Virtual reality games provide the user with immersive experiences that can at times be overwhelming and intense. The amount of games that are currently out there that just let the user chill out in a virtual world with their friends is severely limited. Luckily, that’s where Sports Bar VR comes in to save the day.

Currently, there are four games in Sports Bar VR; Pool (8 ball, 9 ball, 3 ball, and Killer,) darts, skee ball, and air hockey, with more to come in the future. The games are pretty straight forward if you’ve played them before, but at times the controls and Move Wand responsiveness can get in the way of what would be an overall fun experience.

Without a doubt, playing pool is the highlight of Sports Bar VR, so naturally, that’s where we are going to start. Originally the game was released as Pool Nation for the HTC Vive, which allowed you to physically walk around a virtual table. With the PlayStation version, you can either teleport to different parts of the table or you can access Hulk Mode which allows you to rotate the table around you. To set up the perfect shot all you have to do is lock on using the back left trigger on the Move Wand, pull the right Move Wand back,e and then push forward. It’s simple enough to execute a shot, but it definitely takes some time to get good.

While playing pool you can play against an AI for an extra challenge. The AI is actually really good at the game and is a lot of fun to play against. You can also invite over a total of 5 real life players to your sports bar to play against, but I will get into the multiplayer a little more later.

The next game is darts and as much as I’d like to say it’s as good as the pool, it’s just not. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to throw the darts consistently and never got a grasp of it. The trouble may reside in the Move Wands because I’ve had a lot of trouble with throwing in other PS VR games, but regardless the darts experience wasn’t enjoyable.

Skee ball is another game that is pretty straight forward and does actually work well. Start up a game and just start rolling the balls up the ramp hoping to get the highest score. This is a nice addition but skee ball, in general, doesn’t have a lot of substance unless you are playing with someone else.

Air hockey is probably my second favorite game after pool. The AI is incredibly well balanced and every time I played against it I felt that it was a good, close match. The Move Wands responsiveness works perfectly when playing air hockey so if you’re a fan of this arcade staple, then this is the only place that I know you can currently get it in a VR environment.

The major downside for me was the multiplayer. Unfortunately, one of my Gamers Lounge companions, Robert, and I were never able to get a good connection. This caused a ton of issues when playing the game and made us wonder how well could the game handle six people if it can’t handle two. There were times where I was receiving points during an air hockey session even though it appeared that he had hit the puck back to me. It also made darts virtually impossible and the pool experience was also plagued with lag. After troubleshooting, restarting multiple sessions, and switching hosts we determined that the probably must be with the game. This is unfortunate and I do hope that the connectivity issues that we experienced eventually gets addressed in the future.

Overall Sports Bar VR is a great game if you are looking to take a break from intense horror games and other crazy virtual reality experiences. You’ll have a great time playing pool and really for some, I can imagine that’s enough.

3.25 stars out of 5

Thank you to Cherry Pop Games for providing us with the code.

Sports Bar VR Review