Now Playing: Moss (VR)

Moss is a VR adventure game that released way back in 2018, but unlike many other older VR titles that haven’t quite stood the test of time, Moss is easily one of the best VR games I’ve played.

You play as a ‘reader’ who guides the adorable little mouse Quill on a quest to rescue her Uncle from the evil Sarffog. Despite its age, the game still looks fantastic with a variety of environments, clever use of VR perspective and some wonderfully expressive animations for your furry little companion.

You control Quill like you would a character in a typical third person game, using the thumbstick to move as you explore, jump and fight your way to Quill’s Uncle. The game features a mix of platforming, puzzles and very simple combat.

As part of the story, Quill is aware of your presence and will interact with you as you guide her, using sign language to communicate or – most amusingly – asking for a high five whilst doing a fun little dance if you’ve overcome a particularly tricky challenge.

Your connection to Quill helps invest you not just in the story, but your progress through the game. The two of you are a team, and many puzzles will require you to work together if you want to progress. You’ll primarily be playing Moss sitting, but you can also stand to get a better perspective on the environment, peering over walls and helping you line up more tricky jumps.

It took me about four and a half hours to complete Moss, although I didn’t find every collectible. It felt like just the right length for a game that’s extremely well paced and designed. This is a very polished game where every aspect feels carefully considered and executed – from visuals, to music, to narration, to puzzle design.

Combat is probably the weakest part, however. It’s fine for what it offers, but I feel like they could have added a little more enemy variety to the game, and the combat certainly would have benefited from a Zelda style ‘lock on’.

Overall, I don’t have much more to say about Moss other than to recommend it if you’ve got a VR headset and haven’t tried it yet. It’s a clever, fun little adventure that even ends with a surprisingly satisfying final boss fight. I’ll definitely be picking up the sequel later in the year.

8/10

Suburban Killbot: Steam Replay 2025

In 2025 I played 22 games on Steam unlocking 773 achievements. 62% of these games were new releases, 38% were released in the last 1-7 years and 0% were released 8 or more years ago. This is an almost perfect reverse compared to last year in terms of release windows – 21 games, 486 achievements, 38% new, 62% recent, and 0% old.

0% of my total playtime was spent in VR games in 2025 compared to 4% last year, but that’s not to say I didn’t spend any time in VR – I was just playing stuff natively in my Quest 3.

39% of my time was spent playing games with a controller. The top 3 were Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Ghost of Tsushima and Stellar Blade. This was an increase from 32% last year.

My longest daily streak in 2025 was 77 days from Wed, April 23rd to Wed July 9th in which I played 13 different games. In 2024 it was 42 days and 9 different games.

My overall top 3 most played games by % of playtime were Battlefield 6 (14%) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (10%) and Avowed (8%).

June was the busiest month with 15% of my total playtime, and September was the slowest with only 3%.

Now Playing: Red Matter (VR)

Red Matter is a puzzle focused sci-fi VR game that released back in 2018. You play as ‘Agent Epsilon’ who has been sent to a investigate a secret research facility on Saturn’s Moon, Rhea. As you explore the facility, you’ll learn about the small team that worked there and the dangerous discovery that they made.

From a narrative point of view, Red Matter is pretty decent. It’s set in an alterative Cold War style universe where a war was fought between the ‘Atlantic Union’ and ‘Volgravia’. Because you don’t speak or read ‘Volgravian’, you’ll use a scanner to translate text you encounter throughout the facility.

This gives you an insight into the researchers who lived and worked there, but also allows you to understand the controls of various machines you’ll need to operate in order to progress. There’s no combat in Red Matter. This is a puzzle game with some (very) basic platforming involved. You can use smooth locomotion if you wish, but there’s also a ‘teleport’ option of sorts, in the sense that you can choose a location on the ground and use your spacesuit to jet pack over to it.

The puzzles are simple but fun. Structurally, the game sees you move from one level of the facility to the next, and in each level you’ll have a puzzle to solve involving some kind of machine – opening an airlock, or reactivating a power generator, for example. There’s lot of knobs to pull, switches to flip and buttons to press providing a fairly tactile VR experience.

Visually, Red Matter still looks decent despite its age thanks to the simple but effective art direction of the facility environment. There’s a bit of a ‘horror’ angle to the game, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a horror oriented experience, and maybe the game would have benefited by leaning more into that aspect.

The real problem I have with Red Matter is the length. I completed it in about two and a half hours and that was with me being quite thorough when it came to scanning. Now, games should be as long as they need to be – length certainly doesn’t equal quality. But Red Matter is not as long as it needs to be.

The best way I can describe it is that I felt like I’d played a demo of Red Matter rather than the full game. The ending hit quite abruptly, just when I felt like the game was about to open up and become more complex and interesting. But no, it just ends. Maybe that was a budget issue? I don’t know. I just know that Red Matter doesn’t offer much of a substantial experience or a satisfying conclusion.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy my time with it, and if you see it on sale for a few quid, it’s probably worth picking up. And I’ll probably give the sequel a shot in the future to see how they’ve built upon this fun but extremely limited experience.

5/10

Steam Winter Sale: Damage Report

I didn’t pick much up in last year’s Winter Sale, but this year I went a little mad. First up – VR games!

I played the demo of Hubris a year or so ago (?) and it seemed okay, so when I saw it on sale for only 6 quid, I figured it was worth a spin. As someone who likes the Metro games (but doesn’t love them) I thought Metro Awakening would be worth a try on sale.

And then we have Red Matter and Moss, two quite highly regarded (but older) VR games. And finally there’s Ghost Town a fairly recent release from the same people who made The Room VR which I liked but felt was rather limited, so I’m curious to see if this one builds upon that experience.

Next up is No, I’m Not a Human which I played a demo of during the Summer Next Fest and quite liked, so I’m curious to see how the full release shakes out. And during the same Next Fest I also played a demo of (and really enjoyed) Dispatch so this was an easy buy.

As a big fan of Doom: Eternal I wasn’t sure if I’d like the new approach to combat in Doom: The Dark Ages but I’m certainly willing to give it a shot.

RV There Yet? is something I picked up cheap to play with a friend. Has good reviews, but no idea if we’ll enjoy it. And finally we have Coral Island which my friend gifted me. I enjoyed Stardew Valley so I’ve been interested in trying this out for a while but I don’t know when I’ll have time to get stuck into it.