Apart from some technical problems that can be improved with a couple of patches, the atmospheric presentation and superb co-op elevate Arizona Sunshine 2 beyond a "VR zombie shooter"
I have been eagerly waiting to play Arizona Sunshine 2 for way too long. I finally played it on my Quest 3 and well, it's really good with a few annoying mainly technical glitches that I will talk about in this review.
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Arizona Sunshine 2 is primarily a first-person shooter at its core. You'll spend most of your time gunning down hordes of the undead throughout various desert and indoor locations as you search for "Patient Zero" – the first zombie that started the apocalypse – and potentially find a cure.
What surprised me the most was the interaction between me, the protagonist, and my canine companion, Buddy. This good boy is a force of nature, able to stealthily kill zombies, fetch items, and even open locked pathways. Having Buddy by your side offers a helpful combat ally and adds more strategic thinking to encounters. Later areas introduce larger enemies that require teamwork between you and the pup to take down.
I loved experiencing the growing bond between me and Buddy. Commands felt less like using an aimless companion and more like relying on a trusted canine ally. Seeing Buddy distressed in a late scene and having the option to comfort him created an emotional connection rarely seen in games. I would kill everything and everyone for this dog, and I kinda did.
The gunplay feels great, with each weapon feeling impactful and satisfying to use. There are a plethora of weapons to find in the environments, from revolvers, pistols, and SMGs to double-barrel and pump shotguns, as well as all sorts of automatic rifles. There's also a minigun sequence atop a moving train where you obliterate hundreds of zombies, and it's pure perfection.
Manual reloads are handled remarkably well, and you must "master" the process to survive against the zombie hordes, especially on higher difficulty settings.
Headshots with a Desert Eagle or unloading a double-barrel shotgun are immensely satisfying as zombie heads or their entire bodies explode like fleshy piñatas, with limbs flying around. The same goes for melee weapons like axes, crowbars, and machetes, as they provide a bloody close-quarters option when surrounded. Decapitating zombies or cutting off their limbs is absolutely glorious.
The levels are randomly populated with plenty of weapons and ammunition to fuel your zombie massacre. While some may feel this detracts from any sense of scarcity or survival, especially if the last zombie game you played was Saints & Sinners, it fully embraces the power fantasy of an over-the-top zombie slaughter. Arizona Sunshine 2 is not a zombie survival game; it's a zombie slaying game. Large hordes become intense sequences of crowd control that test your reflexes and abilities.
Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and bloody rainbows. While the atmosphere and presentation are quite strong, especially on the Quest 3, the framerate falters when there are tons of zombies on the screen. However, that's not the biggest issue I experienced with the game. The smooth locomotion/sliding movement doesn't work well for me. Moving around with the left analog stick never felt good. In Saints & Sinners, for example, I could "dance" around the walkers, dodge their attacks and grabs, but here, I couldn't do any of that. It felt like I was constantly getting stuck on invisible objects, hindering my movement speed and making dodging zombie attacks borderline impossible most of the time. Of course, there's a teleport mode, but even that wasn't a viable control scheme when fighting against many zombies inside a tiny space. I don't know if this is a problem with the Quest version in general or just a problem unique to me, as I haven't seen anyone else reporting something similar.
The final annoying thing tech-wise is that during the loading of every other chapter, the game would hard crash on my Quest 3. Luckily, once I started and loaded my save, it would start from that chapter, so there was no progress loss or anything like that.
Apart from the single-player experience, Arizona Sunshine 2 can also be played in co-op. Taking on hordes, solving puzzles, and exploring with a partner enhances every aspect of the game. Minor issues like dropped items are less annoying when someone is there to assist you. Plus, since there are two zombie slayers, there's double the carnage, and that, again, is absolutely glorious.
Additional content like the series of Horde modes provides extended zombie slaughtering. Seeing how long you and friends can last against increasing waves injects replayability. With or without co-op, beating the 8-12 hour campaign on the standard difficulties ensures Arizona Sunshine 2 delivers a full package.
Vertigo Games has crafted an excellent game. Fantastic gunplay, fantastic melee, a great story, and Buddy – I would do anything for that dog. Apart from some technical problems that can be improved with a couple of patches, the atmospheric presentation and superb co-op elevate Arizona Sunshine 2 beyond a "VR zombie shooter". It sets the gold standard for how to do single and multiplayer campaigns right in VR. For fans of the genre and those yet to experience the apocalypse in VR, this package comes highly recommended. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a promo copy provided by the publisher. Arizona Sunshine 2 is available on Meta Quest, PSVR2 and PCVR.
