Wheels. Are really any good? I mean, they probably featured reasonably heavily in your day if you’ve ever used any kind of transport ever. And you’d probably be utterly lost without them through one thing and another, but with all that said… what have they done for us lately?
Clearly nothing, right?
This is the 2010’s! We’re officially in “the future”, and if Back To The Future Part II taught us anything as a species it’s that hovering and flying everything is the way to go. And that was set in 2015. Clearly wheels are yesterday’s composite component.
Thankfully if you’ve a mind do ditch the wheel Ground Runner: Trials has just the vehicle for you in the form of its hovering Plasma Bike – and even better it’s just hit the Oculus Store in time for Christmas.
Developed by Astrofish Games, a London based VR videogame development team first setup in August 2016 full of veterans on projects for big name videogame studios such as Ubisoft, Rocksteady and Nordeus. Ground Runner: Trials sees you take on the mantle of a Ground Runner, a master of travelling at great speed thanks to your aforementioned Plasma Bike. Transported to a mining area to investigate two cargo storage pyramids, the abandoned facilities appear to be not quite so abandoned as to what might’ve first been thought. Use your speed and ferocity to battle your way through those that stand in your way to secure resources enough to upgrade your equipment, secure the area and supply your base – which isn’t exactly in the best of shape!
“You wake up and you have a captain who is also the mechanic aboard this tug.” Explained Astrofish Games’ CEO Chris Bolton in an interview to VRFocus back in July. “It’s a bit of a scrapheap. And you’re new – so you’re a new Ground Runner, you’ve been introduced, you’ve had this hoverbike put together by your mechanic captain, who has been scavenging parts like engine parts – the engine of this is a Honda 750!” He joked.
You’ll need to both flying and using weapons in synergy if you hope to survive, because there’s a bunch of robots and security details out there that won’t think twice about turning you into a pretty explosion.
Ground Runner: Trials is available now for £14.99 (GBP) on the Oculus Store. You can see the accompanying launch trailer below. VRFocus will bring you more news on Oculus Rift releases in the near future.