District Steel

i dont have the patience to write down all what i feel about this game, but you can feel the love shine through this game, District steel feels like the most sincere loveletter to boomershooters i have ever played and i have played many of thoose, the level design is nothing short of amazing. There were many places that must have to have been directly ported from concept art to the game and it simply looks breathtaking. I would 100% recommend this game to anyone who likes boomershooters and i will be following the devs since the level design alone is a testament for great things to come.


but that does not mean its perfect, there was a thing that bothered me, mainly the lack of hand animations, i really dont like the way you grab things, its fine to have floaty grabs for bodies but at the very least reloading, i understand that fluidity is very important but no hand animations is simply way more bothersome. Also the game sadly feels like it never really gets into the stride it is building up to and thats not because the game is short, but i feel like it was made too casual friendly which hurts it in the long run.

Again i do 100% recommend this game, i cant imagine anyone really not liking it tbh

Excellent game! I downloaded the demo the other day and got hooked quickly! I have been looking for a new VR game to play and this one got my attention because it avoids my 3 key frustrations:
1. It has a decent solo campaign mode (not strictly multi-player)
2. It's not a rogue-like (I CAN'T STRESS HOW SICK I AM OF ROGUE-LIKES!!!!)
3. It's not a zombie shooter. There are those that do the genre well...but it is SO PLAYED OUT!
This game kind of gives me Terminator vibes without being a total clone. Cool concept, good graphics, and fun game play.

District Steel is a lot of fun. I think it was great for the amount of time I put into it. This might purely be my own preference, but I sort of wish there was a little bit more "progression" to play with throughout the levels. Like starting with a pistol, then getting the automatic, then getting the shotgun. Maybe that might make returning to earlier levels not feel as great, but I would love to get a feel for what I'm going through as well.

The mechanics are really fun. I love the time slowdown feature, though while I know most people say they don't like a hud being on screen that follows the head, I wouldn't have minded one for at least the slowdown meter. Something to let me know how much I have left without needing to look down at my wrist to check. Also, I do wish the walking speed was just MARGINALLY faster. It basically felt like I was forced to use the rocket slide all the time.

Levels were a lot of fun. It had enough variety that I had a good time. I think something I wish I could have taken advantage of more was more "breaking" of things to get through something. There's a tutorial for punching through wood with your fist but it felt like that was used maybe.. twice in the game at most? Also, I don't like that it seems to be tied to just the trigger press and not making a fast. Granted, I say this from the perspective of having played with the Index. But I digress.

I also enjoy that this game has a cheats system. I think I'll be coming back to this later to scour the levels to see if I can find all the data packs to unlock fun cheats. Having the revolver was great, but I wish there was a way to turn it off? Or find some way to change the pistol ammo to be the revolver ammo or something. Two guns sharing the same ammo slot forced me to have to choose whether or not I wanted to use the automatic or to use the Revolver. I'd like to have both options ideally. But given they share the same ammo pool, I run out of both too quickly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a great game and I'd very much recommend it

Honestly, this game is fun! After being able to complete the missions and finding the techparts, running around with unlimited power and ammo is a whole bunch of fun! I do wish there were more levels than there are, it doesn't feel worth the price until you add in the cheating modes you're allowed to use.

I don't know if it was just me, but the boss took me over an hour to complete due to just general lack of knowledge (and constantly falling into holes LOL!), so I wish there was an explanation about where to fire once the battle started, maybe just some glowing rings around the blades, or even some warning symbols on them to mark a sort of "Hey aim here!"

Other than the boss and the price, this game is absolutely incredible and so much fun!! Would totally recommend to anyone who had some money to spend!

I'm giving a thumbs up because the concept is great but I do wish I could leave a neutral. Movement felt very clunky and not not being able to grab a ledge unless it had the green outline was artificially limiting. At least over AirPlay the loading screens for the map was SUPER jarring and almost nausea inducing. Also, it seems like the user should be able to rotate the map.

I may revisit once it's a finished product, but please do keep working hard on this!

This game is being overlooked, they need to get this on quest 2, if not the upcoming quest 3 and it would do well. This game is really good and polished well.

The demo is different that the actual game and shows only a small portion. If this went to open world with objectives and a cyberpunk theme like Low-fi. It would serve this game well, I love this concept.

I am very surprised this title isn't more popular. I find the combat and movement mechanics to be both novel and satisfying, and the aesthetic to be very reminiscent of the mid-2000's (Think FEAR and Doom 3, as examples) which is a vibe I don't see nearly enough these days. While it's still very rough around the edges (The industrial levels can feel very same-y at times, and basic interactions (picking stuff up, reloading, holding stuff for extended periods) a bit finicky), I still feel inclined to recommend this game. Or at the very least, I can easily recommend that you wishlist it, as there's a lot of promise and potential here, provided they keep working on improving it. I am very much enjoying my time with it and look forward to the full release.

This was my first VR FPS game I played, and I love it. The ability to vibe check robots while moving faster than a speeding bullet is great. I do, however, have to warn those who do read this that it can induce motion sickness due to its movement system. (I should know, I am feeling sick while writing this, also Slowmo seems to make it more bearable)

Finished the game in current state no issues. Took me about 7 hours and I enjoyed it very much. Slow motion / bullet time is enjoyable, it's really fun. You can also punch enemies with your iron fist too (cool!). Level design is interesting and no, it's not an open world game (thank god!). Jumping over your enemies in slow motion and ripping them apart with shotgun has never been more enjoyable. Really good job there.

Graphics look nice. I think this game will benefit greatly, once micro-OLED panels are used. It's a darker game and Aero's poor contrast doesn't do this game justice. I feel sorry that I sold my Vive Pro.

But there are some things that still need to improve.

My gear: Varjo Aero + Valve Index controllers

1) Changing magazines feels clumsy. I had hard time grabbing a new magazine many times. Same for grabbing guns from your waist. Sometimes it took me multiple tries to get the right gun (shotgun is fine as that's over shoulder, but submachine gun and pistol need some work).

2) I'd welcome the possibility to grab the guns and aim with both arms/hands, although not sure if that plays well with your 2nd robotic hand.

3) At least some sort of background story would be nice. Right now, there's pretty much nothing to indicate what's going on, who you're fighting against or even who you are.

After 5 hours of gameplay I have finished District Steel. I finished it, not because it is too short, but because it's so good that I didn't want to put it down. It has been a long time since I've played a game that kept me interested enough to actually finish it. This game deserves more attention. I'm constantly left feeling dissatisfied after playing vr games that receive way more publicity than this game. The developers should feel proud of what they've created. Money well spent!

Nice looking shooter with interesting movement mechanics. The rocket button just makes you dash into wherever you're looking so it doubles as a mega jump which lets you get high in the air and reach high spots. Slow motion button helps you make impossible stunts, and you can slide around like an action hero.

Shooting action and reloading is decent. It's a fun game overall.

My main gripe and the reason I'm refunding it is basically all that movement and rocket jumping gives me motion sickness.

I'd be coming back to the game maybe in a sale, as it's a game that's being developed further and seems interesting. So it deserves a positive review.

This game is amazing. Played the demo a bunch, had a bunch of fun flinging myself off guard railings and shooting bots in slow motion.

Haven't been able to play as much as I've wanted due to familial issues, but this game is easily replacing my shooter of choice since bonelabs has been a wet fart of not delivering the full modding tools, still. Devs are communicating on a consistent basis, levels funnel you from encounter to encounter so you're never lost, and encounters can be tackled from different angles if you do explore. Hang from the rafters, climb through the ducts to fight them from behind, or just go in guns blazing, sliding around like you're in a John Woo flick. I'll usually rocket jump to the closet bot and start sliding into other bots and shooting other ones on the way. Game is a blast.

Only complaints I have is not enough weapons, which is already being addressed with the revolver currently in the beta branch. And if you die in an encounter, when you come back to said encounter everybot that you already killed doesn't respawn. Other than that, game is amazing, go play it if you have your VR legs. Or jump into the deep end and grab it anyways as your first VR game if you like shooters.

YOU SHOULD BE PLAYING THIS!!!
Classic FPS in VR what could be better? The fact that it's only 25 bucks!!
Mission based progression, Save game option, Gotta love this), great level design, lots of options to take out the enemies, decent voice acting.
Only a few missions in but two thumbs up!!

Wicked Fun! Love the retro vibe. The rocket and slow mo combo works a treat and make you feel OP. My only criticism is that it is a little too easy once you get the hang of it. It would be nice to be able to pull your self around cover and the were more breakable objects...but still EA and yet very polished ..well done developers!!!!

To quote an old movie about The Riddle of Steel:

“The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle [...] You must learn its discipline. For no one — no one in this world can you trust".

This is quite relevant for this game too - especially the answer to the riddle:

"Steel isn’t strong, boy, flesh is stronger!…What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart”

Even though you do get to shoot, it's also often clobbering time with your giant steel fist - and like quoted above, you need to learn to use it well. I've run out of ammo a few times, and the steel fist has been a great friend in such unfortunate situations - especially when using the game's slow-motion option, which works like bullet time in Max Payne.

You can only jump using rocket jump - and it's even more fun than doing that in Quake. Did love rocket jumping in Quake, but it's been like 25 years, sigh - then again, it's like riding a bike, once you've learned it you'll never forget how to do it... lol
Rocket jumping in this game is extremely awesome, as you can activate bullet time during a jump and take out quite a number of enemies in one jump. This has never been done before in VR - and I can't remember having this much fun since Alyx.

Granted, graphics aren't like in Alyx, but graphics are still impressive:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2935329235

This game kinda feel more like some Quake and Dark Forces - in the greatest way. You'll be shooting robots and drones - and much more. At first the game may look dull and boring, but it opens up after the first levels - and especially when you get used to rocket jumping with bullet time. Here I'm taking out an enemy by activating bullet time:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2935333401

I'm not that far into the game (my controllers just ran out of battery), so let's say it's a 9/10 for now. This is a must-play VR game. My PSVR2 is arriving next week, but I really doubt that even Call of the Mountain will be much more fun to play. I'm not sure other VR games can beat the gameplay in District Steel. Sure you can get better graphics, but you don't get rocket jumping with bullet time. The music in the game is great too and matches the action.

I'm using Index and an oc'ed RTX 3090 with an i9 10900K (10 cores, 20 threads, 5.3 GHz) and 32GB ram. I'm getting solid 90 fps using res 300% with highest in-game graphics settings (keeping the res slider in-game at default 1.0 though - my res 300% is set using StreamVR to avoid multiplication of in-game and SteamVR res settings). The game looks great using lower settings too, and I think most will appreciate the great performance in this game. Also performance stays up even in the bigger locations, and this game feels nicely optimized. Index finger tracking is supported:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2935331916

There's smooth turning and full locomotion, and there's full support for left handed persons like myself. You can choose to hold the weapon in your left or right hand, and choose if you want locomotion on the left or right thumbstick - a setting many devs forget to support.
The game is early access - but it's been in development for 6 years - so it's not really early, lol. This game plays better and feels more complete than many VR games which are no longer in early access. Like in Alyx, you can save the game whenever you want - you don't have to reach certain checkpoints, but the game will also autosave for you. Being able to save your game whenever you want feels like a luxury these days :-)

This already is my favorite VR game of 2023 - and I'm confident it's among the 10 best VR games released since January 1 2022. I'll update the review later.

Experienced 5800x3d/4090/32gb Quest2 via Virtual Deskop Ultra Quality/90hz

The game has made a very solid first impression to me. The graphics look good and the gunplay is very reactive and satisfying. The slow motion gives me Max Payne vibes.
District steel comes with all the necessary movement options. What i love is the possibility to chose the controllers you are using (Vive, Meta, Index, WMR) - so i will definitely give it another try with my Reverb G2.
The tutorial gives you a good overview on how all the controlls work. Since not all of them are really intuitive, newcomers should play it.
The only things i needed to get used to, were that crouch and rocket jump are on the left controller. Maybe it would be better to map them with the right tumbstick up/down by default.
I experienced very rare fps-drops so far. The game runs with native 90fps at 110% resolution with MSAA x4 on my system.
Based on this first impression, i can recommend the game so far. Much better, than the last shooters i bought (and refunded). Most important to me: i had a lot of fun.

Color my Sega Genesis impressed!

The music starts right, the colors, sound, and UX pop - The holographic map is neat. The guns feel good to fire. The punch feels OP and makes me chortle. So far, this has been a fun experience. I'm glad to hear there will be more added as the game goes through early access.

A few minor things I'd like to see fixed:
-grip poses for pickups (like ammo and gas cans), reloading, and ripping apart robots
-grip poses added for second hand weapons holding
-touching the menu buttons
-hands clipping through walls, crates, and other objects
-allow shooting through chain link fence

A breath of fresh air. Definitely recommend if you enjoy a good shooter with high mobility!

I played the early demo build when it first released and already kind of knew I'd be purchasing on day one. It's like Barricade Studio thought about what kind of game I would like and just decided to make it:

Good mobility, bullet time, great aesthetic imo, good progression of difficulty while keeping things challenging enough and a decent soundtrack to mush it all together. Not to mention probably the best map I've seen in VR so far!

Flying through a window in bullet time headshotting robo bois while gliding through the air just doesn't get boring..

A few early accessy things and qol improvements I've already mentioned to the two person dev team have already been considered so if you have feedback it's nice to know they are willing to listen! I'd love some sort of an upgrade system just to spice things up a little bit but that's just a little ask.

Pretty damn fun mix between old school shooters/Robo-Recall/Metal Gear-ish. Awesome they the dev's give users a demo to try!

I'm only on the 3rd mission. so I'm still playing around will update l8tr.

Returning because the playstyle and mechanics weren't quite my thing but what is offered is definitely high quality so it gets a thumbs up.