snap turning to play comfortably, be advised that while Shadow Uprising doesn't have the standard instantaneous snapping, it does have the ability to customize how fast it snaps you by a given angle, and it can be pushed fast enough to be nearly instant.
3. UI -- Did you think it was immersive and convenient having your health/ammo/etc on a display on the back of your hand in Half-Life: Alyx? Shadow Uprising did it in 2018. Nice!
4. Maps -- While the mapping in this game isn't as intricate as what you'll find in the Budget Cuts series, they're still enjoyable, and you can usually find some alternate paths through parts of them so you can choose how to approach larger concentrations of guards. You'll also want to watch for the hidden bits of lore, and most importantly, the new weapons -- there's no buying weapons for tokens or getting them for free as the game progresses, you'll *need* to hunt them down. Some are very well hidden, especially the bow that grants bullet time.
5. Performance -- Zero performance issues at 120hz on the Index. No bizarre glitches from running faster than the 90hz that was standard in 2018.
6. Rain -- There's rain in many levels! It's weirdly immersive in VR. I like it.
The Bad:
1. Length -- It's not terribly long, especially if you're not interested in replaying levels to hunt for weapons or missing lore. Took me about 3 hours to get to the end boss on my first fairly thorough but not completionist playthrough. Note that I said "get to", not beat. That leads me to my next point...
2. Endboss Difficulty -- Did someone order a massive difficulty spike? No? Too bad, you get one anyway. It's a very cool encounter that I don't want to spoil, but it could really stand for a rebalance, maybe slow down the boss's firing speed or narrow its attack area a bit. As it is now, it virtually necessitates finding and using the bullet time bow to beat, and that seems to be one of the hardest weapons to find. On a more general note, it pretty much forces a purely ranged approach, and that's a disappointing and abrupt narrowing of playstyle freedom compared to the rest of the game.
3. AI -- The AI's pretty simple and forgiving. The bots in Budget Cuts are quite a bit more skilled and aggressive than these. On the other hand, if you're new to the genre or in the mood for something more laid-back, it might be a good fit. Game's still fun though -- the challenge comes more from working through the enemies and environment like a puzzle, rather than tense games of cat and mouse or Metal Gear Solid-style pitched combat.
The Ugly:
1. Knuckles Controller Issues -- This game came out well before the Index Controllers were a thing, and it shows on occasion. Your empty hands are somewhat misaligned as they were oriented for the old Vive wands. This one's not too bad, as they snap into the correct orientation any time you grab the wall or fire a grapple. The sword/dagger generally orient ok as well.
The ranged weapons though... different story. The shuriken, kunai, and bow are badly misaligned. The bow can be worked around -- the arrow is correctly aligned, it's the bow itself that's wrong. So if you can ignore that distraction, you can still aim normally. The throwing weapons are a mess though. I had to resort to an odd wrist flick to reliably use them with the Knuckles, but it can be done.
Nerd Stuff:
Tested on a Valve Index with Knuckles controllers at 120hz.
Final Thoughts:
If you're a fan of stealth games, I'd say Shadow Uprising is worth picking up, even if it's a bit on the simple side. $20 might be a little high in 2020 given it's competition in the much more ambitious Budget Cuts 1/2, but if you see it on sale and are in the mood for an afternoon or two of Spiderman ninja stealth, go for it. Fingers crossed that someday this developer follows up with another game that iterates on the interesting movement mechanics, now that they've got some VR development experience under their belts.
