Enter a swinging, jiving, slicing musical VR experience currently like no other.

Practice, develop and master one's own double hand sword style or double edge single hand sword style for the matter to slice and dice as many incoming cubes with the beat to achieve the high-scores in the game.

Use either the hard or soft approach to playing the game with strength, speed and accuracy in contrast to grace and fluidity of movement to achieve the same objectives in completing the game.



The rhythm and beat music game has become one of the most played game genre thanks to the mobile game industry and gaming consoles like the Xbox and PlayStration. Playing to the beat of a song or tune has no doubt been one of the more challenging ways to test not only one's hand and eye coordination but the sense of hearing as well. Enter Virtual Reality and the whole rhythm and beat playing field upgrades to a whole new level.

In VR, one is figuratively inside the game (at least that's what it would feel like). Some VR games require hand, head and arm movements to basically interact with the environment but the more intensive games requires the movement of almost the entire body to sense and place the player (so to speak) right in the middle of the playing field. Again, the rhythm and beat formula has proven very well when applied to VR gaming.

In 2018, Beat Games released a VR game called Beat Saber. Developed by Jan Ilavsky, Vladimir Hrincar and Jaroslav Beck, three guys from the Czech Republic who decided to create a full motion interactive music game in VR that would exercise the players muscles, burn calories and improve one's brain to body reaction and motor skills while having tons of fun at the same time. The resulting game was an immense success and became so popular winning awards and even touted as the only game in VR to get if one could only get one. Such was the magnetic effect of Beat Saber that it was being played by both young and the senior alike.

In Beat Saber, the player wields a couple of light sabers (yes, just like Star Wars) with two distinct colors (Blue and Red, Green and Yellow, Green and Red and so on and so forth). The objective of the gamer is to slice and dice the avalanche of note cubes coming at you at various speeds and sequences. The cubes are color coded as well so a Green saber should slice a Green cube while a Red Saber a Red cube. Getting them all gets the player a perfect or very high score which depends on the angle of slice and various factors that would effect the end result. There is no one way to ensure a perfect score but to do one's best just like singing on a Karaoke console or app and hoping your voice is close enough to the requirements of the song.

Beat Saber is an all physical body moves coordination game which is a very good way to exercise, achieve concentration and focus and even provide some psychological and relaxing therapy for the mind. The game can be played from the beginner level to expert which is very difficult and requires very good reflexes and experience with the game as the speed and
challenges can get really pretty tough. Even after a couple of songs most beginners will find themselves gasping for air with less than satisfactory results. The game is also competitive because there are online leader boards that keep track of your scores by which way you can have a contest with other online players and friends.

Beat Saber is currently available for the PC and the PSVR. The advantage of the PC version using a high-end HMD like the Oculus or Vive would be the moddable feature of the game. With the PSVR, the available soundtracks are limited as well as the background environment. Even the color and tint of the light sabers are severely limited as well. With the PC, one can use Mods that not only affect the sabers but the game's backgrounds too. Even the note cubes can be modified to suit one's tastes. The songs also becomes unlimited in a manner of speaking as you can load all the songs you like to be used with the available Mods of the game. Currently, aside from game Mods, a game editor and Mod manager is available for use.

Playing Beat Saber is awesomely addictive and can actually develop into an everyday exercise habit or routine. Somehow , the action of slicing incoming cubes by swinging light sabers to the rhythm and beats of a song has attracted many VR players the world over. From the four corners of the Earth, Beat Saber has become the VR game to play. Finishing campaigns and completing objectives has become a rewarding experience for Beat Saber players as the challenges incrementally increase giving the player time to master the necessary moves to gain the coveted high scores. Either way, Beat Saber is a sword game requiring sword skills which is very much a martial art in itself.

Observing Beat Saber game play of players from different cultural and national origins, a distinction between moves and the use of (the) Force in the game as to how one moves and swings can actually be observed. Thus, the game can be played via a hard and soft discipline. One can use strength, speed and force of body movement to get to each of the cubes and slice them, or one can use grace and smoothness of movement to do the same thing. The analogy would be a comparison of a sport like Boxing to Aikido or Judo. If you have the time to watch The Queen of Beat Saber on YouTube, (she's this cute Korean girl with Beat Saber moves which will leave you in awe) one will see that she practically doesn't use force or strength to get all the cubes. She dances with grace swinging her sabers in sync with the music combining a strong dance discipline with a samurai fighting technique one has never seen the likes of ever before.

So, in whatever moves you want to use, just remember that practice makes perfect but a good advice would still be to take it easy and have lots of fun and improve in increments than having your entire body ache much worst end up with a sprain from trying to reach the final score. Beat Saber is one game almost no VR player has ever regretted from acquiring it.