Gorn 2

A few years ago, the zany brawler Gorn (from Free Lives) painted virtual battle arenas with blood and severed limbs in a fun, comic book-style action game. Gorn's rubbery brawls now continue in the battlefields of the heavens, where the player faces five sons of the god of the afterlife and a huge pile of their bloody challenges.

The premise of Gorn 2 is clear: beat up every opponent that comes your way in the battle arena. In this visually stunning action, the style is free-form, as the game offers a variety of melee and ranged weapons alongside fists to complete the mission. Players can choose from battle arenas with different themes, which unlock as you gain experience through combat, and in addition to basic enemies, you'll face treacherous traps and unique boss battles.

The feel of the VR game is good. The virtual hands respond precisely to the Sense controller's movements and provide a solid grip on the weapons. However, just like in the first game, two-handed weapons, such as the bow, occasionally cause issues with awkward jamming and freezing. The impact of hits, however, feels very substantial. This is softened by the game's amusing "rubber band physics," thanks to which weapons and enemies bend under the force of blows as if made of rubber. The enemies' bending and uncontrolled swaying add a touch of fun suitable for a gory game and this chaotic swaying also becomes part of the game's challenge, as enemies move unpredictably. A slightly unfair mechanic is that hitting an enemy's weapon while it's at rest damages the player, and this inconsistency causes a bit of annoyance, though enemies will also attack each other if they happen to have injured one another.

The graphics in Gorn 2 are colourful and fitting for its zany gameplay. The consistent comic book-style successfully plays with caricature-like body proportions and fun details. Unique special abilities and weapons, such as giant hands or balloon arrows that enemies launch into the sky, provide a pleasant contrast to the excessive bloodshed and flying limbs, creating a distinctive look. The characters are suitably detailed with amusing animations, but the same character model is reused a bit too much. It's also worth noting that the game effectively utilises versatile and stylish effects—from torch flames to comic book-style smoke bursts—to keep its world feeling vibrant and organic. Plus, the game runs flawlessly on the PlayStation 5.

The audio is also high-quality and fits well with the game's light-hearted overall vibe. The sound effects provide plenty of clanging and crashing for the arena battles, and the enemies' grunts when attacking and their whimpers when wounded are amusing to hear, giving these rubber characters some personality. The music, reminiscent of Irish-style battle tunes, has just the right light-heartedness to keep the action relaxed yet appropriately atmospheric.

Gorn 2's virtual brawling is entertaining time-killing fun, whose strengths lie in its consistently high-quality execution and silly premise. The story provides a suitable reason to fight and the game also offers the chance to take on various challenge battles outside the main story. Although you end up facing the same enemies a bit too often and the damage can be a bit too sensitive, Gorn 2 has taken the potential of the first game to the next level and made whacking its rubber foes even more fun.