A nice looking stock that improves immersion, but still has some pretty big faults.

Virtual reality (VR) has taken shooting games to another level.

Playing a good game in this medium, allows one to forego the aiming reticles or the inconsistencies of thumbsticks, that come with flatscreen games. Instead, you get to experience something akin to realism, complete with aiming down a gun’s sights and relying on your reflexes.

Of course there are downsides to playing a shooter in VR. This is especially true when you’re using a weapons considered to be two-handed – rifles, shotguns, etc. – as the lack of a physical weapon in your hand means you cannot brace it against yourself to improve aiming. This usually leaves players trying to find ways to steady a shot, and avoid the floating hands of VR from drifting off their targets.

Just like the early days of Nintendo Wii gaming, there have been many accessories released to improve the immersion of VR. While a good portion of these have been cheap plastic garbage – like their predecessors – accessories such as the Grip-to-Putter have set a new standard for quality. While the aforementioned accessory has its faults – at launch it was a nightmare to calibrate properly- it felt like you were using a real minigolf putter.

Just like the hit and miss quality of accessories for sports games, the same issues are prevalent across the VR gunstock market.

Gone are the days where console developers released a specific gun-adjacent controller – we miss you PlayStation AIM controller. Now, all gunstocks have to be made to work with the controllers that come with VR headsets. This usually means there’s some form of attachment that goes onto your controller, that can itself, attach to the main stock – usually via magnets.

The Spine stock by OlenVR is one such accessory, where the controller’s need to have something attached via tools, so they can then attach themselves to the stock.

The overall design of the stock is nice. It is shaped like a weapon you might use in-game and comes in a variety of colours. To ensure you can swap between this and other weapons while playing, you can also purchase – or just create your own – sling, so the weapon can hang on you like a real member of the armed forces. If you spend an extra $40 to add the single point sling, you’ll be able to live out those weird fantasies that come with owning an abundance of camo clothing.

Most of that sounds great right – unless you’re the above mentioned camo connoisseur, in which case you must need a new pair of pants after all that excitement.

Well unfortunately, the Spine gunstock has many faults. While it does its main job and helps to improve stability, the overly cumbersome controller attachments and difficulties connecting these to the stock when you’re in game and unable to see, cause a slew of issues which end up breaking immersion and making this a less than ideal accessory.

Firstly, let’s talk about the attachments themselves.

These are somewhat cheap and brittle looking pieces of plastic, which wrap around the controllers and have a portion with a very strong magnet to attach to the stock itself. In order to connect these to the controllers you need an Allen key, as well as the provided screw and hex nut. Attaching these to the controllers doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s time that most don’t want to have to devote when they’re ready to play.

So is the alternative to leave these connected all the time? Well considering the magnet portions are quite heavy, they do end up adding some heft to each controller. Also, there have been multiple occasions where, during the course of using the stock, a controller completely disconnected from the headset and lost tracking. In each instance, it was at a completely inopportune time that usually ended in a virtual death.

Putting that aside, the simple fact is that these controllers should not lose tracking so easily, and despite the claim that the minimalistic design is meant to avoid controllers losing tracking, that is exactly what happens. It should also be noted that each time the controller lost tracking, it happened right after attaching it to the stock.

In addition to this, one of the biggest issues comes when you try and attach a controller to the stock itself.

When you’re immersed in a virtual space, the stock hanging off your body is not visible. In order to attach the controllers, you essentially need a lot of luck as you fumble around where to find where you believe the controller magnets connect.

The magnets can only attach to the thin metal bar which runs along the bottom of the Spine stock. Trying to attach them by feeling alone is one thing, but try doing this in the heat of an intense gunfight and you’ll notice very quickly that the immersion is completely destroyed. Now, imagine a game where your gun is not hanging in front of you, but instead behind your shoulder. You’re either reaching first to grab your VR weapons before attaching the controllers to the stock, or you’re figuring out some way to finagle your way into having both things happen at the same time.

Either way, it’s a cumbersome endeavour that adds steps or just feels unnatural.

Of course, the upside to having a stock like this is you will feel pretty quickly how you’re able to aim better and keep your VR rifle steady. There are some games which have a gunstock setting, and others where you’ll have to play around with weapon height so things feel more natural, but when things are set properly – and everything is working – it feels very good to take down your enemies using this.

Overall, this gunstock is a very nice looking accessory that does the job for which it’s intended, but there are just too many faults too make this item – which costs more than $200 after shipping and import fees – worthwhile.

The cheapness of the plastic on the controller attachments feel like they’ll break at any random point in the future, and of course the losing of tracking on fully charged controllers is unacceptably annoying. Combine that with how difficult it is to attach in the midst of a game and you’ll probably find that you’re better off buying a different brand of gunstock.

It’s unfortunate that something like this has so many faults, considering how in theory, it sets itself up as a pretty universal item – unlike an accessory such as the Artemis VR bow which has next to no game support and cannot be used in games which require movement.

For $200, it might be easier to come up with your own gunstock and 3D print it, there’s always a chance it will work out better for you than this does.

The Spine gunstock was reviewed with Quest 3 attachments after purchasing from OlenVR.com.