A Must-Play VR Game | Vertigo 2 Review

This Solo-developed game completely blew my expectations out of the water.

CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED. Super impressive for a solo project, and overall a bombastic, incredible, fun journey from start to finish, with little flaw. A must-play for any VR player.

Vertigo 2 is a single player VR action-adventure game, originally released in 2023. Developed by Zach Tsiakalis-Brown, an amazingly talented solo developer, it fairs great user reviews and has garnered a nice following of fans, many of which are not hesitant to recommend it, me included!

It’s a journey through secret labs and strange worlds, accompanied by a few talkative characters, human and otherwise, with some quippy bits of dialogue from time to time, and some arguably fantastic pieces of humor throughout. The weapons have fun reloads and mechanics, and are all very satisfying to shoot at aliens and robots. Combat encounters at times can be exceptionally difficult through hectic skirmishes, the most challenging of which will see you using every weapon in your arsenal to overcome the odds, especially if you’re up against any of its bosses, of which there’s a nice handful to defeat.

The main game will see you traversing through 18 different chapters, almost all of which will shake up the environment you’re in, and the enemies you face, as you attempt to find your way back home. This all while perhaps saving the universe from certain and uncertain multidimensional dooms.

My biggest praise for Vertigo 2 is actually it’s humor. It’s everywhere. You read a sign on the wall, it’s very funny, gets a good laugh. Characters say something a little off kilter, loved that. Here’s water 2. Here’s anti-matter, aptly labeled as “known by the state of California to cause cancer”. It wears humor on its sleeve, and in little details, and it never missed for me.

It’s not always funny though, Vertigo 2 takes care to commit to making you feel a wide range of emotions, like coolness in an action sequence, wondrous, as you explore a dimension beyond our own, or even scared to death, to my dismay... With an action gameplay loop that’s on paper, pretty standard from start to finish, the perceived variety of the game and range of emotions you’ll feel across your adventure within it is impressive.

Other praise I have, is for the uniqueness of every idea in the game. The monsters look nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before. The plant life and vegetation similarly follow suit. The characters and environments also, quite unique. Guns have their own flare with ammo, reloads, or some other interaction. The uniqueness of every detail makes Vertigo 2 have the weight to feel like a grand interdimensional adventure.

Now, a complaint. The environments are massive in scope and scale, which accents their realism in this fictional universe. The realism the openness brings is awesome, and contributes to the game’s big budget PCVR identity. However, I consistently found Vertigo 2 was inconsistent with hiding its upgrades and secrets in these environments.

I’d find myself exploring deep into the back of some room in a chapter just to find out... it’s just a room. Sometimes, only for set dressing. Occasionally, I’d find a lore collectable there, and in more rare cases, a weapon upgrade. The vastness, and freedom to explore it, while adding to the realism, sure did have its moments where I felt it wasted my time while I was on the hunt for weapon upgrades.

I took a liking to all the weapons, and enjoyed many of the firefights I got into with all the creatures, robots, and bosses across the game. The guns are all wacky takes on real gun archetypes, fitting in snug with the game’s interdimensional themes. It was always a joyous occasion, whenever I’d obtain new ones to play with. I leaned into preferring a few, mainly the revolver, for its precision and long distance, but this leaning into my trusty few didn’t detract from the fun. All the weapons have unique reloads too, and the sound design is also top-notch. My absolute favorite though? The experimental rail gun. That beautiful thing has definitely got the sauce.

Despite my flavorful arsenal of weapons and ‘elite gamer skills’, I struggled with a few sections of the game. But, with time (sometimes an embarrassing amount of it), I overcame my combat struggles and found that I could “lock in” and defeat these on particularly difficult encounters (which were often boss type enemies). This “locking in” usually involved the VR equivalent of (what felt like, from a VR standpoint mind you) Doom Eternal levels of weapon swapping, and copious amounts of teleport based, MELEE wave dashing. All while trying to keep my cool, which admittedly, did not happen sometimes. For the most part, I felt the bosses were a fantastic component of this game, adding some welcome variation to Vertigo 2’s gameplay.

So, what will you do after you beat Vertigo 2? Well, perhaps you’ll play through it again! There’s a time or two where you’re given a narrative deciding choice. Your decision doesn’t branch into a totally different ending (until the last one), but it will change the narrative of that chapter slightly and even affect a few weapons you acquire, which may not be super tempting until I mention that the game’s also got new game plus.

So those few narrative deviations, some secret weapons to find along the way (6 btw), plus starting with my full arsenal of not quite fully upgraded weapons, are all reasons that definitely tempt you to immediately start replaying the game, just to see what else is hidden away.

Vertigo 2 also has some DLC which adds a few more weapons and toys, which starts immediately after you complete the base game. You play as the scientist Brian, and go through a short little Metroidvania type experience. I thought it was short, scary, and good. Beyond that, the game has USER generated content, so you can download maps and scenarios and play the game endlessly. This, on top of after you get bored with new game plus, of course. I absolutely believe that regardless of the price you pick the game up at, you’ll find Vertigo 2 more than earns its price. Replay-ability definitely gets an “A+”.

Performance is great, by the way! Vertigo 2 ran fine with my setup, which isn’t entirely up to date or even ideal for VR gaming, and I still had a wonderful time in the headset and didn’t have any FPS drops or stuttering issues to take me out of the experience.

Ultimately, I can’t help but recommend you play Vertigo 2. This is easily among the best VR games ever made, and is certainly on my must-play list if you have access to PCVR. This is all the more impressive when you comprehend it’s all been created by a single, solo developer. It is criminally underrated! It has an excellent blend of exploration and gun based action, a nice dash of humor, and overall, has very few shortcomings that are easy to look past, in order to experience the game’s defining moments. I highly recommend you play it!