XLR

Note: This is an Early Access review. I've always been a fan of tower defense games, and have played the crap out of them ever since I discovered them in WC3. As soon as I got my Vive, I made it my mission to check out XLR as soon as I could. My initial impression was that it was pretty good. It is really a combination of a FPS and a TD, and it combines the two well. The game starts with you in a central command room, and you are given moments to assess your environment in a globe that lets you peer in and out of, before waves of enemies start approaching your location. You can either start building towers from the overview, or teleport right into the action by twisting your controllers 90% to a side and pulling the trigger. You are equipped with a building tool that lets you drop towers where you are pointing, and also a gun – something you will almost certainly need to use as the game starts. There is also an option to dual wield, by dropping your controllers to your waste and hitting the grip button to switch between the building tool and your gun – something I found very satisfying! Unfortunately, and somewhat understandably so as this is in early access, the gameplay is somewhat flat and there isn’t too much to do beyond trying to survive the waves of enemies. The game can get somewhat strenuous on the eyes thanks to the dark environment and the repeated flashing of flying plasma, from your towers, enemies, and even your own guns. I actually found myself having to remove the HMD when the flashing got a little intense. The sound also tended to be quite repetitive, particularly as you repeatedly spam-firing your gun at the enemies in the distance. When you lose, the game also dumps you back into the main menu rather unceremoniously, without any real indication that you’ve lost. There is a co-operative aspect to the game that I rather enjoyed, however – it was pretty satisfying to focus on taking down enemies while your friends focused on building towers and defences around you. It was also pretty cool being able to see your friends out in the field when you’re looking through the overview, and I did retreat to this view when I got a little tired from the repetitive audio and flashing lights. All in all, the game is pretty flat at the moment. But given that the fact that the game has barely been officially out for a week, I think there is plenty of room to improve, which is why I'm recommending this game. I rather enjoy TD type games, and am pretty excited to see how VR will give us a taste of tower defences – and so I will definitely be keeping my eye on XLR.

Nice VR tower defence game. Difficult to see far away enemies with the current hardware though.

After the update, it's a new game. Still WIP now (buggy too) but is going to support lot of features missing in other multiplayer shooters for Vive: a better locomotion (it seems comfortable too), a better weapon management (inspired by H3VR), classess of soldiers, a better graphics.

Tried this one with a few friends last fall and I was frankly not impressed. I don't know if the game was having a particularly bad day - worse than its average, but everything went wrong, from losing ability to reload, to spawning miles *above* the map, to losing connection to players or host. We wanted to play a few quick matches and ended up just retartings the game three or four times, through a one hour session maybe clocking in 5 minutes of actual gameplay. Not even worth two dollars IMO. There are better things out there for your cash, more functional especially; even for two bucks. The lack of updates probably seal the deal on XLR. Unfinished, unpolished, barely functional.

Changed review THIS GAME IS A GRAVEYARD

great tower defence cant wait to see what gets added.

Very fun game! So far I have only played single player but it has a Sanctum meets VR feel. A great feeling while duel pistols, shooting at multiple alians. Looking forward for more time in the game and multiplayer.

Very shallow, not much content, feels like some short project thrown together. Developer has abandoned the project as well, and multiplayer is dead.

[Update Aug 2017] - not recommended as this is very alpha/very early access, and hasnt had an update in a year. Looks like its dead Jim. :/ [Orig] I like XLR - a lot. Not to play it, its still waaaaaay too early access for that, but for the direction the game is taking. I really love the level of originality being displayed here. A full body Arms that connect to my hands, hands that mvoe sensibly in game! Great "robot" graphics that work well, and excellent lighting including shadows for everything! Loads of very different guns which each have their own mechanics to loads and ♥♥♥♥. Steadying your gun with your other hand. Whats not so good. Cocking your gun is a pain. Trying to group/ungrip guns is an error prone messy process. My arms in the game are 2 hand legnth too short. And its super early access so current content consists of moving about a room and shooting an infinite number of robots that simply walk towards you. You can pick different classes and try different weapons, which highlights the unique features discussed above, but if this was the end of the content, the price should be free, and its not. Suggestions for dev: Make arms stretchy in game so they can match real life length arms. Consider an option for the player to just get an auto-reloading gun, right now the mechanics are very very messy and while original, are more fiddly than awesome. This game holds a lot of promise, and I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

Abandonware.