This is my review for Dead and Buried, a Virtual Reality game for the Oculus Rift. This game comes free with activation of your Oculus Touch controllers, or you can buy it in the Oculus store as well if you need to.
VR Dead and Buried
I have to say, although I have only had my Oculus Rift for about a week now, after trying several games for the new Touch controllers Dead and Buried is absolutely my favorite so far. This is the game that I keep thinking about when I am going about my day, this is the game that gets me excited to fire up the Rift, this is the game that absolutely fully immerses me in Virtual Reality every time.
The game starts with a quick training session that’s easy and fluid. You get a chance to get familiar with the mechanics of picking up your six shooter, shooting various targets and generally getting acquainted with the look and feel of the game. Once you complete this you unlock the events. The events you are able to play are the Shooting Gallery which will help you buff up your aim and handling of your weapon, a Wild West Shootout which is fun, a robbery, a quick draw competition and co-op Horde Mode which is my favorite so far and the one I have spent the most time playing. The game is fun and exciting every time, playing co-op mode with other players is engaging and feels like a new experience when you realize you can fist bump your teammate, and it generally brings a sense of wonder and excitement back to gaming that I haven’t experienced since I was a kid. You actually make use of the cover in game by leaning, ducking and occasionally hitting the deck which takes gaming to a complete other level for me. The graphics are top notch and completely real and immersive. While playing the game I had no sense that I was standing in my house playing a video game.
The touch controllers are a natural extension of your arm and hand and the mechanics of the six shooters you wield in the game seem accurate and realistic. You get to shoot the six shooters, a rifle, throw dynamite and more! At several points in the game during the co-op Horde mode I found myself shouting back and forth with my teammates with my 6 guns blazing, really feeling like I was in a shoot out that mattered. When bad guys would break through my barrier into my personal space I would jump back and empty all my rounds into them often shouting expletives and finding myself needing to remove the headset and take a break and slow down. All in all it is a very fun experience that really engages and has a decent amount of content to deliver. The game hasn’t started to get boring to me at all and is definitely a go to when I have friends over and they want to try out the Rift.
I would recommend that you have a pretty beefy video card such as a 1070 or 1080 if you want to crank up the resolution and really enjoy it. We are running it on a system with an i7 processor, 32 gigs of RAM and a 1070 video card and it runs smooth as can be. As far as motion sickness that is sometimes associated with VR I don’t get any at all with Dead and Buried. I would consider myself in the middle of the range of how often I get nauseous as I have only had the Rift a short time. This game is great as far as that is concerned because there is no locomotion as your character stands primarily stationary during the events.
All in all I would absolutely recommend Dead and Buried as one of your first Oculus Rift experiences. Hopefully you managed to get it for free with the promotion offered when purchasing the Touch controllers, but if not you can find it here.
