I’ve been playing a lot of VR recently, so I may as well review the only long-form game that I’ve finished in this couple of weeks. Ghost Town is a puzzle-based adventure game set in Great Britain back in the eighties. You’re a spirit medium (a witch) named Edith, whose shitty younger brother disappeared under shady circumstances, and your goal is to find him. Trailer is below:

There are many more pros than cons as far as I’m concerned. The setting, mainly London in the 80s, is quite unique, and provides a gritty touch that I appreciated. The character animations and models are generally exceptional for the Meta Quest 3, maybe the best I’ve seen so far. I don’t like puzzle games, yet this one made me appreciate the puzzles. I was never entirely stuck, as the progressive hint system helped me eventually realize at least where I should focus on. I loved the tactile feel of exorcising ghosts, although it’s a minor part of the experience. Plenty of great moments come to mind: interacting with ghosts behind glass (great-looking in VR), using eighties ghost-bustery technology to investigate artifacts, a very creative museum of haunted artifacts, sleepwalking through your eerie apartment tower in 80s London, a great sequence in which you wander through a maze-like version of your apartment while malevolent presences whisper from the shadows (very P.T. like), clever use of light in puzzles, etc.

Horror stories are never more terrifying than in VR. Play Phasmophobia if you dare, for example. I try to avoid horror games because of my damaged heart. However, the ghosts in this one are more spooky than scary.

Now, the cons: personally, I wish the game were more like a regular adventure game instead of a puzzle game with a narrative thread woven throughout it. That’s just a personal preference, though; I wish we got the equivalents of the Monkey Island series in VR. Anyway, the least interesting sequence of puzzles for me was the lighthouse, which comes right after the introductory flashback. I actually dropped the game for like a couple of months after I first played it, because I didn’t feel like returning, but I’m glad I picked it back up and continued.

However, my biggest gripe with the story is that you’re supposed to search for your brother, whom you meet in the first scene, when you’re investigating a haunting in an abandoned theatre, but in every damn scene he’s in, the brother comes off as envious, narcissistic, entitled, and overall a complete dickhead. I didn’t want to interact with him. Did the creators believe we would be invested in finding this guy just because he was related to the protagonist? I think it’s a given that they should have made the brother sympathetic, but he annoyed me in every scene he appeared.

All in all, fantastic experience. Perhaps a bit short, but I felt like I got my money’s worth. If you have a Quest 3 and you enjoy these sorts of games, check it out.