A rhythm game similar to Beat Saber except for sabers, you have guns. And instead of blocks, it's enemies that fire at you. As the name of the game implies, you can also pistol whip the enemies to instantly reload and gain back shields.

This is another game that'll make you work up a sweat. It's an on-rails shooter that has you dodge enemy fire and kill them in tune with the music. The more on beat you are, the more points you get. Don't feel bad about needing perfect aim. By default, there's an aim assist (that you can turn off) so aiming in the general area of the enemies will kill them. Each song has its own custom environment so it's not like you'll see the same area between songs.

A very simple idea but it does it well. The only reason I don't give it a higher rating is the limited song selection. While Beat Saber has quite a lot of well developed mods, that is not the case for Pistol Whip. You're limited to the devs to get more content and with the already very little track selection, it's a bit of an issue.

+ Makes you feel like an action hero
+ Trippy visuals
+ Didn't make me motionsick at all

- Doesn't fully commit to "shoot to the beat" philosophy
- Not too much variety in levels

Pistol Whip is another great VR fitness game. The first time I played, I could barely walk for a day or two! They've been slowly releasing new maps, and most of those are pretty amazing.

Once you've gotten used to the game, make sure you check out the modifiers. A lot of the settings are great for raising difficulty and making for a good workout. I like to use a combination of dual revolvers (to make you reload more), heavy armor (for enemies), high velocity, and revenge (your shots come back at you).

I'm not good enough at aiming to play with Deadeye on, but that's an eventual goal!

Sweet VR rhythm game that's clearly inspired by the likes of Beat Saber, but the form of physical activity it asks you to participate in I found to be pretty remarkable.

While Beat Saber, from what I played, mostly involves palm and hand movement with occasional obstacles dodging, in Pistol Whip you have to constantly juggle aiming, shooting, reloading, bullets dodging, obstacles dodging and melee attacks (titular pistol whipping) which makes it the most sweaty and intensive acyclical aerobic game I played in VR. I also appreciate that the game doesn't neccesarily force you abide to the rhythm, but awards more points to shots aligning. This approach smoothes out difficulty and learning curve (as the game is quite intensive as it is) and prepares you for high score runs once you come to sport the base activity and ready to incorporate the rhythm in your gameplay.

It's only really held back by a short track list and pretty low variety of EDM genres represented, but devs has shown the willingness to add more content with updates.

Overall? Heck of a good time, and you come a bit healthier from it.

let's be straight forward. pistol whip is incredibly fun. reaching for a common vr cliche, you do feel like a genuine badass as you frantically point in all directions to clear your screen of well dressed adversaries. the obvious analogue is john wick, something pistol whip's achievements are more than happy to endorse, but it definitely feels the same. gameplay's solid and frantic and sweaty and exciting, some levels genuinely leaving me on my back. i always keep coming back for more gunning--more than i can say for beat saber.

let's hit the critiques. the music sucks--absolutely. pistol whip prides itself on hard hitting electro, but its selection seems to stem but from the worst of generic american EDM producers in a way that makes me frown at the idea of replaying most of these horrid levels. and believe me, i love electronic music--i cut my teeth on justice and sebastian and soulwax and jackson and--very few songs are emblematic of these, instead quite generic and obnoxiously drop heavy. there are a couple of really solid songs... that's it. a couple. an additional critique, and quite minor, is that a lot of the level design blends together. i swear to god, i've seen the same default_town_square setting in four different songs, and it gets old. i'd appreciate some variety.

bottom line--it's definitely fun to play. i just wish the music were better.

(2089 campaign)

A short and sweet campaign added to a mechanically super solid rhythm based shooting game. It's only a few levels but the difficulty levels provide genuine replay value and the levels themselves take the mechanics in new directions. This is how a rhythm game's campaign should be done: it has that same clear movie inspiration of the levels (Robocop and Terminator are heavy influences this time around) while providing new twists on the game instead of new restrictions.

The best part - the campaign came as a free addition. The main game has now expanded enough that I can fully recommend it - at first it was a little light on content, but now there's plenty there to get your teeth into.

An incredibly satisfying game to play. It’s more compelling than a straight rhythm game, and it has quite a few little tweaks to play with for challenge or fun. It looks great with its simple audio-modifying-the-3D-models presentation and range of aesthetics that it translates to.

It has a couple story based campaigns. The story is kind of funny to set up the cliche action movie gameplay and while it’s not that great of a story, it is fun to tie several of the levels together with a theme. It seems like they’re periodically adding content as time goes on which is great. It’s fully complete as it is but the more they add the stronger it is.

The only shame is that something like this is a lot harder to mod in custom songs I’d assume, which is one of the joys of beat saber and audio shield.

It’s also generally a shame that the majority of solid vr games released are rhythm games. I love rhythm games, but a greater variety of solid titles is very desirable.