Reviews for free Oculus Gear VR games

So I finally picked up a Gear VR headset for my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Decided to download every single free game on the Oculus store since there were only so many of them. Gonna review them one by one as a fun side-project!

A little preface to this. I wasn't super impressed with the initial experience of the Gear VR. The screen door effect is real and not something I can ignore. But having said that, some experiences make it easy to overlook that, and make the Gear VR experience still as immersive and exciting as I hoped it would be.

Here are the 17 free games I could find on the Oculus store.

1. Cosmos Warfare - RECOMMENDED. Not much to do here, just tilt your head towards enemy ships and watch them explode into smithereens. Quite cool, though.
2. Totems In Dreamland - OKAY. My neck. Requires a swivel chair. Kinda cool, quite  a few levels to play through. Not that big of a fan.
3. Damnfields - MEH. Kinda boring. Essentially a game to learn how to stabilise your head.
4. Samsung School of Ruby - ERR. This one's a bit ... interesting. Not sure what's happening here.
5. Audio Arena Demo - MEH. Too much head tilting. I feel like I might hurt my neck eventually.
6. FindingVR - OKAY. Similar to God of War type games, where you have to go from room to room, dispatch a few enemies, solve puzzles, have a boss fight at the end, but with a VR touch. Best played standing and with a controller. Very short. Quite dizzying.
7. Dreadhalls Demo - RECOMMENDED. Not a big fan of horror games, but tried it out a little. Definitely immersive due to the nature of the game, despite the hardware limitations. Made me feel like I was in a dungeon. My palms were pretty sweaty.
8. Temple Run VR - MEH. Not much different from your normal Temple Run. I find using the touchpad at the side of the headset a little weird. Experience might be improved by using a controller.
9. Gumi no Yume - MEH. Push-box-into-slot game. Kinda boring.
10. PolyRunner VR - RECOMMENDED. Similar to Smash Hit in certain ways. It's one of those runner games where you aim to achieve a high score, but made a lot more fun by VR. Ads, though.
11. Smash Hit - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. This is the best VR experience I had thus far (31/03). It requires a just enough head movement, not a lot of neck movement, no need to turn around or anything. It makes me feel like I'm Cyclops from X-men. 
12. Shooting Showdown 2 VR - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. A shootout game where you pair up with some random person online. I'm not sure if I'm enjoying because it's fun or because I'm trashing the hell out of everyone else ...
13. InCell - RECOMMENDED. Holy mother of motion sickness. Maybe I shouldn't have played after a big meal. Feels like roller coaster ride, albeit a stationary one. 
14. Herobound: First Steps - RECOMMENDED. Kinda blows the other hack-and-slashes out of the water. Quite cool at first, but it gets repetitive and boring after awhile (I played for about 45 minutes). Might revise this later on. Less dizzying than FindingVR.
15. Rocket Toss - OKAY. Looks good, but I don't see how the gameplay is fun at all. Essentially a ring toss game in VR.
16. Bait! - OKAY. Looks pretty, but kinda boring. It is, afterall, a fishing game.
17. Solitaire Jester - RECOMMENDED. My first thought was "ugh, solitaire?". If you've ever played solitaire, definitely check it out. It won't be mind blowing or anything, but it's quite neat.
18. Jake and Tess' Finding Monsters Adventure - MEH. Taking pictures of monsters doing stuff? Need to play a little more because I don't get it.
19. Shironeko VR Project - OKAY. Kinda fun. Didn't expect a JRPG-ish hack-and-slash to be on the Oculus VR store.

Thought in progress

Okay, so hear me out.

Given the question "what would you do for a living if money wasn't an issue?", some might say "oh, open a tea shop" or "maybe cut hair for a living". And yet, despite being perfectly well enough to make a living because these ARE indeed noble professions that HAVE to be done by someone, they think about lunch when they arrive at work and think about leaving work when they come back from lunch.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Well because of money. Because it's always better to have more money. Because of kiasuness ((of a person) very anxious not to miss out on an opportunity; grasping.). Because literally everyone says it's stupid to waste your talents on something that you enjoy doing, but doesn't pay that well, instead of spending a good majority of your life doing something dreadful with hopes of leading a more comfortable (albeit in a purely materialistic sense) life. Because we're being told that it's all part of being an adult -- doing things you don't like.

Maybe there's a reason for this. Maybe if not for such societal pressures, there might be a lack of young and fresh auditors to facilitate a functional economy.

Ah, I'm too lazy to ponder on further.

Job hunting woes part n

I think I'm starting to understand why people say it's better to just get a job first. It seems like getting the ideal first-job is infinitely harder than jumping from one job to another.

So it turns out I subscribe to some form of catholicism. I was listening to a podcast just last night about a very successful comedian and he was saying how he viewed his suffering during his early days as some sort of a trial. I've long accepted that this job-hunting phase is just something I have to go through, but I'm wondering how much more of it could I handle till I break.

It doesn't help that I've recently picked up The Bell Jar and it deals with coming-of-age, quarter-life-crisis, suicidal themes.

All I could do right now is hang on to this quote from Kierkegaard:

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

Acceptance

Sigh.

There goes the one thing that could bring my current misery away.

HR rang me up yesterday to tell me that she has contacted several locations but couldn't find me an opening, but will keep my file open in case anything pops up.

Despite the approval, it's still depressing to know that I have to continue my search, to know that I aced my grueling interview for no reason, to have to go through everything all over again.

I realised deep down, the reason I want so badly to get a good graduate job is because I want something to compensate for all the crap I went through during university. All the days spent force-feeding my brain knowledge I have no interest in, all the days of staying awake in extremely dull lectures, all the depressing times I've spent in my room studying for exams.

Maybe if I had enjoyed my studies a little more, then I wouldn't have such high expectations for a job. At least then I could work at a miserable job and look back on the great times I had.

This perpetual misery is taking a toll on me ...

Update (?)

Well, guess I got an update after all.

I started gaming to take my mind off things. I really abhor reliving my interviews, cringing at the things that I shouldn't have said. At the same time, I'd be impressed with some of the answers I managed to conjure up on the spot, thinking surely that'll put me in some good stead. So I've been waiting for that email or that phone call, either congratulating me or consoling me.

Who knew it'll be neither?

At about 7pm today, I received a phone call updating me on my status of my job application. From the get-go, I sort of braced myself for the worst because she didn't start the phone call by congratulating me. What she ended up saying -- or at least what I remember -- was that they couldn't offer me the post I applied for (she mentioned something about markets not being well? or was she referring to the division I was applying for?), but they were impressed with my interview (okay, to be fair, she specifically said "positive feedback"), and would like to see if they could fit me in another business area.

So I spent the next few hours trying to analyse what she just said with the little bits a pieces of words that my brain could cling on to. Pretty sure that wasn't a straight-out rejection, because why would she bother trying to keep in contact. Then again she isn't really obligated to find me a job, so I don't know what sort of an expectation should I be having. Then again, her response threw away both responses that I had in mind, so why bother with expectations anyway.

I feel like some divine being has put me on Earth to experience suffering. So now we wait.

Palpable change in mood

Dammit. I thought I could resist posting again before receiving an update on the thing that is underpinning the rise and fall of my mood, but I can't.

To avoid annoying the living hell out of everyone around me, I've decided that I should turn to this once again to let go some of the pent-up frustrations.

It's so suffocating. I just need it to be over. Will it ever be over?

I always believe that maturity comes with time, unless an event comes along that acts as a catalyst to speed up the process. I feel as if I'm always put into situations where a certain level of maturity is required to make a wise decision, but I'd be at a point where I just about fall short of that prerequisite. I feel like I'm often rushed into making decisions just because it's the norm to be making such decisions at that particular age.

Yesterday I felt fine; today, just about after lunch, I feel like crap. Why is my life full of moments where I feel like crap? The ratio seems pretty far from ideal.

It would be nice to see a therapist. For now, all I can do is to tell myself to suck it up, which is probably the last thing you should be telling someone who needs help.

The quest to uncover potential

I don't know why I put myself through this.

Would you rather excel at something mediocre, or be mediocre at something great?

So again and again I refuse to be discouraged from achieving something greater, despite nagging thoughts of inferiority lingering at the back of my mind. I chose my degree because it seemed challenging, and I put myself through depressing times, constantly questioning my decisions. Despite having gone through it relatively unscathed, I don't feel that made much of a difference.

Then I put myself through another test, a professional paper with less than 3 months to prepare. Although arguably not all that amazing of an achievement since 43% of 52,300 candidates passed, but going through more than 3,000 pages of text in a short amount of time did take some sort of a toll on me.

Then rather than settle for a run-of-the-mill job, my masochistic self decides to apply for something more prestigious, partially fueled by some sort of a disgusting ego to want to be different from the rest, while at the same time doubting myself as to whether or not that difference is even substantiated. And of course, opportunities of such prestige would include out-of-the-ordinary filtration processes.

Forgive me for my self-indulgent drivel.

So I passed by exams, completed one final-stage interview and about to attend a final-stage assessment centre.

Let's hope the next post would be the ultimate sigh of relief, at least for now.