7 Best New VR Games We Played at Oculus Connect

Oculus Connect 3, the annual Oculus developer-focused VR convention, is underway, and we had the chance to play seven new Oculus Rift games. Many of the titles use the Rift’s upcoming Touch motion-tracked controllers, and they felt like fun, polished games, as opposed to the VR tech demos and "proof of concepts" we’ve been so accustomed to.

Click through our gallery here to read about some of our favorite Oculus Rift titles so far.

The VR version of Superhot is different from the version released earlier this year. The Oculus version is built from the ground up to take advantage of the Rift’s Touch controllers.

The premise of the game remains the same. There are polygonal red goons that are out to kill you, both by punching and shooting you. The shtick here is that time moves really slowly when you’re not moving; conversely, time moves normally when you do move. You can read our full review of the original game for a more in-depth explanation of the mechanics.

The Touch controllers allow you to punch, shoot, or throw objects at enemies. If you act quickly, you can even yank the guns right out of your enemies’ hands. However, you’re often outnumbered by a factor of four-to-one or more, and it only takes one hit from either a bullet or a punch to take you out. In the VR version, you have to physically duck, weave, and contort your body to avoid getting hit. It’s exhaustingly fun, and after playing the demo for 20 minutes, my face started sweating up a storm. Beating levels makes you feel like a bullet-dodging bad-ass straight out of the Matrix. Without a doubt, Superhot is one of the most promising VR games on the horizon.

Developed by Insomniac Games, The Unspoken is a 1v1 first-person wizard-dueling game. It’s a multiplayer-only title where you pick one of three spellcasters, each offering their own unique abilities. I had the chance to play two classes. The first one was a kinetic spellcaster who’s able to use telekinesis to summon and push objects at enemies. The second one I played was a fireball-casting wizard.

The game requires the Oculus Touch controllers and primary spells are charged by holding down the trigger on your main hand. From here, you can release the button to fling fireballs towards your foe. The off-hand controller is generally used to summon temporary shields to block incoming attacks. The game also uses teleportation to let you move between platforms in the environment.

The Unspoken will launch with six levels, and each has different platform configurations and unique monsters to summon. Summoning monsters and using more advanced spells requires you to perform more complicated hand gestures. For instance, to summon a temporary wall that blocks incoming spells for a limited time, you hold down both of the Touch’s trigger buttons, cross your arms, wait for a meter to fill up, and then uncross your arms as you violently thrust them towards the ground.

The Unspoken is one of the most polished and involved competitive VR experiences I've played yet. The game will be available when the Touch launches.

Lone Echo is a sci-fi game that takes place in space. You play as a robot named Jack. The demo starts off with a tutorial where you float around a spaceship. You use the Touch controllers to push off the environment and fly around the shuttle.

Thrusters built into your avatar's wrists allow you tus to use the Touch controllers to slowly move around the environment for more fine-tuned controls without the need to rely on walls.

After completing the tutorials, the game sends you outside of the ship to investigate a strange aurora-like anomaly floating off in the distance. The scale and blackness of space look hauntingly atmospheric. Shortly after fixing and replacing a broken satellite on the ship, one of the human characters calls you to help them. As you make your way to assist her, you see that her leg is stuck in one of the ship’s hatches as dangerous debris comes tumbling towards her. Throughout your endeavor to pull her leg out, Jack speaks in his monotone robotic voice in an attempt to calm her. I couldn’t help but feel like the friendly robots from the movie Interstellar, who attempt to save the human protagonists in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic.

The demo ends after a massive ship beams in from the mysterious anomaly and a large piece of wreckage comes flying towards the screen. Lone Echo looks like it will be a highly cinematic game. Its major downside at the moment is that it does not have a release date.

Landfall may look like an RTS, but it actually plays more like a tactical twin-stick shooter. While Landfall will have a single-player campaign, I played a 2v2 mode of the game, which put one team on attack and the other on defense. Modes are varied, with a selection of control points and payload maps to choose from.

The little foot soldier you control can pick up grenades on the map and can call down mech suits to hop into. You can also transform these mechs into turrets and mow down enemies in first-person. While you’re only controlling one character, each team has dozens of AI foot soldiers that assist in combat.

There are also different combat loadouts you can choose from. The basic one equips your soldier with standard bullets, but another possible loadout gives you a gun that shoots bolts of electricity.

The game is fun, strategic, and one I want to play more. Landfall currently does not have a release date.

Developed by Epic Games using the Unreal Engine 4, Robo Recall is a free, first-person-shooter that’s built for Oculus’ Touch controllers.

Graphically, the game looks great. If Epic Games knows how to do one thing well, it’s graphics. Robo Recall uses VR teleportation, which allows you to move around a Manhattan-esque city shooting other robots with pistols and shotguns. I was able to teleport up onto balconies and rain down gunfire towards enemies below. I could also use the Touch controllers to hold enemy robots down and rip their limbs off. Towards the end of the demo, I fought a giant mech. Once I damaged it enough, I could take control of its advanced lasers to blast incoming enemy hordes. If you’re into arcade-like shooters, you'll find a lot to like in Robo Recall.

The game is slated to launch Q1 of next year.

Luna is made by some of the developers behind Journey. The title walks the line between being a game and a cinematic experience.

The premise of Luna is that a little bird is tricked by an owl to eat the last remaining bits of the moon. Somewhere along the line, the bird loses its memory. It’s a pretty trippy premise, and, like Journey before it, there are no in-your-face tutorials. Rather, the developers are trying to make Luna an experience that feels mysterious yet intuitive to play.

The game's puzzle sections have you using the Touch controllers to drag floating stars into certain positions to unearth constellations. Doing so reveals remnants of the bird’s hidden memories. These remnants then manifest themselves as physical objects that you can place into a scene. Once you’ve unearthed enough of these remnants, the scene comes alive as a cinematic, and represents the bird remembering a significant event.

Luna may sound like a really weird, abstract game, and that’s because it is. If you enjoy off-kilter games like Flower and Journey, Luna is one to watch out for.

Dragon Front is a collectible card game in the vein of Hearthstone, except that there’s a fully rendered 3D battleground. The 1v1 game features a 4x4 grid and, before the start of a match, you draw a deck of cards. Like many other CCGs, each card represents units that have their own special abilities and health points. Some cards in Dragon Front might provide you with troops that can hit hard but must be within melee range, while other cards may provide you with catapults that can shoot enemies from afar. All the units have little attack animations that bolster the immersion in VR. Imagine looking down at a chess board and seeing pieces hack at each other and you get the idea.

The ultimate goal of a match is to destroy the enemy stronghold, but before you can damage your enemy’s base, you’ve got to kill the units blocking its line of sight. Dragon Front is a turn-based game where mana represents ability points. Stronger cards will generally consume more mana, and you get more mana after every turn. Both sides also have stronghold champions, which are basically super strong offensive units that cost a ton of mana. Knowing when to attack or save mana to use your champion adds to the strategy of the game. One interesting VR gimmick is that you can see the other player’s giant floating head avatar on the other side. This allows you to see where on the board they are looking.

Dragon Front is in beta now.