Please note: I received a free Steam key through the Steam Curator Connect program

You can view my playthrough & initial impressions review here (note: I didn't notice I had a map until after I stopped recording): https://youtu.be/9hg-_9dyGYo

The Good

There are a lot of upgrades, some different weapons, and some different spells to unlock. When you die you restart, but you get to keep the coins you vacuumed. You spend the XP and coins on said weapons or upgrades. You can also spend coins on buffs for that particular run or get treasure to increase health or get bonus buffs. Buffs stack. You have full locomotion and smooth / snap turning options. You can turn off the vignette in options. Most of the locations you traverse look pretty good for a budget title. You have a map on your hand to easily guide your way (just flip your magic hand over).

The Bad

Combat is not satisfying and becomes repetitive. You have to buff your weapon to do decent damage or you'll be spamming your attack until you can bring down the baddies. I only saw 3 different enemies (2 of them come in different sizes though). While the locations look nice and are random in your playthrough, they start repeating themselves early on. So you're facing the same enemies, in the same locations, just more of them. Also, while you can vacuum baddies when they turn red versus killing them, for me it just wasn't worth the hassle, I was overflowing with coins.

The Ugly

I reached the 11th level, which took me about over an hour to reach, and I was so bored that I decided to just let the enemies kill me so at least I could see the upgrades I could get. I got the shotgun, upgraded it quite a bit, and saw it in action. I was very disappointed in the low damage it made. The UI is ugly. Unintuitive how to turn off the vignette. Even though you can play seated, at the start, you'll need a rooms-scale setup to be able to reach crossbow to start the game. You cannot move with free locomotion at the start menu.

The Conclusion

I think there's enough here to not give a negative recommendation. Consider this a neutral recommendation for now. The game is in Early Access and I hope it sees improvements to make it a better experience. What this game really needs is more variety. It needs more enemy types and more locations. Things should get more challenging as you go up (or down?) the floors with new enemies that bring new challenges & of course, new looking rooms / environments to motivate the player to see what's in the next room. As is in this game currently, I already knew what was in the next room and I wasn't excited about it.

Rate 5/10.

So played today for first time after a few updates. First this is NOT the game I purchased, AT ALL. I know it's early access and I expect some changes in gameplay etc, but this is a completely different game, even a different genre. It went from a dungeon crawler to a serious sam/ COD clone, with no tutorial, no controller explanations and horrible interface. It took me forever to figure out how to reload, I still don't know how to swap weapons. If you're going to completely scrap a game and start over (name and all) then just abandon the project and make the new game on it's own don't fob it off on early access purchasers.

Monster Showdown manages to take Call of Duty: Zombies and transfers it to VR flawlessly, with it's own spin. Gunplay and reload system are easy, game runs well, and the maps are pretty balanced. Every map offers a different type of monster and weapons, and they all look beautifully designed. If you want a good arcade style wave shooter, I'd definitely recommend this. Only improvement I would add is multiplayer support.

Game provided via the Steam Curator program.

So the game got some updates and it's not as bad as it was before. It's a dungeon crawler with interesting mechanics similar to Bindings of Isaac. It's not demanding on the system and it can be fun to play. So I guess I can recommend it if you like this type of games.

However it's an early access game and it's far from being a complete experience. There are numerous things that need to be worked on such as the interface, controls, weapons etc. I still recommend it as I see the game being worked on and improved over time.

It hazza dog. You can pet the dog. The dog is cute.

Aside from that, if you enjoy wave-shooter games, you'll enjoy this one.

There's a tutorial at the beginning, it should get you clear on the nuances of the game. Two game modes; wave-based and a random gun mode.

There's a bunch of different stages available to play on, granting a variety of things to look at on any given play session as well as offering different challenges.

The gun play is very stylized and basic, it makes no attempt at all for a realistic experience. Everything is point, shoot-'til-empty, touch button to reload, get different gun, same mechanic. Now, the behavior of certain projectiles can be different; some weapons have projectiles that drop faster over distance. Some can be powerful, but have long reload times.

I found it very entertaining for the time I gave it so far.

Nice VR dungeon-crawling - Go into haunted houses and spooky space stations to find bats and ghosts to reap their souls, collect coins, and buy upgrades. Remembering to use the spells can be tricky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDqlOO0m0f4

This game definitely surprised me positively. It is one of those games that I get in my Steam Curator and mostly do not immediatley play, waiting for another weekend VR session. So what is this game about? Imagine CoD Zombie in a Disneyland VR world. Short shooter action against some bucks in a VR Arcade Room. This is perfectly fine, since the Cod Zombie formula is already great and why not having it implemented in some colourful VR title. So for me this is a clear recommendation if you enjoy Horde Modes and you have a VR HMD. Look out for a sale maybe.

It's CoD Zombies, but with generic guns and doughnuts instead of cola. There are a few mod-inspired maps too. Honestly, it's fun, but it has its issues. There are some issues with the reload animation and ammo count, some quirks with the dash, and some peculiarities with some of the guns that are not bugs but just feel weird. If you like CoD Zombies, you will like this. If you are not a fan of Zombies, or you feel that old school CoD Zombies can be too tedious, then you might want to skip. But Monster Showdown does what it seems to set out to do, and it is a mostly enjoyable experience.

The levels, graphics style, and movement mechanics are all great, and as a wave shooter, there is a good variety of levels, guns, and enemies. It's supposed to be fun in every sense, but I found one thing lacking, and unfortunately, it kills all the goodness.

The gun reloading mechanics suck. You have to remember to do two things at the same time, which is holding the gun upwards and pressing the grip button. I thought I could get used to it, after all, it's a simple gun reloading mechanics. But maybe the real problem is the lack of enough feedback when reloading the gun. You could easily die while trying to shoot without noticing that one of your guns is actually empty. And that simple thing really matters during crowded rounds and kills the fun and will to progress further.

Pros
-COD Zombie feel to it at first
-Many weapons and upgrades
-Bosses

Cons
-Enemies start to get pretty spongy
-Basic enemies feel easy and basic
-Felt weird how I needed to hold my hands to shoot
-Got Bored pretty fast