Recent reviews by ragesaq

It's got some original aspects but ultimately feels kinda shallow, combat is mindless and the arena is small, the gameplay loop is really basic and slow as it takes you out of the action constantly.
Maybe its just not for me, refunded it.

Edit: The above review was my initial impression immediately after trying it the first time. I thought about what parts of it I didn't like to try to give some more context regarding my statements and offer some areas of improvement for the games direction.

A preface regarding my gameplay likes. I LOVE roguelite games, love VR melee games like blade & sorcery, thrill of the fight, until you fall, dragon fist VR, etc.

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The biggest problem for me regarding the game feeling shallow is the combat. The combat is the core of the gameplay loop, it is why you are doing all of the other steps the game has you do between fights.

The combat feels really shallow to me because the majority of the your fight are against small mindless robots that don't pose any threat to you by themselves. They have a basic engagement behavior of 'jump at you sometimes, try to do damage sometimes' which by itself would be fairly boring. To compensate for this the game throws quite a few of them at you in waves, but this doesn't really change their behavior, just ups the chaos level. It's a melee version of your mindless wave shooter, similar to what you might see in GORN.

Due to this wave format of a larger number of mindless opponents coming at you, your attack strategy is small variations on 'flail wildly with big smashy hand at dumb small robot' with some occasional movement.

You don't need to move too much, because the arena is so small, but the arena is so small because they chose Gorilla Tag style movement. It is a... different.. movement system, but unfortunately it interferes with your ability to perform your basic combat. This input confliction of movement and combat could maybe be an area where some interesting gameplay could emerge, but since the arena is so small and with no elevation change there is zero benefit from developing advanced movement techniques.

My advice for fixing this core problem would be to remove the waves of basic mindless robots and have the game be about fighting other mechs like the boss fight. The boss fight was still simplistic, but much, much more interesting than the mini robot wave smashing. The waves of mindless robots just feels like filler.

The rest of the gameplay aspects, with the random side cutscenes for random loot chances, repairing, buying stuff from a store is fine, but ultimately both unengaging and very time consuming. There is zero VR innovation happening across the whole spectrum, its just a series of basic menus/cutscenes with slow animations that are very time consuming steps to take inbetween fights.
Buying, trading, repairing, equipping your mech? Basic 2d menu with a laser pointer, would feel just as home on an iphone as it would in a 6dof motion controlled VR system.

This loop needs to have its duration cut with each step being less time consuming and could really stand to have some reason for being in VR. Let us take the mech parts off with our hands, and pull the replacements from an inventory and attach them. Finding the spot to add attachments on the mech, or hammering out some repairs would be much more interesting and enjoyable.

Despite this game being in early, early access with some rough spots and bugs, its already pretty much the best shooter on VR, and one of the first ones that really feels like a full AAA shooter. It's easy to sink a lot of time into this game right now and have a very enjoyable experience.
This game will of course be compared to the game that typifies the genre, Escape from Tarkov, and it draws heavily from it to great effect, while also successfully combining many good aspects from the established VR shooter scene. The gameplay is also supported by some great maps and tense that combines to feel like a much more rewarding experience than any VR shooter I have played so far.
I really enjoy the varied style of being able to run and gun and have a crazy shootout, or going max stealth and slowly stalking a player in a large building who is making a lot of noise and blabbing with their friend while you setup the perfect ambush when they round the corner and you blast them before they even knew what happened. The gunplay is great and there is a great variety of weapons and attachments to customize things how you want to play.
If this kind of shooter appeals to you, do yourself a favor and check it out and get lost in the gunfights. The devs were frequently patching and fixing issues in the closed and open alpha, and I have no doubts they will continue to do so during early access / closed beta, and this game will just get better and better.
Despite receiving a free key for participation in closed beta, I purchased the full game to support CWS and all the hard they are putting into this game. I gave the free key to a friend so they could enjoy it as well.
I've been waiting for this kind of game for a long time and I'm glad its here and living up to the hype.

What if there were some spiders, that were also Jedi, and they were awesome.
You can play them in this game, it rules.

It's the ONLY good benchmark that exists for VR.

Dear god how do I have that many hours

As someone who doesn't like MMOs, I didn't expect to like this game. I got invited to play in the 2nd beta and found myself enjoying this game quite a bit.
It has a lot of the classic MMORPG elements, lots of loot to upgrade, lots of similar monsters to fight, but the VR mechanics are really well done it really prevents it from feeling like just another MMO.
The pace of progress is zippy, shooting/slicing enemies with your friends is fun, and the climbing and especially the flying are a load of fun.
Great start for a new dev with an ambitious MMO game, I look forward to seeing how this develops!

While Steam says I've played VR some ungodly amount of time for the past 5ish years, I don't tend to leave that many reviews for games but after the first time playing this game I knew I had to.
Simply put, this game RULES. Take one part Street Fighter and mix it with Blade and Sorcery, add a dash of kung fu nostalgia and you have one of my new favorite games.
Run don't walk, stop whatever you are doing and buy this game! You have to go show an old drunken boxing master the strength of your tiger claw style.

I didn't hear about this game until a few friends picked it up and told me it was pretty good.
I checked it out, went through the long tutorial, which is worth it, theres a lot in this game and you'll learn how to do it all, and then hopped in with 3 friends.
4 hours later I'm a little sweaty and sore but I had a total blast.
Take one part Blade & Sorcery and mix with 1 part Diablo, add in up to 3 friends in multiplayer and then do lots of hacking and slashing. The elements really add up to a pretty fantastic experience.
Graphics are pretty good, performance is pretty good, and in my initial 4 hours I don't think I had a single crash or major bug.
The dev seems active fixing bugs, taking suggestions and adding new content. I think this is the sleeper hit VR game of 2021 and it's going to grow into a staple for a lot of people, myself included.

What is Highfleet you ask? Why it's only a steampunk FTL + KSP + artillery / bombing battles with diplomacy set in a Dune-but-WW2-era world, simple really.