After digging into nearly 20 titles, we've pulled together the top five VR sports games for the Oculus Rift that will scratch that itch for anyone looking for VR gameplay that's both active and competitive. When anyone mentions sports video games, your mind is immediately going to go to the heavy hitters such as football, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. In VR though, sports feel entirely different when you’re aren't just controlling a character—you actually become the character. When I set out to find the best VR sports games I initially thought that titles grounded in 'traditional sports' would be the best, but in many ways, it was the games which presented me with entirely new sports concepts that played best in VR. 5. Racket: NX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUIynQRFRd0 Also available on: Steam (Vive, Rift, Windows VR), Viveport (Vive), Windows Store (Windows VR) Racket NX has a similar racquetball-feel to HoloBall (#4 below), but the goal is different. Instead of trying to bounce the ball and sneak past a defender, in Racket NX you want to get the ball to roll along the wall and touch as many tiles as possible. The more spaces you can roll the ball onto the higher your combo gets and the more points you score. There's a finesse to hitting the ball just right to get it to roll, rather than just bounce off the wall, to try and accumulate the most points. The other really neat part about Racket: NX, is the way sound comes into play. The game uses spatial audio tech so you can determine where the ball is by sound, and there's also a top notch soundtrack and audio-reactive visuals to boot. A total of three main modes are offered in Racket: NX: Solo, Multiplayer, and Arcade. Multiplayer has you square off head to head against another player. After a series of rounds the player with the highest score wins. The Solo mode sets up a variety of scenarios and gives the player a time limit on how long they have to hit all of the spaces. Each scenario is different and presents a different challenge to players. The Arcade mode offers both a Zen mode and an Old School mode. Zen mode is another endless mode that generates scenarios and allows players to get used to the mechanics without the stress of a timer. The Old School mode sets ups a timer and has players trying to outplay the timer and max out their score. I found the Zen mode to be incredibly relaxing in Racket: NX and a good way to get familiar with the game's mechanics. The Solo mode is a good way to refine that basic learning with a little more motivation and challenge. One knock against this game is I had to keep turning around to see all of targets on the walls, and the cable of my headset kept getting caught around my ankle which is distracting. Players with typical front-facing Rift setups may run into occlusion issues which can result in inaccurate swings (annoying when you're getting competitive!); definitely consider a two-sensor 360 setup, or even a three-sensor room-scale setup to get the most out of Racket: NX. Otherwise I found this take on a racquetball-style game to be incredibly challenging and fun. 4. HoloBall https://youtu.be/veogAaPA_BU Also available on: Steam (Vive, Rift), Viveport (Vive) Holoball is like next-level 3D pong in VR. The main premise of Holoball is to hit the ball into the backboard behind your target. Both of your hands in this case act as racquets (in real world racquetball you only get one racquet, bummer). You want to try to hit the ball off the wall or do whatever you can to trick your opponent and sneak the ball in behind them. Another neat feature is after you hit the ball, if you don’t like where it is heading, you can squeeze the trigger on the controller and a beam connects the ball to you and you can pull it back towards you. This saved me from a couple of goofy mistakes multiple times. The AI in the game is basically a big square with a launcher on it that slides around the grid and tries to repel your shots back at you. Sometimes the ball gets pulled into the launcher and it is fired at you with a faster speed. There are three main mode choices for Holoball: Arcade, Campaign, and Multiplayer. Within Arcade mode there is a Zen mode, a Score Attack and Endurance Mode. Zen mode removes the AI that is present in the other modes and just places you against a blank wall. You take your time and just level shots at the wall, and can totally lose track of time. Score Attack mode brings the AI back into play; the goal of this mode is to try to accumulate the most points before the AI scores three times on you. The points are obtained by hitting shots off of walls, with a bonus for acing the serve, in the shortest amount of time. There’s a small break with a score breakdown between each round in Score Attack mode. Endurance mode similar to Score Attack where the session ends after three goals, but there is no points breakdown, you just want to see how many goals you can make before the AI can score three on you. The Campaign is broken up into Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert, and they are serious. Each mode the AI gets more challenging as each round goes by. Refreshingly the Medium difficulty is even challenging. The multiplayer is a 1 vs. 1 scenario online, or a local multiplayer mode where a player sitting at the PC can take control of the AI paddle to face off against the user in the headset. The game's aesthetic really sold me; the colors, music, and arena are all fitting and lots of fun, and the synthwave soundtrack ties it all together. I used to play a bunch of racquetball in college and Holoball reminded me of that with the attitude bumped way up. The Zen mode was a great way to just hit the ball around and get a feel for the game. It was also relaxing and enjoyable just hit the ball around and trying to outsmart the AI in the Endurance mode. The feel of the game keeps you engaged and you can end up blowing a lot of time without even knowing it. 3. Echo Arena (free) https://youtu.be/5xPRIocr8ts Also Available on: Revive (Vive, unofficial) Echo Arena is that futuristic sport you’ve always dreamed of—essentially a game of zero-G ultimate frisbee. Moving around in zero gravity and throwing a disk is a really unique experience, and you'll quickly develop the skills of leading long throws and catches across the game's large arena. Each game is set up as two teams of three (or up to 5 vs. 5 in private matches) which start on opposing sides. The objective is to try to throw the disk up the arena as fast as possible and pass it through the goal. To defend the goal or stop players on a break away you can grab onto the player and punch them to stun them, or intercept the disk during a throw. There are different methods of propulsion in the game such as grabbing edges and throwing yourself forward, using wrist boosters for fine manipulation of movement, and a larger boost to power yourself in the direction you are looking. Because the game has you moving in all directions (even up and down), users with front-facing setups will need to rotate themselves with the joystick. This is another game where, if you get into it, you should definitely consider a two-sensor 360 setup, or even a three-sensor room-scale setup to get the most out of the game. Prior to each match the team members start in a staging, and as the match is about to start 'launch tubes' open up and players scramble into them to try to reach the catapult. The catapult will launch players into the arena as the match begins—an essential strategy to be the first team to reach the disc in the middle of the arena. There’s a bunch of nuance to scoring a goal (including dunking, two-pointers, and three-pointers), which adds depth. Although there's no AI or single-player mode, the tutorial, practice arena, and 'combat room' add a layer of fun, especially as they're all contained in the game's social lobby—meaning that you can practice, talk, and play around with other players while you wait to join a match, rather than just staring at a menu. The combat room is simply that, a room where you can practice stunning other players with punches, and the practice arena is a miniature arena with two goals and obstacles to practice movement, passing, and shooting on goal. One knock against the practice arena though, is there was only one disk (that I could find) available for practice, which meant other players would sometimes troll people by stealing the disc—a little annoying when you're trying actually trying to practice. You can also customize your avatar in the social lobby, and you'll unlock new graphics, colors, and emotes as you rank up, adding a nice touch as you can make yourself look distinct from other players. Echo Arena seems to attract a younger crowd, which at times can be a bit brutal to a new player trying to learn controls in a match. Thankfully I also found great groups of folks who were patient and fun to play with. Once you get the hang of it matches get much more enjoyable, and you learn some spiffy tricks like how to use those boosts at the beginning of matches, which I seriously struggled with at first. Especially with friends and some practice, Echo Arena is a blast. If you like Echo Arena, also consider its sibling Lone Echo, which is made by the same developer and uses similar locomotion mechanics (but entirely different gameplay elements) to take you on a harrowing, single-player adventure. Continued on Page 2 » 2. The Climb https://youtu.be/1ObohOYk1DI Also available on: Revive (Vive, unofficial) Personally, the idea of a climbing game sounded bland to me before I actually played The Climb, but the game proves that rockclimbing can work uniquely well in VR. You'll be using Touch controllers to grab on to hand holds in the rock face, and even vault yourself upward to grab a particularly far hold—really immersing you in the world. It also helps that the game is beautiful, easily one of VR's best looking to date. Small details like soaring birds, planes flying overhead, and distant boats far below you in the water really sell the feeling of standing in the midst of a huge landscape. Be sure to turn up the graphics options if you're rocking a high-end GPU. The Climb offers four different zones, The Bay, Canyon, Alps and North. Each map is a different aesthetic and each offer their own individual looks and climbing challenges. Within each zone are maps with increasing difficulty (easy, medium and hard). The purpose of each map is to follow the handholds and use the skills you have learned in the tutorials to hit various checkpoints (lettered A, B, and C). When you reach a checkpoint, you'll be rewarded with a vista that's truly worth a moment of your time. A leaderboard keeps track of the points you’ve accumulated through each map and compares them with your friends scores. Your score is accumulated by how good your flow was (how fluidly you move through each challenge), total height achieved, and any trinkets/secrets you find along the way. A few times I did have an issue trying to push my character to jump to a wall behind her, but otherwise climbing up the rock face was incredibly satisfying. I had also thought falling would be really jarring and take away from the experience, but it turned out not to be an issue, aside from giving me quite a surprise the first time I fell. Stretching to reach those far handholds or executing a jump on the first try to maintain a good rhythm also felt really satisfying and added a nice boost to my score. The Climb is a relaxing yet challenging sport experience different from anything I could’ve expected. 1. Sparc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPQStaF4x_I Also available on: Steam (Vive, Rift), Playstation Store (PSVR) At its most intense, Sparc becomes an intense whirlwind of glowing orbs flying back and forth, but is never disorienting. I was able to keep up with the orbs as they bounced around the room as I tried to score points against my opponent. Sparc's multiplayer, which was the ultimate draw for me, is a one vs. one scenario: you want to try and hit your opponent or their backboard with your ball, while at the same time defending yourself and your own backboard with a holo-paddle. The multiplayer is very competitive and the small playing field makes it a rather fast paced game with a lot of intense moments. In the heat of the moment I had a tendency to jump for balls, so if you have a low ceiling or otherwise a cramped playspace, you may punch your surroundings (it happened to a few folks I've played against). In addition to the multiplayer mode there is a single-player challenge mode where you'll go through various challenges, such as hitting targets for deflecting orbs in a certain manner, to help you train. Sparc seemed to attract an older crowd, and I played several games against a pair of guys who were having a blast switching back and forth in one headset against me. It was still competitive and I found myself breathless after matches putting in as much effort as I could to try to win. Sometimes it was a little difficult for me to hit the ball as hard as I thought I was swinging, but generally control of the ball feels pretty good. The visual direction is well done, with bright neon colors which make it easy to track your ball against the opponent's ball. Avatar customization was also a welcomed bonus, adding a nice touch of personality and expression to the game. Honorable Mention: Sports Challenge VR [caption id="attachment_77159" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image courtesy Sanzaru Games[/caption] Also available on: Revive (Vive, unofficial) Sports Challenge VR couldn't go without mention in this list. If you’re looking for a game that feels more like the traditional sports that you know and love, this is the one for you. It offers a fun set of mini-games spanning basketball, hockey, and football. In all honesty, I thought this game was going to be incredibly boring. As a hockey fan, I was surprised to see a VR hockey game so I jumped right into that one. You start off as the goalie and have to block shots using your glove and stick. After batting away enough pucks your team goes on the breakaway and you zoom into the perspective of the player with the puck who is lining up for a shot on goal. You'll see the puck lining up with your player in slow motion and if you swing at the right time you'll score the goal. There's even a hockey fight mini-game which can be quite challenging as you'll have to duck, dodge, and punch out your opponent. The other mini-games are similar in that you start as one player and break into another after completing an action (like throwing a football as the quarterback, and then teleporting to the receiver's perspective to catch the ball in slow motion). There is also a career mode that helps unlock more minigames for each main sport. In each of the main sports you accumulate fans, which correlate to points, and they help you unlock additional activities for each sport. Another option is the mini-game mode that just provides a series of mini-games like a three point challenge or a homerun derby. Sports Challenge VR mini-games can get a little monotonous after a while, but I still found them to be tons of fun and worth playing. - - — - - As I said up top, this is not at all what I expected my list of top VR sports games to look like, but these five were the most fun and engaging experiences that provide an active and competitive 'sports' feel. Each of these games felt challenging and entertaining and brought different things to the table compared to the traditional sports games that I played in VR. I found that the sci-fi glowing orb/disk games felt particularly immersive and engaging, possibly because they offer a take on a ‘sports’ game which simply wouldn’t work in real life, or even as traditional video games. Of course, just like sports in the real world, everyone has their favorites—did yours make the list?