Someone needs to have a nice sitdown with the gaming industry about VR and what it can and can't do. The ability to transport the viewer inside a scene is incredible, and if that scene happens to be in the cockpit of some kind of ship, then it opens up a whole range of movement options that would otherwise be a bad idea. Putting the player behind the eyes of a protagonist who walks around freely in the standard FPS viewpoint, on the other hand, is something that has only sounded awesome. It's hasn't been. Really, seriously, it's kind of sucked, and while wanting it to be different won't change that, clever viewing systems just might. So now Minecraft has official VR support, and it's taken an interesting approach to the presentation that's a little awkward but usable.

This Nintendo title can offer lots of fast-paced multiplayer fun for you, friends and strangers. Thanks to Turf Mode, Ranked and Salmon Run, you and others will be able to enjoy plenty of splatisfying action. Because you play with a team of people there's a need for teamwork and going through tough battles alongside one another bonds can form. While there hasn't been much new in the last few months for Splatoon 2, there's still a large amount of users at different levels of skill to make things interesting. You could easily play round after round all day and experience something new each time in each location. Also, maybe it's time you pick up a new weapon just to change things up. Splatoon 2 keeps things fresh for those in search of online interactions.

The are two reasons getting this right is important, and both reasons are the same but viewed from different perspectives- Minecraft is still the biggest game in the world. The official VR mode is exclusive to the Rift, so you can bet that Microsoft/Mojang and Oculus worked together to make sure the experience is as inviting as possible. Getting this right is a major deal for both companies. This ties in to the other perspective, which is consumer-side. For a lot of people Minecraft will be a premier game for VR, and How Rare Is A Chicken Jockey In Minecraft accessible it is will become the baseline expectation of the experience. Make it nice and maybe it becomes the VR gateway drug, and at the moment the experience is acceptable. The default starting view may be the same Minecraft as always on an in-game screen, and Classic Control has high nausea potential, but the jerky VR Control is the kind of thing you learn to tolerate simply because it's effective.

On the plus side, once you're in the Minecraft world the sense of scale is truly fantastic. Everything seems bigger somehow, more immediate and solid. A pit in a cave that would be little more than a hazard to plop a staircase onto is all of a sudden an ominous presence waiting to see you fall into its depths. Hills are more imposing, cliffs shoot dangerously into the sky and canyons are massive rifts in the earth, and the oceans go down forever. Even the standard block has a sense of mass, with its one meter cube transformed into a substantial chunk of scenery. Another side effect of the new sense of scale is that combat has become a little easier because the strike distance is so obvious. The move to VR has done a great job of freshening up an experience I've been done with for several years now, which is an impressive feat. While I'm still not completely sold on the viewing solution, it's something that works for now until a better idea is implemented.

The story also deserves notice. Minecraft itself might not have as intense of a story, but Telltale was able to grab some of the more important factors of Minecraft and create a lore to follow and better understand what the characters with. Previously, your goal was to mine for enough materials and minerals to make a portal to the End to slay the Ender Dragon. Now, that story doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, because the ones who slayed the Ender Dragon were the members of the Order of the Stone. The members are essentially the people that you would have normally gone to the End with to help you fight the dragon, so it almost makes it seem like you were some kind of legendary hero for being able to do that if you were able to do so in the past. Everyone else in the episode doesn't have that same goal and, funny enough, don't look at all like the villagers that you sometimes wander upon in the original game. The storytelling and characters leave you with enough of an impression that leaves you waiting in anticipation for the next episode. You begin to make connections with your friends and build a relationship with them in the span of one single episode so it leaves you wanting to know what will come next for this party of builders.

The Wii U doesn't inspire that same impulse purchase instinct. While playing the right game on one with friends is generally considered to be a good time, unlike the Wii it's gimmick isn't quite as viscerally satisfying. It doesn't really grab you. It's a system that shares many of the same shortcomings as the Wii, but has little of its charm or raw appeal.