Arizona Sunshine 2 Review - The Walking Shred

The first time I played Arizona Sunshine 2, I left feeling a bit nauseated, but I soon realized this was due to my time spent away from playing VR games. The second time I played Arizona Sunshine 2, I was quickly overwhelmed by its hordes of undead and left feeling like the game was perhaps unbalanced. By the third time I put on my Quest 3 headset, I'd rediscovered my proverbial sea legs, I'd mastered the art of zombie crowd control, and I enjoyed the game for what it is: an arcadey trek through the apocalypse.

In the VR-exclusive first-person zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine 2, you'll take on the role of the original game's hero for another excursion through an undead hellscape of airports, sewage tunnels, and rooftop parking lots, each of them loaded with ammo and "Freds"--the too-jokey protagonist's word for zombies--in similar quantities. The game's intentions are clear right away: This isn't the sort of game where you'll need to worry about ammo reserves very often. This is a power fantasy, though not without plenty of tension, too.

Arizona Sunshine 2 shines brightest is in those moments when you're tasked with clearing out intimidatingly large hordes of zombies. As mentioned, at first I found this so difficult that I assumed I failed to account for something--a skill move, or a control option, or something. It turns out I just needed a little practice. Like a lot of VR shooters, you can do yourself huge favors by mastering the reload animation. Initially I fumbled around with that mechanic, which caused me to take more than a few bites to the jugular, but it didn't take long before I mowed through undead like a John Wick Halloween spin-off.