We're spending seven hours with 12 Valve VR games today.

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Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives

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Arizona Sunshine

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Final Approach

Elite: Dangerous

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Audioshield

Budget Cuts

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IGN is attending an all-day Valve VR event in Seattle, WA, where we're spending it with Valve, VR developers, and the incredible Vive headset . We'll be updating this page live with various impressions of each game throughout the day, alongside interesting developer quotes and more.Have questions? Leave them in the comments and we'll follow up on what you want to know.Stay tuned.I finally understand Job Simulator as a game with structure. The new demo, set in a totally redesigned version of Owlchemy Labs’ original , much simpler kitchen, has a series of connected goals building toward something.Not that Job Simulator has some grand story. Its series of amusing objectives -- such as melting cheese on bread to make pizza, something a robot allergic to heat can’t eat -- that ultimately make up this funny, strange world where robots obsessed with human jobs boss you around.Owlchemy’s biggest, smartest change to the kitchen is just how economically it uses space. Alternating between a blender, toaster, cutting board, and other tools that occupy the same space -- and shuffle in and out of the game as you need them -- makes this contained space feel dense. I spent most of my time doing the job I was ordered to, but other times I’d tinker with stuff I wasn’t assigned, experiment with horrendous “recipes” based on weird ingredients I had on hand, and see how the world responded to my madness. That it does, both aurally and visually, is a stroke of genius.Outside the kitchen, I got a look at Job Simulator’s hub world, a robot museum showcasing human artifacts -- aside from jobs, there’s an exhibit for the fabled stapler. Here, as in the other jobs, Job Simulator is bursting with personality. This has long been a Vive favorite of mine , and its humor and creative variety are why that’s still true.Arizona Sunshine relies heavily on your ability to micromanage the items and opportunities available to you. Shoveling magazines into your ammo belt becomes a strategic thing -- do I do this now, as they’re coming at me, or am I confident enough in my shaking hands to hit headshots to save ammo?My biggest fright in Arizona Sunshine was thinking my Desert Eagle had enough rounds to take down the four zombies coming at me. I missed a crucial shot, and spent the next few seconds scrambling to load up on nearby ammo while a reanimated woman shrieked and struck me.When you’re on point, and able to understand enemy locations, ammo access, and the firepower available to you, Arizona Sunshine makes you feel bad ass. Dropping an empty shotgun for a full uzi, and killing zombies with it while reloading your off-hand pistol, is ridiculously satisfying.Overcoming my own panic made me feel great, but when dual-wielding went away in the dark caves -- I needed my left hand for a flickering flashlight -- Arizona Sunshine felt like a more measured, specific horror game. Darkness replaces light, winding caverns replace open canyons, and one weapon is your best bet to staying safe.Arizona Sunshine is a smart, horrifying shooter. I’m eager to see what other inventive stuff the developers can bring to it -- in addition to its cooperative multiplayer, which I’m excited to try in the coming months.I played Final Approach months ago, and it was the least remarkable VR game I’d played. The expanded demo I played today changed my mind on that a bit. I liked the simplicity of guiding aircrafts to their appropriate landing spots in 3D space, but when things go wrong for those planes, choppers, and the people on your crew, Final Approach becomes a much more involved strategy game.I bounced between its two perspectives -- a person aboard an aircraft carrier, and an enormous, omnipresent force towering above my seafaring ships -- because it’s necessary to keep your guys safe. I’d put out fires, at least until I could command a chopper to bring firefighters from one boat to another, before assigning safe flight paths for jets under fire from drones -- which I shot down when I zoomed in on a ship’s sea-to-air cannons.Final Approach is hardly a revelatory VR experience, but it’s an entertaining mission-based game that I think could really resonate with families.Motion sickness, even in EVE Valkyrie’s 3D space combat, had never happened to me in VR until Elite Dangerous. In space, while piloting a fighter craft, I found it natural to think about combat in a 3D way -- I could head off, avoid, or get the jump on an opponent easily, aside from my stomach feeling like it was climbing up my chest.Elite’s convincing physics had my brain struggling to adapt to the inertia and weight of pursuit. On the ground -- in the Elite: Dangerous - Horizons buggy -- I had the same issue. I wasn’t thinking completely in 3D, but the low-gravity planet, combined with the ability to easily topple or flip my vehicle, had me uncomfortable almost the entire time.As I assume I’d feel offworld, too.I don’t think I’ll play Elite in VR. It’s excellent, no doubt, with contextual menus popping and fading based on where I’m looking and what I need -- but even my typically steel stomach and adaptable brain struggled with the unfamiliar physics that make this a great space sim.From the creator of Audiosurf, Audioshield borrows heavily from its predecessor, and modifies it just as significantly. Rather than using your own music to match beats on a turbo-charged note highway, you’ll use Vive’s controllers to deflect meteors crashing toward you to the rhythm of your favorite songs.A shield in each hand -- blue on the right, orange on the left -- deflects incoming orbs, and it’s strangely satisfying. The balls explode in sparks, more violently if you punch outward toward them. The physicality of standing in place to fend of incoming orbs feels powerful, particularly when, say, a big dubstep drop -- usually represented visually by a huge string of purple meteors, defended by a purple shield created between your guards by pulling both triggers -- crashes from above.On higher difficulties, Audioshield demands fuller attention on a more broad scope, with meteors crashing in from the sides as well as the normal difficulty’s narrower forward view.I dig Audioshield for the same reason I enjoyed Audiosurf -- it’s a cool and different way to engage with music I love, and on Vive it’s done in such a way that it can’t be played outside VR. Certainly not to the same degree of empowerment, anyway.Imagine Portal as a spy game, and you’ve got a pretty solid idea of how Budget Cuts works. It’s all about infiltration and stealth action, with each of Vive’s controllers serving as interchangeable, different gadgets. What makes it so rewarding is that every step forward is a success in survival and infiltration.Navigation is brilliant: Pull the trigger, and you fire a small ball that creates a portal where it lands. Using Vive’s grip buttons, you warp to that spot. Combine this navigation with quick bits of exploration -- like rooting around an office for a safe key -- and combat -- I stocked up on throwing knives, which instantly kill patrolling robot enemies -- and Budget Cuts starts feeling like a fast-paced Bond-style thing.I’d usually warp in behind a walking sentry, chuck a knife in his back (or leg, depending on how well I understood the physics of throwing a blade), and teleport to the next room. Budget Cuts also does clever stuff with 3D space. I loved blinking across ledges to get above enemies, dropping down behind them, and slipping away unseen.Pulling vents off walls and quickly warping into the room behind them is a quick-and-dirty, but usually unsubtle way to escape an incoming patrol, but it works. I got myself killed by carelessly throwing a grate onto the ground, which attracted enemy attention. Suddenly, I realized that my natural, real-world clumsiness was affecting by ability to be an awesome spy.I will probably never be a good spy, but in Budget Cuts I can learn, grow, and improve that skill set with fun tools. The crossbow is a surer shot than my haphazard knife tossing, but it still requires actual precision and attention. It’s harder than pointing a gun in a first-person shooter, or following a reticule in a third-person action game.Because everything I do is my own doing, Budget Cuts is all the more satisfying when I accomplish anything. I can’t wait to play more of Budget Cuts, which might be the best, most interesting VR game I’ve played.