Here at The Elite Institute, we are keen on highlighting a variety of great games to our audience. Whether it be indies, AAA titles, or anything in between, we want to show off as much as possible in order to help guide your purchasing decisions.

That’s why we’re not entirely restricting ourselves to the Nintendo Switch. Thanks to Nintendo Labo VR Kit (check out our review), we’ve fallen in love with virtual reality and as a result have invested in a PlayStation 4 along with PSVR. There are some truly great experiences on the system, and we’d love to share our thoughts with you.

GODLIKE
When going into VR, I expected certain genres to be quite dominant. Shooting games are the obvious example, as there are so many of them and the platform – which makes sense because they’re so damn fun too. Racing and Rhythm games are also pretty abundant, and are equally well fitted to virtual reality. One type of game that I didn’t even consider with VR though was the God Sim and, after playing O! My Genesis VR, it’s now pretty much all I want.

O! My Genesis VR has you playing as the Lord of Everything – or at least the Lord of Almost Everything, as you quite clearly have an instructor who knows far more than you do. Your goal is to make the planets thrive and, ultimately, survive.

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Doing so requires manipulating the world’s population so that things advance. Creatures can be picked up and placed in various places in order to assign them to specific tasks; sticking them in a forest will make them chop wood to build houses, putting them near totems turns them into worshippers that can help you gain specials powers, and so on. The more they do, the larger the population and more advanced the civilization becomes, making them able to progress further.

It’s a very simple gameplay loop, and advancement is quite linear due to your ghostly rabbit instructor (called Phoebe) guiding you very explicitly through every single step. Whilst a little less hand holding would have been welcome, it still works because of just how beautiful the worlds are and how intuitively it all controls. Pinching the controller by pressing both the trigger and the move button allows you to pick up objects, the move button alone will use your powers, and the trigger enable you to take a hold of the planet and spin the universe around for a better look. It’s such a breeze that you’ll never have any issues and will be able to pick things up straight away.

The breezy nature of the game doesn’t mean that it lacks any danger though, as the planet’s population will soon start to be under constant threat. The main game world will have you fending off killer plants and taming dinosaurs before having to fend off the apocalypse, and the DLC worlds get really creative with the perils that face the world.

Speaking of the extra content, the base game only features one main world outside of the tutorial and that can make for a rather brief and underwhelming experience as you yearn for more to manipulate. Thankfully the two DLC planets are priced at only €2.99 each, and are so good that I would definitely advise grabbing them if you end up enjoying the primary one.

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The first piece of DLC, Dagoh, focuses on a fantasy medieval world with an evil sorcerer holding the princess hostage. To free her, you’ll need to build up your defenses and create a small town that will allow you to build warriors that can penetrate the defenses and stop his rein for good. As for the second, Corus, you’ll be heading off to a futuristic planet to defend against an alien threat. With rockets, spies, cameras, and the like, it provides yet another unique experience to allow you to flex your Godly muscles in a different way.

They’re both fantastic addition, although all three worlds (four including the brief tutorial) can be blasted through in less than 90 minutes. Sure, trophies may add another half hour on top of that, but it’s still admittedly a pretty short experience. At least the price is cheap enough to justify buying everything, even if you’ll still probably want just a little bit more after seeing the credits. Still, when the content is this fun, it still makes for an easy recommendation.

VERDICT
I loved my time with O! My Genesis VR and it scratched a VR itch that I didn’t even know that I had. It may be short, even with the DLC worlds, but it’s such a relaxed and pleasant experience that I’ll certainly jump back in to recreate these planets all over again!