The lawsuit brought against Sony over claims it mislead gamers about the graphical quality of Killzone Shadow Fall 's multiplayer has been dismissed "with prejudice". A fancy legal way of saying 'take a hike and don't come back'. Alright, technically 'dismissed with prejudice' means it's a final judgement that both stops the plaintiff resubmitting another claim, or anyone else trying anything similar
Dirty Bomb planted on Steam, still in closed beta
Dirty Bomb (previously named Extraction (previously named Dirty Bomb )) is on Steam.
)) is on Steam. Publisher Nexon America has announced that the game will be available exclusively through Valve's service. Not yet, though—at least, not yet for most people. Splash Damage's free-to-play FPS is still in closed beta.
If you're interested in what Splash Damage did after Brink, the Steam switch coincides with a lifting of the beta embargo. The game is now available to be recorded or streamedby the game's participants.
If you'd like to take part, you can sign up for the beta over at the Dirty Bomb website. Or just take a look at Dan Gril's hands-on report.
Dirty Bomb is due for public release this Summer.
Castlevania movie gets backed by $200m financing
Tekken and Castlevania movie production company Crystal Sky Pictures has secured $200 million dollars in financing money, in part to green light a Castlevania movie. According to Variety, the movie will be written by Paul 'Resident Evil' Anderson and directed by Sylvain White. Who made 'I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.' Nice to see Crystal Sky is investing its money wisely, there. Crystal
Gone Home trailer announces music from '90s riot grrrl bands Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile
Gone Home is a "story exploration" game from The Fullbright Company which takes place in 1995, and stars Samantha, a teenager "dealing with tons of uncertainty, heartache, and change." Riot grrrl is an often misrepresented '90s feminist punk rock genre.
is a "story exploration" game from The Fullbright Company which takes place in 1995, and stars Samantha, a teenager "dealing with tons of uncertainty, heartache, and change." Riot grrrl is an often misrepresented '90s feminist punk rock genre. Well then, how appropriate that the latest Gone Home trailer introduces music from riot grrrl bands Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile as a plot element (and also really great).
"In the game, Sam is introduced to Riot Grrrl music by a friend, and it changes her life," said Fullbright Company co-founder Steve Gaynor.
"It's really goddamn amazing to have the opportunity for this music to be in Gone Home," he continued. "Authenticity is our number one priority, and the inclusion of tracks by Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile really drives home the era and the place and the feelings surrounding the story of Gone Home. We're psyched."
The trailer features Some Special by Bratmobile, but there are five more tracks in the game, a mix from the albums Calculated by Heavens to Betsy and Pottymouth by Bratmobile. Gone Home will be out the second half of this year, and is a finalist in the Excellence in Narrative category at the 15th Annual Independent Games Festival, happening next week at GDC.
International pricing for the HTC Vive is here
The HTC Vive is $799 in the US , but how much does it cost in the rest of the world?
, but how much does it cost in the rest of the world? HTC has been kind enough to compile this information, and while you'll probably need to crack out XE.comto get the real cost for whichever country you live in, at least the currencies are clearly marked (get the hint, Oculus?).
Most notably, the Vive will cost £689 in the UK, and US$899 in Australia. That latter price is $100 more than in the US, not including shipping ( : previously I wrote that it did include shipping, but alas, it doesn't). Australians should therefore expect to pay around AU$1,261 for their Vive before shipping, at the time of writing, though any relevant sales taxes aren't included.
The Vive begins shipping on April 5, and orders are limited to one unit per customer. Pre-orders officially open February 29 at 10am Eastern time. In addition to previously announced bundled software (Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator), the Vive will also ship with Google's Tilt Brush. Here's the trailer for that, and then the prices per region below.
MSRP
US*
US $799.00
Australia
US $899.00
Canada*
CAD 1149
China
CNY 6,888
Taiwan
NT$28,288
Japan
JPY 111,999
UK
New Zealand
US $949.00
EU
Belgium
Czech
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Killzone: Shadow Fall collectible locations guide
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Dean Hall says the Vive is "awesome" but urges caution about VR gaming
DayZ creator and RocketWerkz boss Dean Hall let slip last summer that he's making a game for SteamVR , and while we still don't know exactly what it will be, things sound like they're going pretty well.
, and while we still don't know exactly what it will be, things sound like they're going pretty well. In comments posted on the New Zealand subreddit(Hall is from NZ), he described the Vive VR headset as “amazing,” saying, “It's the device that really convinced me that we could make fun (and not just casual-as-fuck) VR games.”
Hall's enthusiasm is obvious, but what's interesting is the way he describes the Vive and Oculus Rift headsets as “fairly different” platforms, even though they're often treated as more or less different shades of the same color. “While you can use each to do what the other is, they're both designed at the core quite differently and seem to me to be retrofitted to also do what the other is,” he explained. “For example, the Vive is focused on positional tracking right from the get-go and it is clear when you use it. Games designed for one or the other work best, IMHO, and I would offer EVE Valkyreas a great example. CCP sat down and made a game for the Oculus and the result was outstanding.”
But while VR headsets “make for great E3 demos,” the ability of developers to create VR games that people will want to play for extended periods of time remains an open question. “We don't know what kinds of games will sell well, how big the market will be, and so on. So our steps with VR are exploration and we're not banking the studio on it,” he wrote. “I fear some studios are so swept up with the possibilities of VR they're putting everything into it when we don't know anything about the VR game market.”
I'd say his caution is well-founded. The Vive may well be a great piece of kit, but it's expensive as hell, too: It lists for $799 in the US, £689 in the UK, €899 in the EU, C$1149 (about $860) in my homeland of Canada, and $949 in Hall's New Zealand.
First impressions of the Oculus Rift from a VR newbie
Before PAX South , the only VR headset I had used was the Samsung Gear—which hardly counts in the eyes of the experienced VR user.
I had used was the Samsung Gear—which hardly counts in the eyes of the experienced VR user. Last weekend, I got to use the Oculus Rift CV1(I mistakenly say "Crescent Bay" in the video, oops) and two different versions of the HTC Vive, including the Vive Pre. It was an incredible (if brief) experience and made me more confident and excited for having already pre-ordered the Rift. But it wasn't all perfect: It may be that I had heard so many incredible thingsabout VR that I over-hyped it for myself, but certain aspects of VR didn't manage to live up to my expectations. Watch the video above for more of my thoughts on my first time using proper VR headsets.
Will 2016 be the year of VR?
If you've been following our PAX South coverage, you know that I interviewed a whole lot of developers last weekend.
coverage, you know that I interviewed a whole lot of developers last weekend. What you didn't know is that after each of those interviews, I asked them all the same question: Will 2016 be the year of VR? It's a divisive question, and unsurprisingly we got a wide range of answers. Developers of hardware, indie games, and big-budget games all weighed in on what they expect for VR this year. Watch the video above to hear what they had to say.
The best Castlevania comes to Xbox Live Arcade
Konami's classic side-scrolling epic action RPG title, Castlevania: Symphony of Night will become available for download on Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 on Wednesday, March 21. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series, Symphony of Night involves an absolutely gigantic version of Dracula's abode. It's possible to think you've explored the entire castle, when in fact you've only uncovered
Killzones intro made me reassess the next console generation
Editor’s note: This article discusses the first 15 minutes of Killzone: Shadow Fall. Check out our PS4 review and Killzone: Shadow Fall review for non-spoilers. The game opens, first person, as usual. I am looking out a window at a ramshackled checkpoint set up by some Helghast guards. Right now I can only control the camera, and so I survey the scene below. I hear footsteps behind me. A man approaches
AMD on the present and future of virtual reality
Back at PAX South we got to speak with Omar Faiz from the technical marketing side of AMD (which also sponsored our PAX coverage) about virtual reality, how far it's come since the first Oculus Rift dev kit, and what he expects for the future.
we got to speak with Omar Faiz from the technical marketing side of AMD (which also sponsored our PAX coverage) about virtual reality, how far it's come since the first Oculus Rift dev kit, and what he expects for the future. We're excited about the first consumer VR headsets, but it's fair to be cautious of buying in early when you look back and see how inferior Oculus' DK1 is compared to the current model. Faiz thinks VR is ready now, with the first iterations of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive coming out this year—see what he has to say in the video above, and let us know what you think about this first round of headsets in the comments.
Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy review
Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy review What do Contra, Final Fantasy, Maniac Mansion, Mega Man, Metal Gear , R-Type, Shinobi and Street Fighter have in common? Answer: They’re all celebrating their 25th birthday in 2012. We use the word “celebrating” loosely, of course. Some of these franchises are dead and buried, while others will merely be celebrated with re-packaged compilations – hardly the tribute
DLC maps for Killzone Shadow Fall will be free
Unlike most console FPS games, PS4 launch title Killzone: Shadow Fall won’t charge users for post-launch maps released as DLC, Guerrilla Games has confirmed as part of a multiplayer reveal which you can see in action in the video above. Guerrilla community editor Victor Zuylen has also detailed the shooter’s multiplayer component in a on the Killzone site. "Using the new customizable Warzone features
Space Pirate Trainer nails the purity of an arcade FPS in VR
Imagine if Space Invaders was immersive.
Imagine if Space Invaders was immersive. Genuinely immersive. You feel like you’re that lone, besieged tank, relentless waves of alien ships descending from above. They’re menacing in their calmness as they fire down upon you. You hear their shots chip away at the only meager cover you have left. You pause with satisfaction to watch the alien ships explode each time you land a killing shot. Your death is inevitable. The only question is how long you can delay it.
That’s more or less the idea developer I-Illusions started with as it prototyped VR shooter Space Pirate Trainer.
“We really want to have that arcade feeling,” developer Dirk Van Welden told me at Valve’s recent Vive VR developer showcase. “That’s important for us. We really enjoy the early Space Invaders, Galaga type of games. We want the look to be a bit of a Blade Runner look. We also want a pick up and play experience.”
More Vive games
I saw 11 other VR games coming to the Vive at Valve's recent event. Read about all of them here.
Van Welden said that when he first started working with VR, he thought about what he’d really want to do with a pair of controllers, and the answer was clear: shoot laser guns. “So I thought about what the perfect first person shooter experience would be like in VR,” he said. “The guns I’ve tried to make feel just right. I started playing with bullet time and dodging. Making the bullet fly at the right speed, making time slow down at the right pace, that’s really important. You have to do a lot of iteration and testing to get it just right. If you’ve got the base of that, then you can start doing extra mechanics with the guns.”
Space Pirate Trainer may have been the simplest demo I played at Valve’s developer showcase, but it was also my favorite. The rapid fire laser guns made me feel in control as waves of drones swirled around me, and the bullet time when they fired gave me just enough time to dodge—and feel cool—without interrupting the flow of the game or making it too easy. There wasn’t much complexity or variety here. Each wave brought on a few more drones, some of which took two hits to kill instead of one, and they attacked in varying patterns each wave. But like any good arcade game, I already felt the pull in Space Pirate Trainer to keep playing and reaching for a higher score.
Reaching over my shoulder let me swap either laser pistol for a shield, which can block shot from the drones and emit a knockback pulse to buy some breathing room. There’s already a fun risk reward mechanic at play with the gun and shield: am I a good enough shot with two pistols to take out the drones before they land three hits on me (that’s a game over), or should I take the more measured gun + shield approach?
I liked opening a round with both guns blazing, then quickly pulling out a shield when I heard the telltale charging sound of a drone about to fire. Another option I didn’t spend much time with was the laser pistol’s railgun firing mode, which fires off a single deadly shot after a short charge-up time. Landing that shot feels great, but the drones are small and always on the move, which makes autofire an easier weapon for the beginner. Railgun in one hand, autofire in the other, though? Now we’re cookin’ with lasers.
Van Welden has a lot of ideas for adding to Space Pirate Trainer, which does feel like more of a demo than a full game, even with its arcade roots. “The gun modes are too similar, so we’ll be changing the color and strength of certain laser bullets,” he said. “The railgun is a good example, because that’s totally different. Maybe spreadhsots and stuff. You have a shield that can do a pulse, but you could have grenades and gravity pulse. You could do a lot of stuff like that. Even placing a turret or something. We’re still thinking about that as well. But that might not work in VR. We really have to playtest everything to make it feel right.”
Also on the table: boss battles, which could require shooting weak spots or some light puzzle solving. He suggested upgrading weapons may follow a roguelike approach, and cited Vlambeer’s Nuclear Throne as a recent inspiration. “Every wave you can select some kind of upgrade, there’s an upgrade tree,” he suggests. “You could have a lot of different strategies to upgrade yourself. The shield could be an upgrade. The shield pulse could be another upgrade. If you have those, and waves that aren’t always the exact same but are procedurally the same, you could have a very good game that’s always pick up and play.”
I-Illusions hopes to have a game ready to go by the time the Vive launches, or at least in 2016. Getting Space Pirate Trainer to the developer showcase was a mad rush—they’d stopped working on the prototype in favor of another back in December, and got a message from Valve just 12 days before the event. But clearly they nailed the fundamentals; I just hope they take the time needed to build a full game around that base.
Sony GamesCom 2013 press conference - watch it here 6pm UK / 10am PST
Sony is streaming its GamesCom 2013 press conference from 6pm UK time, 10am PST. You'll be able to watch all the action right here, as Sony unveils its launch plans for PS4 and reveals the exciting future of PlayStation Vita. Killzone Shadow Fall , inFamous: Second Son , Tearaway , Driveclub --expect to see all the big guns. And Knack. Hungry for more GamesCom content? You'll find ALL GamesRadar's GamesCom 2013 coverage right here . Topics gamescom 2013 Action Killzone: Shadow Fall We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
Virtual punching, real music in the new game from Audiosurf's creator
In 2008, Dylan Fitterer released the first game to support Valve’s Steamworks platform (other than Valve’s own games, of course).
In 2008, Dylan Fitterer released the first game to support Valve’s Steamworks platform (other than Valve’s own games, of course). You’ve almost certainly heard of it: Audiosurf, a music game that builds courses around whatever song you feed into its algorithm. It’s fitting, then, that Fitterer would also be releasing the first music game on Valve’s SteamVR platform. The biggest surprise of Valve’s VR games showcase was his new game Audioshield, which charges you with punching along to the beat as music flies towards your face. If you think that sounds like a workout, you are very, very right.
More Vive games
I saw 11 other VR games coming to the Vive at Valve's recent event. Read about all of them here.
“I like to unwind with Audioshield,” Fitterer said when we spoke at the end of Valve’s developer showcase. “It allows you to make it as much of a fitness experience as you want. You can hold back and play more conservatively, or you can really go for it and punch at the incoming meteors. And then you really are getting more of a fitness element, which is what I like to do. At this point I’ve added style points, so punching actually rewards you in gameplay terms. You punch hard, you get bonus points at the end.”
Where Audiosurf is all about moving forward, in Audioshield you stand still; the music, analyzed by Fitterer's algorithm and sourced from Soundcloud or your personal library, comes to you. Lines of light blue and orange orbs fly towards you, and you block them with glowing shields on each arm. The left is blue, the right orange, with a translucent aesthetic that would be at home in Tron Legacy. The orbs pulse with the beat as they approach. Blocking them successfully often requires rapidly moving each arm from left to right, holding for a moment to catch a long chain, then whipping to the other side to catch a stray orb, then back for another chain. It’s already a workout, but when a song kicks into high gear, the orbs start flying at you from above.
Bombing at you, as Fitterer likes to say. VR Missile Command inside a neon rave, set to your own music.
Earlier in development, all the orbs bombed at you, but Fitterer decided to segment it—partially because thrusting the controllers above your head for the duration of a song is, it turns out, pretty exhausting. But the exercise involved isn’t an accident. When Fitterer first started prototyping in VR, he built an exercise bike game.
“I built this Bluetooth accelerometer and ziptied it to one of the pedals of my exercise bike,” he said, laughing. “I built this little version of Audiosurf I guess, where the whole idea was to pedal faster the faster the music gets. Which is kinda how I exercise, I do that anyway. So I built some software that scored you on that, and I never actually got to the point of putting you in the headset because there were too many other reasons this was a bad idea. But it was cool, in a way. It was noisy. I’d want to compete with myself to get faster and faster RPMs.”
"As Audioshield becomes more difficult, it becomes more physically difficult."
After that, he moved on to VR support for Audiosurf 2. But he found it too intense for newcomers.
“I started thinking, how can I take this and make it comfortable for people who are new to VR, who haven’t really gotten to the point where a sinking stomach feeling can be a positive thing? So I started with tricking your brain [about] what’s moving. Am I moving, or is the track moving towards me? I eventually decided what I really want is a player who’s in proper room scale VR who only moves when they move.”
Playing Audioshield brought back fond memories of working out with Wii Sport’s simple but satisfying boxing minigame, and it didn’t even occur to me until afterwards that I must’ve looked absurd punching into the air and swiping my arms left and right to block as many orbs as I could. I was immersed. Even so, as I was having fun in the moment I felt like the minimalist design may border on being too simple—that there’s not enough going on in Audioshield to make me want to don a headset to play it.
Perhaps that’s down to my expectations for rhythm games. Japanese rhythm gamesdeliver sensory overload as you slap buttons and screens to the beat. Where were the other colors, the score pop-ups and combos and intense effects in Audioshield? Would those things make the game better?
“My feeling right now is that no, it doesn’t need that,” Fitterer said. “Or at least not yet anyway. The purple blocks are a chord where you combine your two shields to make the purple. There’s more chords you could do, or you could use buttons to change individual shields. There could be four colors. There are a lot of ways to make it a more involved game. Right now I’m not thinking that’s the direction I’m going to take. Not yet, anyway. Right now it’s as it becomes more difficult, it becomes more physically difficult. It’s more about perceiving farther ahead in the music, doing a better job of anticipating. The game is giving you all this information about the future, really, what’s going to happen in the song. Getting to the more advanced levels of play are all about reading that future better so you kind of prepare yourself for the next move and the one after that.”
Much as I like the information overload in rhythm games, I’ve never played one in VR before. And as we’re learning more and more, what works outside of VR isn’t always what’s best in VR. I wanted more feedback on how I was scoring as I played the game, but maybe that would’ve just been distracting.
“There’s challenges when communicating things to players when they’re in VR without breaking them out of this close connection,” Fitterer said. “It’s you and the music. There’s a little fragility to it that I don’t want to mess up.”
Audioshield as it stands represents about six months of work, and FItterer hopes to have it ready to launch with the Vive in a few months time. There’s currently only one environment in the game, and he hopes to add another one before release. I asked about modding support, which seems an ideal way to give Audioshield more variety.
“I think you’re right on, and what I found with AUdiosurf 2 is the community is there and they do fantastic work,” he said. “There are so many awesome skins on the Audiosurf 2 workshop. I’d love to do that again. I don’t want to promise that, though, because it’s a lot of work. So we’ll see.”
Bayonetta: Bloody Fate brings the badass witch to life in anime
One of the things that fans of Bayonetta love the most about the series is the cheeky nods to Japanese animation tropes and style. Given that background, it was only a matter of time before the Umbran witch got an anime all her own. Released in Japan some months ago, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate sees release in the US just in time for the launch of Bayonetta 2 . Meanwhile, the UK will have to wait a few
Wii U sells 400,000 in first week
The Wii U sold 400,000 units in its launch week, as part of 1.2 million overall Nintendo system sales. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told CNET that Wii U is "is essentially sold out of retail and we are doing our best to continually replenish stock." For some context, the original Wii also sold out at retail, and actually sold through 475,000 units in its first week, according to the
The Coolest Stuff We Saw At CES 2016
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Now that the dust has settled and CES 2016 is winding down, we thought we would share with you some of the coolest tech/hardware we saw at the show.
Now that the dust has settled and CES 2016 is winding down, we thought we would share with you some of the coolest tech/hardware we saw at the show. Click through the following gallery and let us know what you're most excited about in the comments below!
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Digital Storm showed off its updated Aventum 3 chassis with a new hard tubing design. Using elbow connectors this time around, you still get a clean, sharp look out of the water cooling, but it's much more sturdy and secure this time around. For more information on what Digital Storm showed off at CES, see here.
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CyberPower has done something we never thought to do, the company has built two computers into one chassis. Called the "Pro Streamer," the computer is built for Twitch streamers who want to be able to game on one system and interact with viewers on the other system. Both systems not only run in the same case, but use the same power supply and liquid cooling system as well. You can read more about CyberPower's CES offering here.
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HTC showed off its newly revamped developer kit at CES and the biggest addition this time around is the new front-facing camera, which will allow you to see if your cat is within accidental kicking range. The screen is also a bit brighter and the headset has improved optics. There are also some improvements made to the ergonomics of the controller and the light houses are more quiet, too. For more information on the updated HMD, see here.
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In case you were wondering, this was the room set up for the Vive demo. You can see the light houses hung up on the walls.
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The Vive demos were actually running some Origin PC gaming laptops, outfitted with a desktop 980, of course.
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DeepCool is working on a prototype for a water-cooled power supply, because...why not? You can read more about it here.
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If you thought Mini ITX systems were small, then you'll be amazed by Intel's new mini STX form factor. The board measures roughly 5x5 inches and you can learn more about ECS' board here.
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Patriot is getting into the M.2 NVME SSD space with its Hellfire drive here. As you can see from the specs, it's read and write speeds should be able to go up to 2,500MB/s and 600MB/s, respectively.
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We like HyperX's gaming headsets, so much so that we recommended the company's Cloud II headset as our Dream Machinecans this past year. So we're excited to hear that HyperX is working on a more premium headset called the Cloud Revolver. You can hear more about it here.
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CyberPower us working on a plank so you can have your own lapboard to place your keyboard and mouse on. The version that you see here uses some custom artwork, and the company hopes to make the final version out of wood, but the company is still in the experimental stages, as this device would be pretty expensive, and want to know if you are interested and how much you would pay to get one. Do let them know in the comments below!
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Intel recently revealed a new Compute Stick (see: left) that will run Windows 10, have 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage for around 130 bones. The company says it also addressed the Stick's wifi issues this time around.
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This is what you'll get when you purchase your $600 Oculus Riftbundle: The Rift headset, an Xbox One controller, a wireless remote, and the tracking station.
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While MSI's trashcan-like PC may be very reminiscent of Apple's Mac Pro, this one is designed for gamers and can scale up to use two 980 GPUs in SLI. For more information on MSI's Vortex PC, see here.
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Another interesting piece of hardware that MSI showed off at its suite is a gaming laptop with Tobii eye tracking software. We played Assassin's Creed on it and it tracked our eyes so that we could look around the monitor to see which grappling points to hook on to. You can see it being demoed here.
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Origin PC shows off its ultra powerful but ultra small Chronos Mini ITX gaming system. Seriously, it's about the most powerful thing you can fit in a space that small. It can house a Titan X and a 5960X with four storage drives. Also, did we mention that its water cooled? For more info on the system, see here.
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Another awesome piece of hardware we saw at Origin's suite is the company's upcoming gaming AIO. Called the Omni, the AIO uses a 34-inch ultrawide panel from Samsung and high-end desktop parts that can be scaled up to a Titan X and 5960X. It's also quite serviceable as you'll see in this video here.
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If there is one magical case at CES, it's got to be In-Win's " Black Whole" chassis. In-Win is calling it the Black Whole because if you stare at the front of it, the darkness seems to go on forever. The company is using lights and a bunch of mirrors to trick your brain into thinking you're peering into the vast expanse of the universe. It's wicked awesome.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jimmy Thang has been Maximum PC's Online Managing Editor since 2012, and has been covering PC hardware and games for nearly a decade. His particular interests currently include VR and SFF computers.
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750,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold last week
More than 750,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in the U.S. last week. The pre-holiday shopping rush brought on by Black Friday retailer discounts helped propel the seven-year-old console to beat Microsoft's internal sales projections, and Xbox Live Gold subscription sales grew by 50 percent compared to last year. The impressive figures from Xbox Live's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb make one thing very clear
Predicting the biggest PC gaming stories of 2016
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As we start the new year, we’re thinking about the kind of stories we should be prepared to cover for the next 12 months.
As we start the new year, we’re thinking about the kind of stories we should be prepared to cover for the next 12 months. How much will VR actually matter? What will the big games be? Who’s going to disrupt the desk chair market? We've done some speculating and come up with a few informed predictions (yes, “guesses”) at how 2016 will unfold. So with the caveat that we aren't yet wizards, despite all our training, here's what we expect to make headlines this year—not including the obvious big releases, and the given that we'll be writing about XCOM 2 modsnonstop.
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Your rich friend’s VR headset
2016 won’t be the ‘year of VR’—it’s looking a bit too pricey to leap into mainstream gaming just yet—but the Oculus Rift and HTC Vivewill be out there. They’ll be at your friend’s house, or at your friend’s friend’s house, and there’s going to be that one game that you just have to try.
That game is probably one we haven’t even heard of yet. I don’t expect it to be Eve Valkyrie (we have speculated as muchalready, but I love to contradict our own predictions) or Lucky's Tale, the games that come with the Rift, because they feel too traditional—they don’t need to be in VR. The VR ‘killer app’ (about 20 games will be declared ‘killer apps’ throughout the year) will be a game that wouldn’t work outside of VR, that can’t easily be compared to traditional games. It’ll be one of those surprising little experiences that gets everyone talking, like Undertaleor The Beginner’s Guidelast year.
However much we talk about it, though, VR won’t carve out any huge portion of PC gaming this year, preferring a gentler ramp over the next few years. We are going to talk about it lots, though, and here are a few of the reasons:
• VR is cool.
• A lot of developers, big and small, will announce VR projects, planning to capitalize on them in 2017 or 2018.
• Someone is going to spend way too long with a headset on and document the effects (saw thismoments after writing this, so, one down).
• Someone is going to build a room that looks like a holodeck for their HTC Vive.
• Someone is going to get hurt or break something. Remember the joy of all those Wiimote-through-TV-sad-child-angry-dad photos?
The battle between the new-school shooters
“Oh, great, another shooter,” was a fun thing we used to say years ago, but then “shooter” became “MOBA.” This year, we get to say both! With Doom, Unreal Tournament, Paragon, LawBreakers, Battleborn, Paladins, and Overwatch in development, multiplayer arena and objective-based shooters are clearly hot. Shooters are stylish again (albeit often with a lane-pushing twist), they’re coming from all directions, and as a result the usuals are looking pretty stale. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Battlefield Hardline, and Battlefront were all fine last year, but it’s games like Squadthat are occupying the interesting new cultural space on PC.
And some of them will flounder. Doomcan sell itself on marketing and pedigree, sure, but that doesn’t protect it from selling a bunch and then being abandoned—oh, sweet Evolve, how you tried. At least one of these games—probably more—will flop against the dominance of CS:GO, TF2, and survival games like H1Z1 and Ark: Survival Evolved. Likewise, one of them’s going to get very big, and we’ll still be talking about it this time next year. My money’s on Overwatch.
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Japan continues to embrace PC gaming
When Metal Gear Solid V was announced, we assumed by default that a PC release wasn’t on the table. Last year, it won our overall Game of the Year award. In the course of a few years, we’ve gone from being surprised when a Japanese game releases on PC to being surprised when it doesn’t.
Even Microsoft is joining in, as we learned recently that ReCore, the MS published game from Keiji Inafune’s Comcept studio and Armature Studio, will make it over to Windows 10. We’ll be surprised if Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII remakedoesn’t release on PC, too. The story, really, is that this is going to stop being a story: fewer fan petitions, more Japanese games as standard on PC.
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Valve will spring a surprise or two by the end of the year
Valve has a lot to do. It’s busy building a virtual reality platform and other hardware, an operating system, maintaining some of the most popular games in the world, and running the most popular PC games distributor. I don’t expect any new projects in the first half of this year, outside of some Steam updates (the whole thing is way overdue for a full redesign) and maybe some revisions to the Greenlight process. It’s possible Source 2 will get a release date at GDC, but the HTC Vive will absorb most of the energy.
But the end of the year could be exciting. Once SteamVR is off the ground, the focus will be on maintaining a fresh stream of VR games and applications to keep early adopters feeling happy about their purchase. That’s when we could see a new game announcement. That’s right: RicochetVR.
Prev Page 5 of 7 Next Prev Page 5 of 7 Next
Esports enters its next phase
This year, TBS is going to start broadcasting pro Counter-Strike tournaments on Friday nights. There’s no need to reinforce the notion that, yes, esports are a big deal (they just are at this point), but they’re soon to become a much bigger deal—one analysis predicts $1.9 billion in revenuesby 2018. With that in mind, the key story this year will be about maturation. We’ll see better resources for tracking players and teams, better-produced broadcasts, and more regulation to protect players and the integrity of competitions. The flipside is that there will be more match fixing stories and more drug testing, too.
Fantasy esports will explode, and gambling around esports will become increasingly common. There’ll be drama. That will never go away (it hasn’t gone away in traditional sports, anyhow), but there will also be a lot more scrutiny on the companies running events, and, I think, a lot of interest in how sports law applies to esports players. In 2013, for instance, the United States issued pro athlete visasto League of Legends players, and last year, several major teams formed a union—albeit a fairly unpopular one. Expect many more developments on those fronts in the coming years. (Also, expect to see a lot of Activision Blizzard games on MLG.)
Prev Page 6 of 7 Next Prev Page 6 of 7 Next
And a few bolder predictions...
As we got all this speculation out of our systems, we were left with some remaining futureinos (a vitamin that promotes healthy kidney function and speculative articles in January) to burn off. So here are a few more leftfield entirely possible predictions:
• The next Destiny game will dump old-gen consoles and come to PC.
• Rockstar will revisit a much loved classic from its back catalog.
• We’ll all forget about that Twitch Bob Ross marathon, but it will again be the highlight of October.
• Nvidia’s high-end graphics card will be the biggest performance leap in years, but cutting-edge production will mean low supply and prices that make the Oculus Rift look cheap.
• Blizzard will make substantial changes to one of its most loved games.
• Breaking the fourth wall will go out of style, then surge back into style in VR games. By 2018, 80 percent of games will be incessantly self-referential.
• The words “indie” and “triple-A” will finally stop being used as genre descriptors. (We can dream.)
• Ubisoft will take a year off from Assassin’s Creed in 2016, but it’ll leak that they have four Assassin’s Creed games planned for Q1 2017.
• Valve will release a game*
*-ification of Steam customer service requests.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR As Executive Editor, Tyler spends a lot of time editing reviews and looking at spreadsheets, and whatever time is left over writing reviews. People joke that he doesn't like 90 percent of the games he plays, but he'll tell you he just has very discerning tastes.
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...
Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Sprawling and beautifully rendered Colorado A fun arcade racer with Forzas attention to detail No shortage of fun content and great progression Cons Car handling sometimes lacks precision Cheesy storyline Looking for a traditional Forza game? Youll be disappointed Forza Horizon marks a departure from the simulation-based racing that has defined Turn 10’s series
Predicting the biggest PC gaming stories of 2016
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As we start the new year, we’re thinking about the kind of stories we should be prepared to cover for the next 12 months.
As we start the new year, we’re thinking about the kind of stories we should be prepared to cover for the next 12 months. How much will VR actually matter? What will the big games be? Who’s going to disrupt the desk chair market? We've done some speculating and come up with a few informed predictions (yes, “guesses”) at how 2016 will unfold. So with the caveat that we aren't yet wizards, despite all our training, here's what we expect to make headlines this year—not including the obvious big releases, and the given that we'll be writing about XCOM 2 modsnonstop.
Prev Page 1 of 7 Next Prev Page 1 of 7 Next Your rich friend’s VR headset
2016 won’t be the ‘year of VR’—it’s looking a bit too pricey to leap into mainstream gaming just yet—but the Oculus Rift and HTC Vivewill be out there. They’ll be at your friend’s house, or at your friend’s friend’s house, and there’s going to be that one game that you just have to try.
That game is probably one we haven’t even heard of yet. I don’t expect it to be Eve Valkyrie (we have speculated as muchalready, but I love to contradict our own predictions) or Lucky's Tale, the games that come with the Rift, because they feel too traditional—they don’t need to be in VR. The VR ‘killer app’ (about 20 games will be declared ‘killer apps’ throughout the year) will be a game that wouldn’t work outside of VR, that can’t easily be compared to traditional games. It’ll be one of those surprising little experiences that gets everyone talking, like Undertaleor The Beginner’s Guidelast year.
However much we talk about it, though, VR won’t carve out any huge portion of PC gaming this year, preferring a gentler ramp over the next few years. We are going to talk about it lots, though, and here are a few of the reasons:
• VR is cool.
• A lot of developers, big and small, will announce VR projects, planning to capitalize on them in 2017 or 2018.
• Someone is going to spend way too long with a headset on and document the effects (saw thismoments after writing this, so, one down).
• Someone is going to build a room that looks like a holodeck for their HTC Vive.
• Someone is going to get hurt or break something. Remember the joy of all those Wiimote-through-TV-sad-child-angry-dad photos?
The battle between the new-school shooters
“Oh, great, another shooter,” was a fun thing we used to say years ago, but then “shooter” became “MOBA.” This year, we get to say both! With Doom, Unreal Tournament, Paragon, LawBreakers, Battleborn, Paladins, and Overwatch in development, multiplayer arena and objective-based shooters are clearly hot. Shooters are stylish again (albeit often with a lane-pushing twist), they’re coming from all directions, and as a result the usuals are looking pretty stale. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Battlefield Hardline, and Battlefront were all fine last year, but it’s games like Squadthat are occupying the interesting new cultural space on PC.
And some of them will flounder. Doomcan sell itself on marketing and pedigree, sure, but that doesn’t protect it from selling a bunch and then being abandoned—oh, sweet Evolve, how you tried. At least one of these games—probably more—will flop against the dominance of CS:GO, TF2, and survival games like H1Z1 and Ark: Survival Evolved. Likewise, one of them’s going to get very big, and we’ll still be talking about it this time next year. My money’s on Overwatch.
Prev Page 3 of 7 Next Prev Page 3 of 7 Next Japan continues to embrace PC gaming
When Metal Gear Solid V was announced, we assumed by default that a PC release wasn’t on the table. Last year, it won our overall Game of the Year award. In the course of a few years, we’ve gone from being surprised when a Japanese game releases on PC to being surprised when it doesn’t.
Even Microsoft is joining in, as we learned recently that ReCore, the MS published game from Keiji Inafune’s Comcept studio and Armature Studio, will make it over to Windows 10. We’ll be surprised if Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII remakedoesn’t release on PC, too. The story, really, is that this is going to stop being a story: fewer fan petitions, more Japanese games as standard on PC.
Prev Page 4 of 7 Next Prev Page 4 of 7 Next Valve will spring a surprise or two by the end of the year
Valve has a lot to do. It’s busy building a virtual reality platform and other hardware, an operating system, maintaining some of the most popular games in the world, and running the most popular PC games distributor. I don’t expect any new projects in the first half of this year, outside of some Steam updates (the whole thing is way overdue for a full redesign) and maybe some revisions to the Greenlight process. It’s possible Source 2 will get a release date at GDC, but the HTC Vive will absorb most of the energy.
But the end of the year could be exciting. Once SteamVR is off the ground, the focus will be on maintaining a fresh stream of VR games and applications to keep early adopters feeling happy about their purchase. That’s when we could see a new game announcement. That’s right: RicochetVR.
Prev Page 5 of 7 Next Prev Page 5 of 7 Next Esports enters its next phase
This year, TBS is going to start broadcasting pro Counter-Strike tournaments on Friday nights. There’s no need to reinforce the notion that, yes, esports are a big deal (they just are at this point), but they’re soon to become a much bigger deal—one analysis predicts $1.9 billion in revenuesby 2018. With that in mind, the key story this year will be about maturation. We’ll see better resources for tracking players and teams, better-produced broadcasts, and more regulation to protect players and the integrity of competitions. The flipside is that there will be more match fixing stories and more drug testing, too.
Fantasy esports will explode, and gambling around esports will become increasingly common. There’ll be drama. That will never go away (it hasn’t gone away in traditional sports, anyhow), but there will also be a lot more scrutiny on the companies running events, and, I think, a lot of interest in how sports law applies to esports players. In 2013, for instance, the United States issued pro athlete visasto League of Legends players, and last year, several major teams formed a union—albeit a fairly unpopular one. Expect many more developments on those fronts in the coming years. (Also, expect to see a lot of Activision Blizzard games on MLG.)
Prev Page 6 of 7 Next Prev Page 6 of 7 Next And a few bolder predictions...
As we got all this speculation out of our systems, we were left with some remaining futureinos (a vitamin that promotes healthy kidney function and speculative articles in January) to burn off. So here are a few more leftfield entirely possible predictions:
• The next Destiny game will dump old-gen consoles and come to PC.
• Rockstar will revisit a much loved classic from its back catalog.
• We’ll all forget about that Twitch Bob Ross marathon, but it will again be the highlight of October.
• Nvidia’s high-end graphics card will be the biggest performance leap in years, but cutting-edge production will mean low supply and prices that make the Oculus Rift look cheap.
• Blizzard will make substantial changes to one of its most loved games.
• Breaking the fourth wall will go out of style, then surge back into style in VR games. By 2018, 80 percent of games will be incessantly self-referential.
• The words “indie” and “triple-A” will finally stop being used as genre descriptors. (We can dream.)
• Ubisoft will take a year off from Assassin’s Creed in 2016, but it’ll leak that they have four Assassin’s Creed games planned for Q1 2017.
• Valve will release a game*
*-ification of Steam customer service requests.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR As Executive Editor, Tyler spends a lot of time editing reviews and looking at spreadsheets, and whatever time is left over writing reviews. People joke that he doesn't like 90 percent of the games he plays, but he'll tell you he just has very discerning tastes.
Topics
The PC Gamer Show: The best of E3 2016, LawBreakers alpha, and more
Welcome back to The PC Gamer Show , our weekly livestreamed podcast.
, our weekly livestreamed podcast. You can catch the show live on Wednesdays at 1 pm PDT on our Twitch channel, or after the fact at any of the links below.
This week we'll be breaking down the best stuff we saw at E3 last week, our time with the LawBreakers Alpha, and lots more—including our usual Twitch chat Q&A.
This week's topics: What we've been playing recently. How was the Lawbreakers Alpha? We breakdown the best things we saw at E3 2016. We take your questions from Twitch chat. How high can Zenyatta fly?
Listen:
Your flapping heads for this episode:
The awesome images we use for the show were made for us in Source Filmmaker by Ness "Uberchain" Delacroix. You can find her DeviantArt page here and her Patreon page here .
Forza Horizons behind the scenes trailer takes you on the open road
The next game in the Forza series will feature the biggest innovation in the series yet: an open world. This new trailer/behind-the-scenes vid shows fans a little bit of what they'll be able to expect from the new style. Looks like Turn 10 is looking to channel some of the excitement behind the open roads featured in Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but with decidedly more simulation-heavy approach. Forza Horizons is headed for release next month on October 23, 2012. Topics Microsoft Game Studios Turn 10 Racing Forza Horizon Forza Horizon We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
The PC Gamer Show: Overwatch, Halo 5 Forge, Oculus DRM, and more
Welcome back to The PC Gamer Show , our weekly livestreamed podcast.
, our weekly livestreamed podcast. You can catch the show live on Wednesdays at 1 pm PDT on our Twitch channel, or after the fact at any of the links below.
This week we'll be talking about Overwatch, Halo 5's Forge coming to PC, Total War: Warhammer, the Oculus Rift's new DRM, and lots more—including our usual Twitch chat Q&A.
This week's topics: What we've been playing recently. Overwatch is officially out! Halo 5's Forge editor is coming to PC, but not Halo 5. Total War: Warhammer is here and magical. Oculus adds DRM to the Rift that ends up backfiring. We take your questions from Twitch chat. A friendly hug goes terribly wrong.
Listen:
Your flapping heads for this episode:
The awesome images we use for the show were made for us in Source Filmmaker by Ness "Uberchain" Delacroix. You can find her DeviantArt page here and her Patreon page here .
Forza's car collecting inspired by Pokemon
What could Forza Motorsport and Pokemon possibly have in common? According to Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt in an interview with SPOnG , he knew one way to make the original 2005 racing game stand out from the automotive pack was by compelling players to catch-em-all — in this case, car titles. "It did collecting using a rarity system — through different coloured versions — with a sense
12 Awesome New Vive Demos We Played
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The Rift is going to have a hard time matching this launch lineup
I had the chance to attend Valve’s Steam VR Developer Showcase on Wednesday, where I got to play 12 upcoming titles for the Vive.
I had the chance to attend Valve’s Steam VR Developer Showcase on Wednesday, where I got to play 12 upcoming titles for the Vive. Most of the games in the gallery ahead will actually be ready at launch in April; the other titles are expected to release in the months soon thereafter. It's worth mentioning that these games aren’t necessarily the only titles that will be available at launch, but are simply the titles that Valve has hand-selected to show off at the event.
In case you aren’t too familiar with what makes the Vive unique compared to other VR systems, it supports room-scale tracking, which means you’ll be able to walk around your virtual environment. The Vive also ships with VR controllers. These two sticks will be able to replicate anything from a gun to a golf club. In short, they offer 1:1 tracking and are super awesome.
Anyways, let’s get onto the demos!
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Cloudlands: VR Minigolf
Have you ever wanted to play mini golf within the confines of your home? Well, now you can with Futuretown’s. The game has a very bright and colorful aesthetic and works as well as you would expect it to. You use one VR controller as a golf club, and after you swing and hit the ball, you press a button on the controller to teleport to where the ball stops. The physics here are quite accurate; so, if you’re good at mini golf, you’ll probably do pretty well. Conversely, if you suck at the sport, you’ll probably suck here, too.
Using the Unity engine, the developers had to go to the mini golf range multiple times to fine tune the mechanics. The end result is that it really feels like you’re at a mini golf course. The game will have 18 holes at launch, with the developer likely adding more as DLC. While 18 holes sounds a bit limited, the devs are also playing around with the idea of adding a level editor.
While the levels in the game are great, they're a bit conventional and take place in castle-like environments and feature old European architecture. One of my suggestions for them is to go zany with the environments, and let you play mini golf in space with alien backgrounds, etc.
As it stands, the game will be ready for the Vive’s launch and is a great fit for VR. I could see it becoming the Vive’s Wii Sports, if you will, with the family gathering around the TV and taking turns at trying to get the best score.
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Hover Junkers
Hover Junkers was the only multiplayer demo we played at the event. Developed by Stress Level Zero, it's a first-person shooter that, as the name of the game implies, allows you to hover around the environment and collect junk. You’re basically on a little ship and you float around a Mad Max -like desert picking up scrap to use as barricades for your vehicle.
I ended up playing the game against two of the developers. We each had our own ship and were tasked with obliterating each other. Because you can pick up scrap and fortify your ship, it’s actually important to use the Vive’s room-scale feature to duck and cover behind your ship’s defenses as you shoot. Shooting is fun and we had two guns to choose from. One was a revolver and when you run out of bullets, you press down on one of the controllers buttons so that your chamber opens up. From here, you use the controller’s circular pad to perform an “iPod-like shuffle movement” to reload the gun. Then you just flick the gun sideways and the chamber pops back in so that you’re locked and loaded again. While it seems simple enough, you actually have to develop a muscle memory for it to become second nature. The developers designed it as such because they want to make the game more strategic and tactical, rather than making it a shooting spam fest. The other gun we got to use was a shotgun. Reloading here was a little more simple. You simply press a button to open up the barrels, and reload the gun one bullet at a time with a button press (the shotgun takes up to three bullets at a time). If you’re right-handed like me, you can use your left hand to steer the hovercraft while you shoot your enemies with your right hand.
While the game will focus heavily on multiplayer (and the devs said they were heavily influenced by Goldeneye 64’s multiplayer), Hover Junkers will also have a single-player campaign that will offer several hours of gameplay as well. Regardless of its length in the end, it’s definitely a fun, social shooting game that we can’t wait to get our hands on.
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Tilt Brush
We’ve tried out Tilt Brush a few times before, but it never seems to get old. If Oculus’ Mediumapp is like sculpting in 3D, than Tilt Brush is like sketching in 3D. With the controller in my right hand, I press down on the trigger to begin drawing squiggly lines in the air in front of me. With the other controller in my left hand, I can rotate tools and change brush color, size, texture, and more. Tilt Brush also allows you to change the background you’re drawing in. Want to sketch in space with the stars surrounding you? No problem. Tilt Brush also allows you to take 2D snapshots of your artwork to share with others, and you can save your 3D artwork and share it with other people who have the Vive, and they can see in a speedy time-lapse fashion how you created your work. On our unit, we looked through a dozen or so sketches, some of which include artwork from legendary Disney artist Glen Keane, whose work you can see in this amazing video.
Acquired by Google, Tilt Brush will be ready at the Vive’s launch.
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Space Pirate Trainer
While you might not realize it at first, Space Pirate Trainer by I-Illusions is a modern VR adaptation of Galaga . In the first-person shooter demo we played, the devs tossed us into a sci-fi space hanger and had us defending our docked spaceship from flying, attacking robots. We were armed with a pair of rapid-fire laser pistols and shields, and could mix and match between the two. I found that going with one shield on my left hand and one blaster on my right hand worked best for me. The shield is vital since three enemy blasts takes you out and you have to fight your way from the first wave of robots once you die.
As mentioned, it's a wave-based game that gets harder with each wave and the robots do have a certain pattern to figure out. We personally got stuck on wave seven and heard that the farthest anyone’s gotten that day was wave nine. Apparently, the highest level the dev could get to was wave 12.
What really makes Space Pirate Trainer unique is that 1) you feel kind of like Boba Fett on a space hanger with your blaster and 2) the game really forces you to almost run around your room to dodge enemy laser blasts. Sure, other games take advantage of room scale, but you really have to be mobile here to truly succeed at the game. This is arguably its biggest strength and biggest weakness, considering there is a cable on the floor you have to contend with. Still, considering the game isn’t coming out at launch, the folks over at I-Illusions still have time to work out the kinks.
While the game only took place in one environment with a limited number of weapons, the devs did tell me that more weapons are to come, and the environments will likely be more dynamic in the final game. Regardless, if you’re looking for a fun, sci-fi shooting gallery that will make you feel like Boba Fett, Space Pirate Trainer is one to look out for.
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Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives
Job Simulator is a game we’ve tried out before in the past, but developer Owlchemy Labs has made several improvements to the title since we played it at its GDC 2015 unveiling.
The premise for the game is fun and quirky. The year is 2050 and robots now do all the work that people used to do. There are essentially no jobs left for mankind. As a result, there are job archives that kids from the future can visit to see what it was like when humans had to work. The robots at this archive then throw you into a job simulator so you can see what it was like to work at a convenience store or in an office “back in the olden days.” Our particular demo took us to a virtual kitchen as a chef. Here, the simulator tasked us with cooking up some orders. Our first order, had us frying up some bacon and eggs, for instance. This meant we had to walk around a kitchen to find ingredients, and to turn on the stove to cook them. It's worth mentioning that the original kitchen Owlchemy Labs showed off at GDC2015 has been completely reworked. Now, the fridge can transform into a cabinet with the press of a button or a stove can transform to a grill with the pull of a lever. This transforming kitchen makes sense within this futuristic and goofy setting, but the developers primarily implemented it because they know most users at home won’t have access to a giant walkable area. It’s a very smart tactic that turns a weakness into a strength.
It's also worth mentioning that there are no time metrics here, so you’re free to roam around the kitchen and play with pots and pans as you please. One order had us freestyling our own soup recipe, for instance, so we decided to add some milk and cookies to our savory soup, because... why not? After we got done making soup, we looked in our pot to find that it had magically turned itself into a soup can. While the robots are pretty good at their jobs, they can’t quite encapsulate 100 percent what it means to be a chef from a human’s perspective. This layer of oddity adds a fun charm to the game.
There will be five different jobs within Job Simulator when the game releases, which will be at the Vive's launch. One concern I've heard is that you’ll be able to breeze through the game pretty quickly, but Owlchemy Labs says that they have implemented a ton of easter eggs for you to find, and that the game is at its best when you approach it at a leisurely pace, taking time to goof off. Regardless of replayability, Job Simulator was a highlight of the event.
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Arizona Sunshine
As the name might imply, Arizona Sunshine takes place in a virtual Arizona, and the game is largely sunny. What you might not get from the title, however, is that it’s a first-person zombie-killing shooter.
Developed by Vertigo Games and Jaywalkers Interactive, the game gave us pistols, shotguns, and machine guns to fight off waves of zombies, and yes, some of the zombies run. Once you clear out a wave of zombies, you can shoot at a point in front of you to teleport to the next part of the level. As we progressed through the stage, we would often encounter ammo crates that would allow us to sometimes pick up new guns and more ammunition. The game allows you to dual wield guns and you can mix and match. I preferred using a Deagle in my right hand (since I’m more accurate with my right hand) and a shotgun in my left hand for when I have to reload my Deagle and the zombies get close (with the shotgun, I don’t have to be as accurate). It's also worth noting that the game has an interesting reload mechanic: You're provided with a built-in ammo chest strap, so when your pistol runs out of bullets, you simply press a button to drop your old clip and press the butt of your gun into your chest to reload. It’s not quite realistic, but it makes for quick reloads and makes you feel like a complete badass when you’ve got it down.
While the game isn’t super scary, it did get a little more intense toward the end of the demo when we got to the mine shaft. I had to drop the shotgun in my left hand to pick up a flashlight, since it’s pretty much pitch black in there. Luckily, you won’t have to go at it alone because the devs told me that the game will support online co-op as well.
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Final Approach
Out of all the games I tried out at the event,might be the most unique. As a matter of fact, it’s even a little difficult to slot it into a genre. The closest would maybe be strategy or simulation, and the game was originally going to be a pilot management game, but it has evolved beyond that.
Basically, you can think of yourself as a god-like air traffic controller. With the controllers, you can reach out and select a little flying jet and then you’ll use the Vive's wand-like controller to draw out a linear pathway for it to follow toward a landing strip. The landing strip could be on land or on an aircraft carrier ship, depending on the level. You’ll have have to make sure that the lines you’re drawing aren’t too crazy, lest you risk crashing the jet. It’s with these simple constructs that the game makes you feel like a kid again, waving a little paper airplane around in the sky. It’s not all about directing the landings of jets, however. You’ll often have to command helicopters to pick up people for a rescue mission or sometimes you’ll have to get out of your god view to walk around the naval ship to put out a burning jet with a hose.
If any of this sounds intriguing to you, then rest easy knowing that you’ll be able to get your hands on it at launch.
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Audioshield
Developed by Dylan Fitterer, the creator behind the populargames, comes Audioshield . Like Audiosurf before it, Audioshield turns your library of songs into a rhythm game. What makes Audioshield different from its predecessors, however, is that you have to use two different colored shields to block wave of colored orbs catapulting down on you from the sky. In your left hand, you’ve got a blue shield, which can deflect blue orbs, and on the other hand, you’ve got an orange shield, which (you guessed it) deflects orange orbs. Occasionally, the song will get really intense and spit out purple orbs for you to deflect; here, you put both your shields together to form a purple shield to do the purple deflecting.
We got to play two songs, the first of which was M83’s " Midnight City." The song has a fantastic sci-fi pop beat, and as we deflected wave after wave of orbs coming at us, it felt like we were being pulled into a futuristic trance-like state with sparks of orange and blue splattering about. At times it was overwhelming, at other times it was euphoric. The second song we played was "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, which is just an aggressive cult classic. The game will also work with Soundcloud, in case your local library is limited.
If you were a fan of Audiosurf , you’ll love what Audioshield is doing here.
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Elite Dangerous
Elite Dangerous is the only game we played that is technically available today. Hell, you can even play it in VR with the Oculus Rift DK2. We will say that it feels much better playing it with a HOTAS flight stick and the sharper Vive, however.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the game by Frontier Developments, it's a futuristic sci-fli flight simulator in the style of Wing Commander . The demo we played had us dogfighting it out with two computer AIs in space. It definitely makes tracking down your target much easier considering you can not only use your radar but look up and around your cockpit to locate your target.
As the game is out now, you can also expect to play it in VR on day one when the Vive ships.
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Budget Cuts
You might not guess it from the title, but Budget Cuts is a first-person stealth/puzzle-solving game. The premise is that you’re a spy with a limited budget, so you kind of have to Macgyver your way out of situations with the primitive gear that’s available within your environment. At times, it can feel like you’re playing one of those real-life “trapped in a room” puzzles that are all the rage now, except that you have to contend with walking robots that are out to get you.
Basically, you have to sneak around rooms and hallways undetected by these robots, but what really makes the game unique is the way you traverse the environment. In one way, the game is very similar to Portal in that you have a blaster that can shoot at where you’d like to teleport to. The caveat here is that you’ll need line of sight and there is an arc to your blast. This tool, coupled with the fact that you have to crouch/lean around corners to scope your environment, makes things extra tense, but fun.
Budget Cuts has a ton of potential, but won’t be shipping at the Vive’s launch, unfortunately.
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The Gallery: Call of the Starseed
Developed by Cloudhead Games, Call of the Starseed is the first episode of many in The Gallery . Each episode will take roughly two hours and bring you on a mystical and fantastical journey in search of your missing sister. The game is heavily influenced by fantasy films from the '80s, and while the second episode has you encountering magical creatures, this first episode is more grounded in reality.
In our demo, we explored a shipwreck by the sea and walked through some seaside caves. The game features a “blink” mechanic that allows you to more or less look at which direction you want to head in and teleport there with a press of a button. We got a very Dear Esther vibe from playing the game. We came across remnants of an abandoned campfire near the ocean, beer cans and bottles were strewn about, and there was a little propped-up tent we ducked into. A highlight of the episode was setting off fireworks that we found on the ground.
It’s seems like a much more somber tale, which is a bit refreshing considering most of the other titles we saw today were shooters or light-hearted goofy games.
The first episode will be available at the Vive’s launch.
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Fantastic Contraptions
As the name might imply, Fantastic Contraptions is a game about building, well, fantastic contraptions. Essentially, it’s a puzzle-solving game where you have to get an orb from one side of the level to another side of the level, and you’ll often do this by building vehicles with moving parts to transport it. There are spinning wheels and stretchable sticks to play with, and it’s sort of Poly Bridge had a baby with a Rube Goldberg machine, and it took a bunch of steroids. But it’s not only about building vehicles, you can also build catapults to launch the orb to the other side of the level. And speaking of levels, developer Radial Games is targeting around 100 levels at launch, which is just incredible. And yes, the game is set to launch when the Vive releases.
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Conclusion
With the dozen games I played at the event, I can safely say Oculus VR has its work cut out in trying to come up with a stronger library of gaming launch titles. All the games are fun and/or promising in their own ways. And this isn’t including any potential games that Valve might be developing for the Vive in-house. And yes, we did ask them if they were planning to release any VR games in 2016, and no, they could neither confirm nor deny.
One thing that I'm certain about now more than ever, after playing around with the Vive all day, is that I think it’s a mistake for the Rift to not ship with the Touch controllers, however minor of an issue that might be moving forward. Both the Vive controllers and the Touch controllers are similarly awesome, and my concern is that with the Rift shipping with an Xbox controller first, it might fragment the market for the developers. Oculus says its shipping with an Xbox controller because game developers are used to it, but every single game developer that I asked today said they would rather the Oculus ship with the Touch controllers than without them (citing market fragmentation).
I realize the Rift is going for the mainstream crowd, but I can see my mother playing Cloudlands: VR Minigolf with no issues within five minutes, but there is no way that I can see her using an Xbox controller to play Lucky’s Tale .
Still, the VR wars, as it were, are just getting started and there’s still a lot that we don’t know about the Vive. We don’t know the price, for one. And Valve/HTC are also working on the final headset, which could have an integrated audio solution and improved ergonomics. (While the Vive isn’t heavy per se, it is heavier than the Rift.)
Still, as the saying goes, competition is good for the consumer in the long run, and if the Vive demos we saw are any indication of what’s to come, I’d say we’re in pretty good hands.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jimmy Thang has been Maximum PC's Online Managing Editor since 2012, and has been covering PC hardware and games for nearly a decade. His particular interests currently include VR and SFF computers.
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