The Spawn Room is a gaming, eSports, and virtual reality blog by Sam Shadow.
The Spawn Room is a gaming, eSports, and virtual reality blog by Sam Shadow.
One of the unexpected benefits of VR is that it’s actually a good workout. You’re standing, moving, bending, and kneeling on a regular basis. Depending on the game, you might be doing these things rapidly which can really get the heart pumping. Now, you might think that there is an upper limit and you’ll never get a gym-worthy workout. That’s where you’re wrong. It took me almost 6 months of owning the Vive to realize there was untapped athletic potential.
It happened after I bought Space Pirate Trainer. I loaded it up, played one round of standard and then immediately switched to hardcore mode (slow motion is for pussies). I started diving, dodging, jumping into furniture, slamming my body against my desk, scraping my knees on the carpet, but overall getting a surprisingly intense workout. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly dangerous, but damn is it fun! The next day it got me thinking, if I was that sore from playing a VR game, could I get a truly kick ass workout FROM PLAYING VIDEO GAMES?!
A few minutes later I was on Amazon and ordering a pair a wrist weights. The lower body workout was pretty solid, but I wasn’t getting anything for my upper body. A few days later I strapped them on, loaded up Space Pirate Trainer, and got my ass handed to me. First off, the Vive controllers are INCREDIBLY light. I never realized it until I had the wrist weights on to compare them to. Second, while it’s only 5 lbs on each wrist, moving with those weights for 30 minutes left me sore for days! Disclaimer: I’m also a total weakling so that might also factor in… Regardless, I found that hardcore mode was more of a full body workout because of the intense dodging while normal slow motion mode required longer holding of the weights in front of you. So despite my pussy jab above, mix in both game modes for a slightly different workout.
Then came Beat Saber. If I thought Space Pirate Trainer was hard, it was nothing compared to playing songs on expert. I found myself audibly grunting and yelling trying to keep up with the blocks that were whizzing by. I could feel my muscles screaming as I danced around the room like some sort of bad ass digital warrior. I literally had to buy new face masks because I was sweating so much (gross, I know). I also cancelled my gym membership shortly after because I finally found a way to workout that wasn’t boring as fuck. I’ve also toyed around with some other games like Gorn. You don’t get nearly as intense of a workout, but fighting with just your fists feels really rewarding. There’s also some free games like Hot Squat that might give you a decent workout with the weights on. Hell, any game with the weights on will slowly build muscle over time, so take your pick.
Note: I have no affiliation with these games or the Amazon product. I’m just sharing my personal experiences because I love VR and want it to flourish.
The Steam Spring VR Sale is going on and I thought it might be useful to provide a quick guide on safely buying VR games on Steam. For normal games, I don’t think a guide like this is necessary, but for VR games we’re still in the wild west and there are some “traps” to look out for.
First off, if you’re not familiar, there is an awesome site called Steam Database that logs information about the games on Steam. This is one of the best places to start because you can quickly and efficiently browse Steam’s massive library. You can also optionally connect your Steam account which removes owned items from the list and highlights wishlist items. Here is a quick filter to get you started.
Next up, I check ratings and, if you’re using the Steam DB Chrome extension, you can see the percentage calculations in the Steam store. (No, I am not affiliated with Steam DB, I just personally use it on every Steam sale when I’m hunting for new games) As a general rule, I try to stay at 80% and above for game ratings, but that’s not always a good idea. Some games below 80% are really good and just received bad ratings for a poor launch, DRM complaints, or whatever else. But as a general rule, it’s a good place to start.
Now that we have a well rated game, check if your headset (aka HMD) is supported. Most VR games on Steam support both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, BUT every once in awhile there is one that only officially supports one. For example, I had DiRT Rally in my cart and was about to purchase it until I realized at the last minute it only officially supports the Oculus Rift. Yes, you can probably use Revive or something to make it work, but there are enough good games out there not to bother.
Good, we now have a well rated game that supports your headset. Next up is critical: read the reviews. Search for keywords like “locomotion” to ensure your favorite option is supported. Check to see what sort of content the game has. I almost bought Rise of the Tomb Raider because the YouTube videos online looked interesting, but what I didn’t know was that there is only one level of VR! That would have been a huge disappointment had I not been alerted (thanks Aaron!). I also glance over the reviews to get a base estimate for how much content you can expect. There will always be some crazy people that log 100 hours on a game most people log 2-3 hours on, but you can safely assume there is probably 2-3 hours of content on average. Then compare it against the cost to determine if it’s worth it. This is also a good time to check the negative reviews to see what people are complaining about. People love to complain, so just because there are negative reviews doesn’t mean the game is bad. Look for actual red flags like: “lots of bugs” “abandoned by the developer” and “multiplayer doesn’t even work!”
Related to above, check the latest news and dev updates. The more recent the updates the better and the more frequent the updates the better. If it’s been ages and people are still complaining about persistent bugs in the reviews, it might be worth skipping that title. Other games like Pavlov VR have very regular updates and you get a sense from reading them that the developer is engaged and cares about the community. That’s a good sign.
If you have the Steam DB extension (sorry to plug it yet again) you can also see current, peak, and all-time users. This is another great metric to determine if the game is popular and is especially important if you’re about to purchase a multiplayer title. There’s a few high rated multiplayer shooters on Steam that look great and pass all the marks except for this one. It would be a huge bummer to launch the game all excited only to realize there are literally NO matches or servers being hosted.
Lastly, before hitting the checkout button, I would watch your game on YouTube or Twitch to get a feel for the actual gameplay. There’s been a number of times where I was about to buy a game and realized after watching it that it really didn’t look that fun or wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Remember that those fancy trailers and perfectly selected screenshots on Steam are carefully curated by someone who wants to sell you a copy of their game. Gameplay footage on the other hand doesn’t lie!
That’s it! If everything on this list checks out, you can greatly increase the odds of purchasing well made VR games with active communities from reputable developers. Congratulations!
Note: this is an updated version of the original post I created for vanilla Skyrim.
Skyrim is an amazing game, but if you’re like me and have spent hundreds of hours playing the original version (or special edition), then Skyrim VR will be repetitive despite the added immersion of virtual reality. The mods I share below (and in the original post) serve to create a new experience with as minimal effort as possible. The goal being to create disposable and lethal narratives.
Here is the best Reddit article I found covering Skyrim VR mods. If you’re like me, I wasn’t able to get the Nexus Mod Manager to automatically download and install my mods (check the “Manually installing” section). There has also been an update to the article about Vortex, but I haven’t tried that method personally.
Here are a few additional tips to know before installing mods for Skyrim VR:
All the mods recommended below have been personally tested by me and stable on my computer after about 20 hours of play. The only two issues I’ve experienced are noted below on the particular mods (No Essential NPCs and Random Alternate Start). Here are my recommendations to create a new lethal and fresh experience for Skyrim VR:
For those inclined to do the research, you can add some additional immersion by researching “Skyrim VR INI settings” on Google. There are some great tweaks that can’t be made via the in-game settings like removing enemy health bars.
Another problem I had (and saw elsewhere on the net) was reversed audio. For example, NPCs speaking on my left were coming out the right speaker which severely broke immersion. Some people were claiming that our headphones were backwards! This of course is ridiculous because other games work perfectly fine. Instead, completely unplug the VR base station (not just the HMD side), plug everything back in, and restart Steam VR and Skyrim. This should permanently fix the issue.
That’s it, thanks for reading! If you want, check out my YouTube channel where I’m uploading some of my Skyrim VR gameplay.
Last updated: 2018-11-17
This list contains all the VR experiences I’ve played that almost made by best of 2018 list, but had some glaring issue I couldn’t overlook. It contains a mix of free and paid VR experiences, order is not important, and it’s a work-in-progress.
If you’re looking for the best FREE and PAID VR experiences click those links.
Last updated: 2018-06-23
I’m planning on updating this article periodically throughout 2018 with the best paid HTC Vive VR experiences on Steam. I’m sure many of these games work for Oculus Rift and on other platforms, but I only have a HTC Vive and play pretty much exclusively through Steam.
Note: order is not important, I’m just adding them sequentially based on when I played or when I remembered to add them. This also includes games from all time, not just 2018. And lastly, this is a work-in-progress.
If you’re looking for the best FREE HTC Vice VR experiences head over here.
Last updated: 2018-04-24
I’m planning on updating this article periodically throughout 2018 with the best free HTC Vive VR experiences on Steam. I’m sure many of these games work for Oculus Rift and on other platforms, but I only have a HTC Vive and play pretty much exclusively through Steam.
Note: order is not important, I’m just adding them sequentially based on when I played or when I remembered to add them. This also includes games from all time, not just 2018. And lastly, this is a work-in-progress.
If you’re looking for the best PAID HTC Vice VR experiences head over here.
Here are 10 things to help casual and amateur players become immediately better at Counter-Strike.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched teammates die to exposed AWPers or run through doorways which were clearly covered. Each hoping they’ll get the glory of the kill. These are stupid risks. Always assume your enemy is accurate and ready. Instead, you should reassess and realize that running in blind is a last resort. I would rather a team run out the clock attempting strategies than lose to stupid risks. At least that way you’re experimenting with what works as opposed to reinforcing the idea that running in is a valid option. Over time this will reduce your deaths, reduce mistakes and stupid risks, increase your odds of winning, and expand your understanding of what’s possible.
Getting a kill is rewarding, but injuring the enemy can be even more effective. By obeying our impulses it’s easy to chase enemies through doorways or around corners in an attempt to secure a kill, but often this can lead to an unnecessary death. It is important to catch ourselves in those moments and be patient instead. Let a supporting teammate throw a grenade or simply hold the position so they have to walk back into your advantage. Let them rotate into your other allies or slowly flank them together. There are many options which don’t sacrifice your advantage, but can still result in you getting a kill. Wait for opportunities when possible, don’t become someone else’s opportunity.
When things don’t happen immediately I will often seem teammates rotating or revealing their position. Often times it seems like the moment they do, the enemy shows themselves a couple seconds later. Had they been more patient they wouldn’t have exposed themselves to an increased likelihood of death and could have maintained an advantage over the enemy. Sometimes just staying quietly hidden in an area forces the enemy to move slower, allows you to hear their presence, and then gives your team more time to rotate in, as opposed to impatience leading to an immediate firefight, your death, a quick bomb plant, and less time for your allies to rotate in. Be patient and move when you have more information.
It can be intimidating when the enemy floods into your bombsite or you find yourself clutching a round. I’ve seen players get nervous when the weight of a round rests on their shoulders, understandably so. However, I take solace in these moment when I think about statistics. My teammates may want or expect me to win, but the numbers suggest otherwise. In those moments the likelihood of success drops considerably and so it’s less about winning and more about smart decisions. Are you carrying an expensive weapon? Then maybe focusing on survival is the best option. Do you need to clutch because your eco is low and the enemy is gaining momentum? Then don’t engage, but don’t expect to win, instead attempt to injure. Use hit and run techniques to extend the number of opportunities you have to engage and possibly get a kill. Let the other side get greedy and chase into your positional advantage or keep them busy and let the bomb finish off a player.
Spread out, don’t move into firing lines, don’t bunch up, and don’t get greedy. Let your team support you as you support them. Share kills. Make sure someone is watching the rear. It can be comical at times how much like a herd we act, all looking in the direction of a recent kill or rotating to support an ally and leaving a position wide open. I’ve seen allies block doorways and one-by-one step through to their deaths instead of all rushing as was planned. A good player needs to recognize what role they should fill from moment to moment.
This one is simple, but fails all the time. When your plan is to rush a bombsite, don’t stop because someone shot at you. It sucks to be the first two guys into a bombsite, but it has to happen. Do your job, take the fire, call out the positions, do damage if possible, but don’t stop running. The moment you stop you bunch up which increases the likelihood of enemy fire hitting someone, it increases their effectiveness of grenades, and often blocks teammates from shooting enemies. Give yourself every advantage in those strategies because you’re already operating at a massive disadvantage.
Don’t think of grenades as weapons, think of them as tools. If you want to kill your enemy a grenade is not an effective option. A bullet to the head is infinitely better. Instead use grenades to delay, distract, and injure. There is just too much time between switching weapons to make it a good tactic. In fact, I’d suggest early on to avoid purchasing grenades at all so you don’t get into the bad habit of pulling them out at bad moments. It is better to stay alive, keep your weapon out, and learn other parts of the game. Master grenades later on or rely on team communication to instruct you when to use them.
This sounds obvious, but it happens constantly. Allies will get overzealous and injure their teammates or, even more likely, blind them. As I mentioned above, use grenades as tools and call out what you’re about to do with them. More importantly, don’t get greedy and throw HE grenades to try and secure kills when your teammates are chasing the enemy.
Early on in my gaming career I had the bad habit of constantly reloading. Game after game I let this bad habit get me killed until I finally addressed it. I know there is an impulse to be prepared and not get caught with your pants down, but reloading is another strategic element of the game. Don’t reload when engaged with the enemy, it makes you too vulnerable. Instead, conserve your shots, back up, and try to find safety if possible. If there’s no way you’re going to make it and the count is low, switch to your pistol, that’s what it’s there for.
Always know who the bomb carrier is and be sure to never miss an opportunity to plant. This doesn’t mean choose bad times to plant the bomb and get yourself killed, it just means don’t forget to plant the bomb after securing the site. It also means, plant the bomb when the odds are against you to secure money for your team instead of trying to survive 1-vs-whatever.
This is something I rarely see players do, but suppression fire is real. Don’t worry about wasting ammo, usually you’ll never run out, and delaying a push can give real advantages. Especially if you’re focused on injuring enemies, like mentioned above, suppression fire can be an even stronger barrier to an injured player.
When I was actively creating YouTube content I produced a series called Behind the Play which reviewed strategy and tactics in competitive games. Here are the notes from studying Counter-Strike: Global Offensive:
Remember with CS:GO, things like suppression fire and pressuring don’t work as obviously in something like LoL or Dota 2 where you can deny farming. But they DO exist. You can suppress and pressure enemies out of areas to buy time for bomb plants or save allies.
Highly skilled players must recognize a running calculation that determines their team advantage. The higher the skill, the more this mindset is considered. Kills are the most obvious form of advantage, but there are many exploitable options in CS:GO. For example, if you can afford 1 second of suppression fire, that is better than 0 seconds. Even if the advantage gained is minuscule, a well synergized team can exploit it or enact other actions that stack a growing advantage for your team. For instance, 1 second of suppression may be long enough for a vulnerable teammate to switch from a grenade back to his rifle to better protect himself. Or drawing fire because you’re at a further range or not in possession of the bomb.
Movement Advantages – It’s important to take note of where players move from the spawn position. Once a route is selected it is rarely changed because lost time equates to better timing and positioning for the enemy (same with indecision). Although if done intentionally it can confuse the enemy team as long as your players are positioned correctly.
Timing Advantages – Choosing your timing for particular strats are incredibly important. At higher levels of play, and even inadvertently at lower levels, timing of just 1-3 seconds can completely change a round. For example, a split rush on bombsite B on dust2: if the terrorists in tunnel begin their attack at the right moment, the CT watching mid will turn his back to reinforce his ally who’s just called for help. Done correctly, the terrorist at mid will enter just as the CT becomes vulnerable, taking an easy kill and helping secure B. However, if the tunnel Ts are delayed by even a second or two, the CT at mid will see the T coming, NOT turn his back and level the playing field in terms of who wins the gunfight. Now B cannot be secured in a timely manner because the mid CT may live to delay the bomb plant, which in turn allows CTs from A to reinforce faster, along with denying positioning advantages for the Ts.
Awareness Advantages – An important aspect of this game is positioning, you need to dynamically cover positions as the variables change. Starting with 5 players, you take your initial positioning and begin gathering intel. Based on enemy movements, you begin your adjustments to counter whatever it is they’re doing. When engagement occurs it is often very easy to get caught up in the physical confrontation, but it’s equally important to keep a running record of variable changes so you can continue adjusting your strategy. Failure to do so will place your team at a running disadvantage. It’s useful to develop a pattern for eye movement, frequently glancing around the screen to gather intel (minimap and ammo count).
Positioning Advantages – There are also positioning advantages to take into account when performing a “mixed buy”. This means a couple of “wealthier” teammates are heavier weapons, while the rest save. The point being that the heavier weapons are placed in key positions (strong positions) where they can secure kills or at least suppress enemies (defend plants, etc.). They are also placed in positions where teammates can easily recover the weapon should the teammate die. Here is the full explanation via Reddit user btattersall:
“Firstly you would need to be playing with a TEAM that knows what is happening and how to coordinate their positioning. The point of a buy like that is to put a heavy weapon in two key positions (likely bombsites, or adjacent) and to ensure that your teammates can recover the weapon before the other team does. Probably makes most sense when you have two people who are hard-fragging, and three who are lower on cash and kills. The two who are juiced with kill cash make the buy, distribute the weapons as necessary, and even up the economy for the whole team, so they can make the rest of their decisions together. The rifles take a longer-range sightline with good cover, and the others play closer positions with nades to try and bait the other team into over extending where they don’t realize there is a heavy weapon. Not easy to pull off, even if you have practiced the strategy, but might be able to win you a marginal round if the other team is caught off guard, but at worst your economy levels out and you are able to run your standard save or buy strats which you have probably practiced more.”
Conservation of Ammo and Reloading – Don’t worry about conserving ammo. Utilize suppression fire and pre-fire techniques because you will rarely run out of ammo. Additionally, don’t reload unnecessarily or at inappropriate times. It can be somewhat compulsive to keep your gun stocked with bullets, but frequent reloading at inopportune times will only result in a disadvantage.
Spray Patterns – Keep control of your firearm by either firing rounds manually or controlling spray patterns. Understand how each gun fires in rapid succession so you can maximize the statistical likelihood that your rounds make contact.
Headshots – Aim for the head. This may sound obvious, but in Counter-Strike it is especially important. In other games, the penalty for body shots first, is less, but in Counter-Strike it is steep. Professional and even just moderately skilled players will generally place their first round as a headshot. If you are aiming for the chest, which may seem intuitive since it’s a larger target, you will be placed at a severe disadvantage.
Grenades – Decoy grenades emit a gun shot sound to trick enemies, exploding at the end of its lifespan. Grenades also have a variety of strategies attached to them. They can delay rushes, distract enemies, and bait rotations. They can also cause enemies to fire their weapons in response which can reveal how many enemies are in a certain area.
SMGs – SMG buys need to be more strategic than simply “I don’t want to, or can’t, buy a rifle, so I’ll get an SMG”. Instead coordinate with your team, the rifle buys should position themselves in stronger, more advantageous positions while the SMG buys float or play more aggressively. The point being that they are the first to get killed, BUT weaken the enemy team. The rifle positioning should be further back to cover bomb sites and finish off the enemy players who’ve been weakened by SMG fire. It’s also important that the rifles don’t get dropped early on, or far up, for the enemy team to pick up and use. Your team should try and recover the rifles because they are in good positions to do so. So for someone in my position of playing support / clutch, I should almost always have a rifle. You can also bait with SMGs to draw enemies into your riflers. These strategies also level out your economy by having high income players distributing rifles to low income players.
The bomb carrier can force a commitment if he dies with the bomb in a bad location.
Grouping too closely increases a single enemies chance of each round hitting an enemy player.
When it’s hopeless (1-v-5), your objectives are different:
If the enemy knows where you are, then you can safely exploit suppression fire (if they didn’t, doing so would reveal your position):
On anti-eco rounds (2nd round after a 1st round win), hold longer positions so you can’t get killed by a pistol and instead gather intel. Hold back, see where the enemy is weak, get picks, and then move out. The reason for this is because CTs like to stack after a 1st round loss which means one side of the map is super weak and one side is really strong. Find the weak one, call it and rotate.
Having a lurker is good and the position can change depending on the rotate:
When pushing a bombsite it’s important to have proper spacing and positions for your teammates. Having the bomb carrier and an escort rush up while 2 hold further back for support, allows the support riflers not to get flashed and grenaded by incoming CTs. That way if the rushing T’s get lit up or blinded, they aren’t immediately killed because the support riflers can lay down fire and get picks.
Remember, along with not worrying about ammo count and just laying down fire, you should also be using your grenades. If you’re dying with them then you’re basically losing out on some serious potential advantages. It’s much better to use them and increase your odds of winning because they’re relatively cheap. The potential gain is thousands of dollars while the potential loss is only hundreds.
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