Have You Played... TheBlu?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

I'm obviously wearyingly used to being right, and the complete flop of major player VR games in 2016 makes me the rightest ever. But if there's one thing VR is really good for, it's experiences. Not games, places. And TheBlu nails this.

It's just a bit of being under the sea. But gosh, it's spectacular. And with Vive's room-wide tech, you get to potter about inside without being incessantly reminded of your tiny playing area. You just poke around a small space, look under things, peer through holes, and punch fish right in their stupid faces.

Each of the episodes is like being stood inside a short film, about ten minutes long, which plays out around you no matter what you do. But you can twiddle within, interact with what's happening in a minimal way, and generally gasp in wonder at the schools of waterbeasts swimming by. My favourite is the jellyfish, during which I tormented a single jellyfish by not letting it swim on with the rest of his gang, constantly bopping him so he was stuck on the spot. Nothing broke, he just had to stay nearby while the rest of the events played out.

It does a completely marvellous job of surrounding you inside something, in a way that's only possible with VR (unless you can hold your breath for ten minutes, I suppose). Not worth spending £800 to play, but certainly worth it if you won a Vive in a raffle or something.