When TheGamer’s crew met to assign each game preview at Gamescom this year, there was one sort of game that constantly drew an awkward silence - VR. Few things underline the medium’s continued strug♚gle to fully pierce the mainstream than h▨earing the laundry list of excuses trotted out one after the other.

Enter Stacey Henley: Superhero. Through the chatter of “I get motion sickness”, “I’ve not done much VR”, “I don’t think I’d be very good”, and “please please please don’t make me wear a sweaty VR helmet after 17 other journalists have worn it”, I ended up with a bunch of VR games this year, and one in particular - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rival Stars Horse Racing: VR Edition - reminded me of why I love the medium even a🧔s it stumbles along the ascent to mass take up.

Racing a horse in Rival Stars Horse Racing VR

My problem with VR is not the barrier to entry that others struggle to overcome. Instead, I trip and fall at the second hurdle - the medium’s constant battle between specialisation and generalisation. I own a PS VR2, which means I can only play games that specifically come to the co✅nsole, which many do not. As much affection as I have for VR, it doesn’t extend to investing in another expensive headset to access the full complement of titles, and my general aversion to fiddling with settings that pu🐭ts me off PC gaming in general also looms large over any VR title that doesn’t call the PS VR2 home.

Which,ไ unfortunately, Rival Starsꦐ Horse Racing: VR Edition does not - it’s coming to Meta Quest and Steam.

This means that shows like Gamescom are often the best place to experience a swathe of new VR titles. As the first one I played at the show (and also the first of the day before anyone could sweat on it - this head is not just a Quest rac🧔k), Rival Stars Horse Racing: VR Edition rekindled an affection I hadn’t even realised had started to burn out.

The game is a VR adaptation of the Rival Stars series, as the title suggests. It’s divided into two main categories - horse raci𓆉ng and horse grooming. Both were fairly intuitive, but with room to grow, which speaks to the sort of audience Rival Stars is aiming for. Many of the appointments, the devs told me as I trotted around the course, were with specialist horse creators who were less used to VR, and naturally this will be a playerbase the game is aiming for. At the same time, you’re always speaking to a more hardcore audience when you’re making a VR game, and I’m not sure Rival Stars gets the pitch exactly right here.

There’s certainly a very tactile feel to the game. When racing, you tug the reins one way or the other to steer the horse, and do the classic ‘mime riding a horse’ motion for the final sprint. Some horses will prefe𝐆r different lines as you race too, giving them a little more personality and depth. It seemed a little easy, but that might have been tweaked down for the Gamescom demo. Even after messing up a turn on the second race, I won both with ease in the final stretch.

Wandering the ranch in Rival Stars Horse Racing VR with Gamescom logo

There’s also a cross country option, which involves leading your horse to different fences for them to jump and is more a test of handling than speed. This part was trickier, but still fairly straightforward. It’s also quite grounded despite using the virtual rea𓂃lm, with standard black and white poles on white gates for fences. Nothing outlandishly video 🏅gamey or even featuring any specialised aesthetics like we saw in the Equestrian events at Paris 2024, with realism a core focus of the game.

As for the grooming part, I was given a full stable of horses for the demo, but in the actual game you’ll start with one and earn your way up the ranking. The horses will eat carrots and apples right out of your hand, and while you can stroke them by hand, you’ll also get a variety of brushes like curry comb🐻s and dandy brushes. As you brush away the dust, your relationship with your horse rises on a meter, bringing the pair of you closer.

However, while this was debated internally, the relationship doesn’t offer racing boosts as the devs wanted the two sides of the game to be different, and the affection of the horse to be its own re✨ward with more aesthetic options. I can see why players might want a greater benefit for their hard work, but then again, if you’re metagaming the maintenance of♊ fictional horses, you might want to get a life.

Rival Stars Horse Racing: VR Edition might be too VR for casual players and too casual for VR players, b꧙ut as I rode my horse around Gamescom, I remembered the unique immersion VR games can offer. I hope the medium can keep growing so that the sort of player who would be into Rival Stars can come along for the ride.