izigame.me

The performance is completely inadequate for such an average looking game. I thought that the days of staring at muddy visuals and straining my eyes trying to read blurry in-game text were behind me but here we are again.
I could still give it a pass if the game was good but that's not entirely the case either. The opening minutes were promising and I started getting immersed in the atmosphere. But then the first alien showed up and that pretty much killed the mood instantly. All it took was a mere couple of rounds from my pop gun and the creature turned into a rag doll, comically flying into the air before dissolving into a puddle of acid like in some arcade game.
So yeah, after the incredible Alien Isolation, which made the Xenomorphs scary again, we're back to completely tensionless corridor shooting where once formidable movie monsters are reduced to nothing more than cannon fodder to be mowed down with your big guns. They're not scary, they die too easily, the rag doll physics makes them look comical, and they're not aggressive or intelligent enough to make the combat tense or fun. It makes it even more aggravating that they keep respawning in groups of two pretty much every couple of minutes or so, which must be up there among one of the worst design ideas in the history of first person shooters.
To be fair, once they manage to hit you, they hit hard. Which at least makes them somewhat dangerous in combat if your mag suddenly runs dry and there are two more of them about to jump at you. Visually they're pretty decently modeled and animated too, and it's one of the few Alien games where the creatures actually look huge, towering over your player character. I also enjoyed fiddling around with various chachkies and gizmos, like the plasma torch, motion tracker, various computer screens, etc. It's reminiscent of the movies, of course, but it also reminded me of how Alien Isolation also had you mess around with various interfaces and tools to create tension when you started hearing noises while operating something. This stuff was great. Regardless, even if this game shows promise by allowing me to immerse myself in the expanded lore of the Alien universe (which I love), and despite the fun gadgetry and toys that you can cosplay with, it's simply unforgivable for a game like this to have combat that's just not scary or engaging at all.
I'm gonna wait for a sale, and I recommend that you do too. Especially since the developer slipped the "part one" into the title at the very last minute rather than just being open about it much earlier in the marketing leading up to the game's release. Pretty underhanded tactic.

My Initial Impressions of the Game
I would like to briefly address the inconsistencies that came with the release of the game:
The game cost €28.99 as a preorder in my country. The moment the game was released, the price suddenly increased to €38.99. This was not communicated, and the developers have not commented on it yet. I was lucky enough to buy the game 4 hours before release and thought, "Okay, if it's bad, I'll just refund it." I'm glad I got it at the cheaper price, but I can understand the frustration of other users who wanted to wait for reviews before purchasing.
The game is only part 1 of 2. This means the story is unfinished. This, too, was not communicated. Also, as far as I know, the campaign is supposed to be only about 6-8 hours long. When considering the new price of €38.99, it's quite a lot of money for less content than expected and announced.
So, the developers have already made a misstep with these two points... still, I want to review the game itself, not the circumstances surrounding its development and release:
Quest 3 and Virtual Desktop / Airlink
I have now played for about 1.5 to 2 hours on my Quest 3. At first, I used Virtual Desktop, but the performance with VD was quite poor on my RTX 4080 with ultra settings and 1.2x resolution. Also, I couldn't open the in-game menu using the Oculus Touch controller's system button. The developers have apparently announced that VD is not supported (a negative point, as VD is a key tool for many headsets to stream PCVR). I then switched to Airlink and used the Oculus Runtime. With this setup, the menu buttons worked again, and the performance was much better.
Graphics
The graphics are quite impressive. The textures are a bit lacking in detail, but the fog and shadow effects are great. The assets fit perfectly with the Alien franchise. It brings to mind Aliens, which is a good thing.
Sound
The sound effects are actually excellent. Typical Alien sounds, tense nerve-wracking sirens, beeping, pipe sounds, etc. The motion tracker beeps, metal creaks, you hear footsteps, and the Pulse Rifle sounds absolutely awesome.
Gameplay and Controls
This is a typical VR horror shooter. Most actions need to be done manually: pulling levers to open doors, climbing ladders, changing magazines and bullets, solving small circuit puzzles, etc. Many objects lying around can be picked up, examined, or thrown away: crumpled paper, cans, photos, tools, helmets, etc. The interactivity with the environment is there.
The hands and arms feel a bit sluggish, like in Skydance's Behemoth, but this gives a nice feeling of weight.
The weapon handling is good, but I would recommend turning off the weapon attachment to the shoulder. It’s annoying, but fortunately, it can be disabled in the settings.
Otherwise, the controls are typical for VR. The hands interact with the environment, just like in Half-Life Alyx. I find this very immersive, but it occasionally leads to glitches when the hands get stuck.
I also want to highlight the interaction with terminals. You control them with a joystick, and it’s very well implemented and fun.
Bugs and Glitches
Occasionally occur, mainly glitches, but I haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs so far.
Conclusion
If I were to rate the behavior of the developers, I would give them a thumbs down, as they’ve done a few things that aren't ideal. However, I am reviewing the game itself, and it’s been very good so far. The price of nearly €40 for the relatively small amount of content is a bit much now. €28.99 would have been more appropriate. I would recommend waiting for a sale or buying it at a discount from a key store – the developers haven’t been nice to us either. :)
That said, the game itself deserves a thumbs up. It’s fun and captures the Alien feeling well. Definitely a must have for Alien fans.

Hmm.. right now I'll say it's a maybe.

There's a lot that Rogue Incursion does right, but a few things I'm concerned about.. I'm far too early in the game to give a proper review, but I thought I'd share my experience so far.

GOOD:
-It's actually trying to do something different. The environment is quite large, albeit a lot of corridors, and you'll have to revisit areas once you get tools later on, unlocking different pathways to more goodies.
-Alien battles are pretty dynamic. If you make enough noise you usually have to fight a couple of them, but ammo is limited so I wonder how much of it is smoke and mirrors.. being quiet seems to avoid conflict, but once a battle starts, you don't seem to be able to avoid a fight by sneaking or anything.
-There's a lot of contextual menus you can navigate with your hands. Like you physically put your finger on your map, then drag to move it like a touch screen. These little interactions are far better than the usual "point and click on it with a mouse cursor" most VR games opt-out for.

BAD:
-This is more a personal complaint, but the characters just don't shut up. It's really immersion breaking when aliens spawn in and my character warns me about it every time. There was also this cool part within the Alien hive that was ruined by how chatty the characters are.. it was a great chance to build up tension rather than exposition.
-Bad controls. This is probably the worst aspect of the game right now, but the control of your character is just awful. It's one of those VR games where your arms are super floaty and almost delayed behind your real physical movement. I assume they did this to make combat more clunky on purpose, to make fights more intense, but it severely needs to be tuned down in my opinion.. I can barely pull my assault rifle out without it flopping all over the place, which doesn't feel right with how fast the aliens are. You NEED quick response time.
Another small complaint with the controls might be an index thing, but this was clearly designed for PSVR and Quest, because the grip on those controllers is a simple on/off button press, while the index you have to physically grip the controller.. problem is you have to grip REALLY HARD in order to have my hands actually grab something.

CONCLUSION:
Despite my complaints, I think this might actually be worth picking up. It is VERY expensive for a VR game, which is why my critiques might seem a bit harsh, but the controls are the worst aspect of the game right now, it's just not very responsive, thus not as immersive, thus not as fun as it could be.
My main worry is "will the game evolve" or is it trying to trick me into thinking it's more than it is?

Is Alien Rogue Incursion truly going to have Metroid elements, similar to Alien Isolation? Or is it all window dressing for an otherwise linear shooter that won't have any replay value once you complete it.
Let's also not forget that nowhere in the marketing does the game admit this is "Part 1", so there's a high probability that Part 2 will be another full price game or paid DLC.. or maybe this game was rushed and simply isn't complete yet, with Part 2 content coming later?
That's the thing, nobody really knows because they weren't very forthcoming about it, and that has me concerned.

Anyways, I'll report more once I've gotten further. Even if this is a simple one-and-done, at the very least, it's trying to do things a little different. As far as this type of VR game is concerned, Rogue Incursion has a LOT going for it.. it just needs touched up a bit.