Scott Hayden – Page 311 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 2, 2017

Hands-on: ‘The Gallery Ep 2: Heart of the Emberstone’ is a Visually Stunning Homage to ’80s Sci-Fantasy

The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone is coming this spring to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and for fans of the first episode, Call of the Starseed (2016), it can’t come a moment too soon. Stepping into the demo at Unity’s booth at this year’s GDC, I got a chance to experience something that not only features a heady mix of highly tuned visuals and clever puzzles, but a familiar feeling that Cloudhead Games says pays homage to ’80s sci-fi/fantasy movies like The Dark Crystal (1982) and Indian Jones (1981). From what I’ve seen, it would be silly for me not to be excited.

I’m not here to ruin the first episode for you, so I’ll wisely activate a (spoiler alert) for people who want to first complete the game before learning about the second. In the first episode you’re granted a magical gauntlet that lets you control the mystical power ‘Creator Tech’. Episode Two, Emberstone, takes place on an alien world set directly after the first episode, and makes heavy use of the gauntlet in the world’s puzzles. (spoiler alert deactivated)

Stepping out of a hallway through a mystical glowing door, I come into what appears to be a wooden hut filled with strange artifacts. Normal everyday items like books and papers litter the right side of the hut. On the left are what appears to be four Buddhist prayer wheels covered in cuneiform script. The chicken scratch language glows somewhat and tosses reflections out on the wall as I spin them to ultimately no effect.

the gallery 2 ghost — image source: ‘The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone’ Gameplay Teaser

It takes me a minute to focus on what’s important, two stone pillars positioned on each side of the room and traced with glowing blue chicken scratch. Walking to the middle of the room to get a better look, I step on a dial on the floor which to my surprise activates a hologram of a mountain range. Interesting. Then a woman’s voice emanating from a ghostly projection walks through me, to essentially demonstrate how to use the pillars.

I teleport over and a luminescent blue shard pops out of my gauntlet to reveal my new magical power. A hologram of a 3D puzzle appears on the stone pillar and I’m set with solving it. Once solved, out pops a cube.

the gallery 2 — image source: ‘The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone’ Gameplay Teaser

I’m being deliberately short spoken so I don’t give away the fun of solving the puzzle, but the next bit reveals another power of your gauntlet that will lead you to putting the cubes where they belong. And then the reveal. It’s not a hut at all, but some sort of pod suspended in an alien atmosphere with an imposing giant who just wants to say hello. And that concluded my demo.

Cloudhead told us the second episode will be double in length of the first installment, which took most people around 2-3 hours to complete. Some of this can be attributed to the enlarged scale of Episode Two itself, but also the fact that the game isn’t linear like episode one, but rather uses a central hub that can access several other areas. Instead, Cloudhead says, users will have to actively experience the story from elements found in each level.

“The story itself is kind of a puzzle. The environments are a puzzle, everything about gameflow is a puzzle. But if we’ve done our job correctly and feel like it’s a puzzle, you’ll feel like you’re a great adventurer making amazing discoveries,” said Cloudhead CEO and creative director Denny Unger in the company’s YouTube developer vlog.

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March 2, 2017

CCP Games: How ‘Sparc’ is a ‘Real Sport’, Not a ‘Sports Game’

Sparc (ex-Project Arena) is somewhat of an oddity in the VR space. While some developers are focusing on recreating certain real-world sports like minigolf or tennis, Eve Online studio CCP has gone a different direction by creating an entirely new sport, one that you could call a true “VR native.” After popping into the game, which mostly retains the core gameplay we first saw at last year’s Eve Fanfest, I sat down with Morgan Godat, executive producer of the company’s VR Labs, to learn more about what makes Sparc spark.

If you haven’t followed Project Arena, the premise is this: you toss a projectile at your opponent down a long rectangular hallway. When your projectile is in your hand, you can use your shield to block your opponent’s projectile. The goal is to either catch your opponent without a shield or get by their singular defense by craftily bouncing yours off the walls, ceiling or floor. Matches are timed, but first to 5 points wins.

According to Godat, while the core gameplay is mostly unchanged, the team has overhauled “pretty much everything” when it comes to the development side of things. “[Project Arena] was a lot of prototype work, shoe string and bubblegum,” he tells me.

sparc-ccp-games (2) — image courtesy CCP Games

The new GDC demo I took part was indeed visually and physically changed somewhat from what I personally played at last year’s Gamescom in Cologne, now featuring ball projectiles, rendered as physical, tangible objects and no longer an abstract light disc that issued headlines comparing the game to Tron. A small difference, maybe, but you could argue that it’s a little more natural to catch and also a little less daunting to get hit by (which is how you score a point on your opponent). Both the playing court and avatars too have changed to reflect a brighter, slicker aesthetic, something that all together makes it feel a little less like Ricochet (2000) and a little more like the sort of game you would play on the holodeck of a star ship. Now that Sparc is definitely coming to market with its slicker, cooler aesthetic, we have to ask ourselves: is Sparc going to be the next eSport?

“My belief very firmly on this is that an eSport is made by the fans,” Gadot tells me. “Saying that something is an eSport before its released is the equivalent of someone saying “we’re going to make a video and it’s going to go viral.” That’s a cool story, bro, but come on.”

There is hope there somewhere though. After all, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson when showing the game on stage at Fanfest 2016 said the company was “kind of hoping this becomes an eSport,” although “it’s kind of a VR-sport.” And that’s the wordage CCP is running with now in their recently released trailer. No talk of eSports or the potential fanfare of adoring crowds and competitive leagues like the PSVR exclusive RIGS: Mechanized Combat League (2016), only focus on the idea that the game pushes all the same competitive buttons among the well-known 1v1 real sports out there like boxing, tennis, fencing etc.

“For us right now, and it’s a wildly daunting task in the first place, is to just make a sport,” maintains Godat.

Sparc will feature two different modes, one that allows you to catch and block oncoming balls with your hands, and a harder (more sporty) mode that forces you to physically dodge your opponent’s projectile. And yes. Spectators are allowed.

“To be fair, we do have some benefits. If I were trying to create a real sport in real life, you’re competing with thousands of years of evolution of real sports and how you interact with a ball in real-world physics, but at least here I have a realm where I can create otherworldly things, like no gravity of this game, the way the projectile behaves, the concept of having a ball that when I catch it, a giant shield materializes on my arm. How the hell are you going to do that in real life? So we have access to other things that other people don’t have access in real life. But still, you tell people that you’re making a sport, and they think you’re making a ‘sports game’. Not really. I’m making a sport.”

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March 1, 2017

Video: NVIDIA Demos PhysX Rigid Body GPU Physics

The demo, presented at NVIDIA’s event yesterday where they announced the new GTX 1080 Ti, covers a large area brimming with opportunity for physics-based interactions, a field of seemingly infinite boulders and a bulldozer created to show off the sort of scale that GPUs can drive interactions for rigid body simulation.

Previous GPU rigid body solutions had some trade-offs that NVIDIA says you won’t have to make with the demo, which no longer sacrifice PhysX features like joints.

NVIDIA also maintains the CPU-based algorithm and GPU-based algorithm “fundamentally match,” so you can switch between CPU and GPU depending upon the workload.

The company says they’ll be releasing the bulldozer demo to the public.

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February 28, 2017

Hands-on: ‘ARKTIKA.1’ is Gun-Centric, Highly Detailed and Ready to Impress

Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 is here, and Oculus is showing off a bevy of exclusive games that are due out sometime later this year. Among them was an entirely new level of ARTIKA.1, a sci-fi shooter from 4A Games‘ Malta-based studio that aims to get gun freaks excited as you plug away at human raiders and horrific creatures alike with an arsenal of customizeable futuristic weapons.

The demo begun in the passenger seat of a military vehicle, sitting beside my companion Viktoria and driving through the icy desert wasteland. Approaching our Russian outpost, we pass several guards. They seem friendly for badass gun-totting sentries and joke with Viktoria as we move closer into the protected confines of the huge base, a place I later learned would be my new home and consequently house the entirety of the game’s action.

Snow is pouring down and the windshield wipers are sluffing off melted snow, a detail that steals my attention away from the massive downed military airplanes to my right, a relic from earlier times before the world went topsy turvy. I roll my window down with my outstretched finger to give the final guard Viktoria’s ID from the glove box. It’s windy outside and the vehicle’s engine is purring loudly. It’s a harsh place and I instinctively roll the window back up to return my attention to the quietness of the car and my guide’s explanation of the world around me. The demo hasn’t even really started and I’m already blown away at the little things, the level of care that 4A Games has taken in getting you acquainted with the world while listening to what could have been a boring monologue in a conventional flat screen game’s opening cutscene.

Once inside the base, we slip into a vehicle bay and get out, my first taste of the new level’s locomotion scheme. A ghostly outline of a man appears standing in front of a circuit breaker a few meters from me. I zap to the pre-determined spot, pull down a lever to get the bay’s electricity going and similarly zap over to the elevator for my weapon’s training. All of this interaction happens while I remain front-facing, something required by the Rift’s two-sensor setup.

Next I’m put through my paces with the guns, something we got a crack the first time we saw ARTIKA.1 at Oculus Connect 3. I toss red dot scopes onto a powerful blaster rifle, paint it a white camo color and grab another gun that charges up to release a powerful laser bolt and throw on a thermal sight. The developers say you’ll be able to scavenge these parts throughout the game and even build an entire weapon from scratch, something that promises to be ‘particularly impressive.’

Shooting is easy, pull the trigger and reload by lowering your gun to your side—but I was more interested in was how the game’s locomotion system informed level design. Moving around the starting level, an ancient military transport plane from earlier, I noticed a few ghostly outlines to choose from. A blue outline appears on a teleport node that has adequate cover and a yellow outline indicates no cover. It’s your choice really which one to search for, so you can go in guns a-blazing or stick back and line up your targets for a more efficient take down. But there aren’t infinite teleport options, only a few you’re presented during fire fights, and ones clearly created to move you forward through the level (in front of doors, code panels, displays, etc).

There are a few puzzles to solve as well, although I didn’t encounter any that were especially hard. In one instance a key code was written on the wall behind me, the number 18Ɛ. I foolishly plugged in 183 to the code panel which resulted in an error message. Realizing the 3 was actually backwards, I then typed in the correct code of 381 to open the door I needed.

I’m tempted to call it a wave shooter based on the fact that most areas have at least 2 waves of enemies, but I don’t really feel comfortable reducing it to that due to its constant forward movement. The teleportation mechanic, although limiting somewhat for immersion, creates interesting bottlenecks that you have to navigate and helps keep the game’s pacing consistent. Some may call teleportation an outright minus to the game immersion-wise, but I found it refreshing, almost creating a gameplay style similar to the Halo franchise’s campaign mode.

And while it won’t have the same reach as Halo, ARKTIKA.1 is undoubtedly playing in the same ballpark, and we can’t wait to get our hands on the full game, planned to launch exclusive to Oculus Touch in Q3 2017.

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February 28, 2017

‘Killing Floor: Incursion’ Makes You a Co-op Zombie-Killing Machine

Killing Floor: Incursion is an Oculus Touch exclusive co-op horror shooter from Tripwire Interactive, the makers of the Killing Floor franchise. Tripwire refers to it as a ‘horde shooter’ instead of wave shooter per say, as the zombies that populate the world come right up to you en masse in giant hordes much like the other Killing Floor games, that and you aren’t constrained by ‘hot spots’ like many wave shooters in the VR genre tend to be. This means you can teleport around a gaggle of screaming and gurgling monsters, find ammo, guns and health all the while landing decisive head shots.

I stepped into the demo with another journo, the renowned Sean Hollister from CNET. In-game comms weren’t working due to a momentary bug in the particular build, but with only a partition between us we were able to effectively give each other orders and divvy out ammo and health packs we found easily enough.

Teleporting around a dilapidated facility of some sort, we were instructed by a floating robot instructor to grab our flashlights which were neatly attached to a holster on our chests so we could shoot while not physically holding it. Taking the light from its holster, we switched it to a virus-sensing mode that would reveal the game’s plague. As mercenaries, our job is to cleanse all instances of the virus, so every time we find a glowing red blob on the wall we shot it on sight.

killing floor 3 — image courtesy Tripwire Interactive

Traveling via elevator, we find a vast cavern system. Passing over a land bridge we get an eye-full of a massive drop, awe-inspiring in its own right were there not the horrific cries of zombies coming from the cavern below. Descending further, we enter a skull-encrusted catacomb, the site that would soon become the stage for the demo’s frightening introduction to close-quarters combat.

Back-to-back, Hollister and I shot down hundreds of zombies, some of them floor-crawling nightmares and others upright with slick, oily skin. And there are a multitude of ways to execute the hordes; exploding their heads with dual Colt 1911 pistols or a single pump shotgun, cutting it clean off with a large fireman’s ax, or even beating the monsters with their own bloodied, detached limbs. Or you can do like me and shoot wildly and pistol whip them when they get too close. That works too.

killing floor 4 — image courtesy Tripwire Entertainment

In this particular demo we were given holster space for two pistols on our sides and two larger weapons on our backs. Holtsering and unhostering was mostly a snag-free experience, although I did get tripped up a few times during more taxing stages of our trek into the zombie-filled cave. The game is currently in alpha stage development, so changes can be expected before its release later this year.

A constant problem I came up against was more niggling than any gurgling mess I encountered in the game though. Maintaining a forward-facing position was a constant struggle even though the game gives you several visual cues including a arrow on the ground to keep you facing the Rift/Touch’s two stock positional sensors. Because the game throws zombies at you from every corner imaginable, you’re urged to use a 45 degree snap-turn instead of turning around physically in the play space, something I found near impossible to resist when things got hairy. While this means you can technically play sitting down in a non-swivel chair, I imagine a third (or fourth) sensor would resolve this issue entirely for users that prefer standing and turning naturally.

Puzzles we encountered were fairly standard, but did require constant attention to each room’s architecture. Meeting a giant blue force field blocking forward progress usually means there’s something still important to do in the previous areas. Eg. an empty platform in one room and a few crystal skulls in another.

killing floor 2 — image courtesy Tripwire Entertainment

Another important mechanism, reloading, was also a bit different from other VR shooters. Running out of ammo means waiting either a full 2 seconds for your next magazine to automatically slide out and a new one to pop in (way too much time when you’re getting mobbed). Either that, or you can anticipate your next dry magazine by pressing a bespoke reload button on the Touch controller. Ammo is limited and ammo counters are clearly marked, so when you’re out, you’ll be reduced to using your ax (or a zombie’s wayward limb).

Making it to the base of the circuitous underground lair, we found a giant boss zombie outfitted with a strange glowing chest piece and a whole zombie posse waiting for us. Charging right for us, we nimbly teleported around the boss–something that felt a little cheaty if it weren’t for the massive number of his goons materializing in the cavern around us. And that’s where we died and were unceremoniously returned to the beautiful non-zombie reality of Oculus’ offsite GDC press booth.

Currently in alpha, Killing Floor: Incursion is slated to release some time this fall.

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February 28, 2017

Hands-on: ‘Brass Tactics’ is a True Tabletop RTS with All the Classic Trimmings

At Oculus’ off-site GDC demo booth we saw Brass Tactics, Hidden Path Entertainment’s new real-time strategy game coming exclusively to Oculus Touch after their hit tower defense game Defense Grid 2 Enhanced VR Edition (2016). Filled with a bevy of miniature structures and multiple toy soldier units, the little tabletop world promises to deliver familiar RTS gameplay in a VR setting.

Putting on the headset, Brass Tactics immediately recalled a familiar design aesthetic, something that took me a second or two to recognize. The clockwork castle gyrating. The spinning brass gears. “Aha, it’s the opening to Game of Thrones,” I remarked aloud. “That’s exactly what we were going for,” responded studio founder and CCO Mark Terrano, also known for his role as lead designer on Age of Empires II (1999).

Getting a brief taste of the game, I was introduced to the basic units; archers, warriors, steampunk-ish legged tanks, flying units called ‘wasps’–all of them covering the classic roles found in RTSs. The full game will however feature multiple technology upgrades to choose from and 18 units (3 base units with 9 total upgrades) to keep things interesting.

Called ‘the keep’, your little clockwork home base starts you out with the basics, a warrior-producing building and an archer building. From there, you send your few minions out to capture the nearest node, where you can then choose from a number of structures displayed by turning your hand palm-up and looking at it like a wrist watch. These structures will not only produce the game’s all important offensive units, but also hold the node so ore-gathering miners can automatically spawn and start generating spendable coin for your next unit upgrade.

Although it at first felt a little overwhelming, my opponent wandered back to his corner of the board and started firing a manual catapult at some of my most forward units. Looking to my side, I saw one of my own. Aiming left or right, pulling back a few audible clicks and launching a flaming boulder can wipe out an entire group of lower class units like archers.

brass tactics 4 — image courtesy Hidden Path Entertainment

As a rule, you’re only as good at RTSs as you can pay attention to everything on the board and manage all of your units. The faster and more accurate, the better. Using Touch you can quickly move around the battlefield by grabbing and flinging yourself in any direction. Lowering or raising the table to your chosen level is the only other way to physically alter the board, as zooming in and out isn’t an option. I found this adequate for the size of the board, as it wasn’t too big to be unmanageable and necessitating a wider view. While it’s small enough for you to see everything on the board as it happens, the board is still big enough though to drive you crazy with all of the lanes that your opponent can exploit to capture ore-producing nodes.

brass tactics 5 — image courtesy Hidden Path Entertainment

Matches are 25 minutes long, although I was unplugged from my 1v1 battle prematurely. Besides 1v1 online battles, there will also be a 1 player campaign, and a ‘co-op versus AI’ mode available at launch in October 2017.

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February 23, 2017

Samsung’s In-house Incubator to Showcase New VR/AR Experiments at MWC

Although the Samsung Galaxy S8 may not make its big entrance at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next week, the company will however be presenting a few new VR/AR projects coming direct from their in-house incubator Creative Lab (C-Lab). Just recompense? Maybe not, but there’s at least two in the bunch that ought to raise an eyebrow—and all of them will undoubtedly explode your computer’s spellcheck.

Located at the ‘4 Years From Now’ section of the expo, a sort of launch pad for mobile startups hosted by MWC, Samsung will be showing off four new conceptual products, including a new VR/AR head-mounted display, a smart aid for visually impaired people, a VR home furnishing solution and a 360-degree video platform focused on virtual tourism.

Monitorless

With its integrated CPU, special lenses, projector, battery, speaker and Wi-Fi module capable of tethering with your devices via Wi-Fi Direct, Monitorless promises to provide the user with an up-close and personal view of your smartphone or PC. Samsung says it can be used for augmented reality and virtual reality thanks to the electrochromic glass (AKA ‘smart glass’) that can block out external light on demand. Samsung hasn’t said yet if the headset will have access to made-for-VR content, or if it simply a bespoke screen mirroring device. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Relúmĭno

Relúmĭno is a Gear VR-compatible visual aid application for near blind and visually impaired people, which Samsung boasts will “enable them to read books and watch TV with new levels of clarity.” The company maintains that Relúmĭno has the ability to remap blind spots by displacing images and uses an Amlser grid, a common chart used to help diagnose macular degreneration of the eye. Relúmĭno aims to effectively replace expensive visual aids currently available in the market.

VuildUs

VuildUs is home interior planning system that make use of a 360-degree depth camera (Samsung doesn’t produce one of those yet) and a mobile app for VR compatible devices. Much like a VR version of IKEA’s AR Catalog app, VuildUs lets users provisionally position a digital version of furniture to see how it fits in the room before they buy it.

traVRer

traVRer, the last wordy entree from C-Lab showing at MWC, is a 360-degree video platform focused on virtual tourism, letting you visit landmarks and famous places around the world but with the mood, noises and events captured. While we need another 360 video platform like a new hole in out heads, Samsung says the platform will allow you not only to watch the video, but navigate easily between videos so you can go explore in different directions or see the site at a specific time of day—something that promises to improve upon existing 360 video platforms.

“We continue to support new ideas and creativity, especially when these traits could lead to new experiences for consumers,” said Lee Jae Il, Vice President of Samsung Electronics Creativity & Innovation Center. “These latest examples of C-Lab projects are a reminder that we have some talented entrepreneurial people who are unafraid to break new ground. We’re looking forward to further exploring novel applications for VR and 360-degree video because there are endless possibilities in this area.”

The C-Lab projects will be exhibited at Samsung Electronics’ booth (4YFN G1 in the Fira Barcelona).

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February 20, 2017

‘John Wick Chronicles’ Review

Neo-noir action-thriller John Wick (2014) has come to the Vive in its new VR wave-based arcade shooter John Wick Chronicles. Recreating the look and feel of the film franchise while offering up a heavy slice of gun play and plenty of moving targets, the game can be an exciting trip into the John Wick universe at times, but ultimately ends before it even begins.

John Wick Chronicles Details:

Official Website

Publisher: Starbreeze Studios
Developers: Grab Games , GamecoStudios , Big Red Button
Available On: HTC Vive (Steam)
Release Date: February 9th, 2017

Gameplay

“Hello Mr. Wick. This is the Operator,” an official-sounding lady tells to me in my bluetooth earpiece. “I trust you’ve opened the cigar box and are aware of your task. You’ll find your target in the parking garage across town. You know where to go and what to do. Good Luck.”

ethan powell john wick vr — remember this guy you’ve never heard of?

A picture of a man dressed in a white blazer is in the cigar box too, along with a gold coin—the sensible assassin’s preferred payment method.

The Continental’s Hotel Manager, played by the Lance Reddick, pipes in this time. “Your old friend Ethan Powell is back. Management is requesting your assistance in diffusing the situation.”

Who’s Ethan Powell? I don’t remember him from the first film, and while I haven’t seen the second one yet, a cursory Google search reveals nothing. But apparently he’s the bad guy for this game, and it’s my job to shoot him until he dies. I can do that.

What follows is an all-out gun battle in a multi-level car park, and all of the goodies are there for your amusement. Sub-machine guns, assault rifles, pistols, frag grenades, and all of them can be dual-wielded and sprayed around with nary a care.

Reloading is simple, you just lower your weapon and click, you get another magazine from your infinite pile of ammunition. Without any difficulty settings, it becomes apparent there are actually easier guns to wield, the easiest of which are dual sub-machine guns, available on every level. It’s fun blasting away and crouching for cover, recalling moments of my youth playing Time Crisis 3 (2002) in the arcade.

Unlike Time Crisis though you don’t need to be a good shot, because eventually your spray-and-pray trigger discipline automatically gets you health buffs, body armor, and gun add-ons like laser sights to make the waves of baddies that much easier to deal with. If you’re searching for the high score though, you’ll of course want to grab a sniper rifle or M4 A1 assault rifle with red dot sight, but they’re by no means required to complete the game.

Story mode has three levels, and consequently three bosses headed by the strangely invincible Ethan Powell. If you run through each level once (excluding a surprisingly fun shooting tutorial), gameplay tops out around 1 hour. Once you beat story mode, you’ll gain access to ‘free mode’ where you can up the difficulty by adding manual reload to guns, something that really should have been an option beforehand for hardcore shooting enthusiasts, but it’s a welcome addition just the same. Each difficulty setting in free mode (maxing at Baba Yaga’ level) has its own leaderboard should you want to try to post the high score and prove how much of gun expert VR has made you.

Despite the added modes, It’s hard not to feel a little bit cheated out of what could be a multi-hour adventure with multiple bosses, locales, and gun mods.

Immersion

Creating a unique and engaging video game based on a film isn’t an easy task. For every critically acclaimed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014) there are a thousand other movie/game tie-ins that just don’t cut the mustard. I’m looking at you Ghostbusters (2016).

John Wick Chronicles is decidedly better than average in this respect, but there is always the danger with a game when it becomes a vehicle for promoting the film instead of focusing solely on delivering a whole experience to the player. While visually stunning in almost every aspect from the detail on the guns to the photo-realistic mug of Lance Reddick, it’s hard to take the game’s story mode seriously when half way through you’re unceremoniously forced to watch a trailer for the film that just so happens to be launching the exact same day as the game. Seriously. A trailer.

Granted, I was ambushed by Ethan Powell (you remember him from 5 seconds ago, right?) and didn’t have time to finish the trailer for John Wick: Chapter 2, but the effect was clear: This is a commercial—a fun, short commercial that you’re paying money for.

Outside of the nuts and bolts of a game, like how guns fire or how items are scaled—things John Wick Chronicles nails quite well—watching a commercial for the movie in the movie-themed game goes one step too far, effectively tarnishing an otherwise visually stunning, albeit far too short arcade shooter.

wick-screenshots-10 — a stunningly realistic interior, the Continental hotel lobby

Comfort

Since this is an on-rails experience that leaves you stationary outside of the few moments when you change levels via some sort of elevator, all movement is natural, making this an exceedingly comfortable experience that could theoretically be played for multiple hours without complaint.

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February 16, 2017

‘SYREN’ Review

SYREN (2017) is a single-player, survival-horror game that will have you sneaking around corners, hiding under virtual desks, and flailing helplessly as you’re mauled to death by the world’s ghastly “Syrens,” a terrifying amalgamation of human/robot/awfulness. Despite some pretty distracting bugs in the game, it’s safe to say that people with high blood pressure or heart conditions need not apply.

SYREN Details:

Developer: Hammerhead VR
Available On: Oculus Touch, HTC Vive (Steam and Oculus Home)
Reviewed on: HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
Release Date: February 15th, 2017

Gameplay

Much like Alien: Isolation (2014), Syren is an absolutely terrifying game of hide and seek, but this time instead of the clostrophobic world of a spaceship and an acid-spiting Xenomorph, you’re in an underwater research facility placed above an ancient lost city once populated by a species of kind-of-sexy, kind-of-horrific mermaids—at least they were supposed to be, as the creatures you meet are genetically engineered copies called Syrens.

Created by a scientist obsessed with eugenics, your job is to escape the now damaged facility that’s become overwhelmed with the free-roaming Syren, going across a number of levels filled with deceased colleagues and all manner of interactive item that can bring you ever closer to the 5-level facility’s next pressurized door.

Each level is essentially a puzzle with a few different solutions, from nabbing a keycard off a desk and sneaking past a lonely Syren, to all-out shoot-em-up chaos with multiple baddies as you learn the mystery of the madman who created the facility.

The game has a very specific idea of how it wants you to proceed, something I found to be slightly frustrating early on. After getting killed multiple times by the same Syren and getting tossed back to the beginning of the level, I found out that when they lunge at your throat, you can’t simply whack the beast to death with an ax that you collected earlier like you naturally would if someone was coming at you and you had a melee weapon in hand. Rather, the game wants you to physically throw the ax, thereby losing it in the thing’s face so the game can leave you without a weapon for the next trial. The only way you can figure this out is either by having the original thought to toss the ax, or by failing your way to the solution like I did.

1 of 4

Although there’s a steep learning curve to how you interact with the Syren (mostly by staying far away from them, running and hiding for your life), eventually the game becomes a little more intuitive as you learn the rules that the AI Syren abide by. For example, if a Syren gets close enough to you, it initiates an uninterruptible attack that you have to stomach—a wailing monster screaming in your face and biting your neck—so you learn to avoid these pants-shitting moments as best you can, otherwise you’ll be sent back to the beginning of the level.

You can get away from Syrens by hiding stealthy, teleporting quickly to find cover, or by distracting them by throwing items far away from you to take them off your track. Since the monsters react to noise (and strangely enough not your microphone), they will scream over to where the object landed, only to find no one there, giving you some time to dodge around them. There are however multiple Syrens per level, so this is where it gets tricky.

Several times I found myself hiding under a desk, or behind a dead body for cover, all the while hearing the banshee screams and heavy breathing of the genetically engineered monster coming my way. And if it weren’t enough of a fright, no matter where they find you, cowering in a corner or halfway outside of a locker, they always grab you by the face and scream a horrifying noise into your ears.

Immersion

The Syrens make a lot of noise, which should be a good thing on principle so you can avoid them efficiently, but the noise wasn’t at all muffled by objects like walls or barriers like in real life. If you find yourself sandwiched in a side room with two Syrens slinking around and breathing all scary-like, you won’t have a good idea of realistically where they are. Instead, a Syren will sound like they’re right on top of you even though you have a concrete wall between you.

Whether you’re using Oculus Touch or the Vive’s Lighthouse controllers, hands simply aren’t 1:1, making them seem a full three inches away from where your hands naturally rest on the controllers. While it’s not game-breaking, it certainly hampers immersion. In the end, this isn’t something dramatic to fix, but how such a critical error got through on launch, I’m just not sure.

On the note of controllers, Oculus Touch support could be a lot better. The game requires you to push down and click on the joystick to teleport, which proves to be just about as awkward as can be. Teleporting is much more intuitive on the Vive, requiring you to simply rest your thumb on the touchpad and engage a quick click, but Rift users beware.

Firing guns in the game unfortunately never felt natural on either Touch or Vive controller, as your trigger is used to pick up and hold items and a regular button press is used to activate or fire it. This made it feel more like changing the channel on a remote control than firing a gun.

And this is the part of the article where I make my biggest confession. I am a dirty, no good, wall-hacking cheater.

Because the game is room-scale, it means you can teleport close to walls and actually walk through them. Some games like Budget Cuts or Onward (2016) don’t allow you to do this, either by making it impossible to see or leaving your body behind to be ravaged by enemies, but not so with Syren. When a screaming water-banshee is running you down, and you can walk straight through a wall and escape, the natural choice is to flee anyway the game will let you. While I know I’m a weak and shameful person for using this cheat to get away, it really shouldn’t even be an option in the first place.

There, I feel better now.

Comfort

While you’ll never be truly comfortable with genetically modified mermaid-beasts skulking around, nuts and bolts-wise Syren is a supremely comfortable experience because it lets you explore the world using teleportation and 45 degree snap-turning—two common locomotion schemes that most everyone shouldn’t have a problem in the nausea department.

Even though at times I honestly wish I could sit down and mash a joystick forward on a gamepad instead of frantically selecting teleport sites—because it’s not only faster, but easier—the standing room-scale aspect of the game lends to overall comfort and immersion. And somehow it’s always scarier that way, as you’re on your hands and knees hoping the monster doesn’t see you.

The post ‘SYREN’ Review appeared first on Road to VR.

February 15, 2017

‘Fantasynth’ Alpha Preview

Fantasynth (2017) is an upcoming VR music experience for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive that takes you on a surreal ride through an abstract world of sharp geometric shapes and eye-catching neon lights. Pulsing to the futuristic beat of track Chez Nous from French electronic musician N’to, Fantasynth is a work of pure imagination, one that is just begging to be longer, weirder and more intense.

The music experience was created by Brighton, UK-based HelloEnjoy, an indie studio known for their commercial 3D work across a range of big names including Disney, Sony, Samsung, Swarovski, Absolut, Interscope, Lexus, Nissan and Peugeot.

Originally conceived for the 2015 Oculus Mobile VR Jam, Fantasynth was at first a bright, low poly world that utilized only a handful of colors, no doubt created out of the necessity to maintain a consistent frame rate on the Gear VR mobile platform for which it was designed.

Today’s Fantasynth shares little in common with the 2015-era Gear VR concept outside of the infectious music track and the general concept of a straight, flat ride through some imposing and altogether weird geometry. With the addition of an array of textures, and complex elements seemingly lifted straight from Blade Runner (1985) and late ’90s Daft Punk videos, Fantasynth takes on a darker, more mature color palette, becoming a true feast for the eyes.

An interactive element, while not available in the pre-alpha we tried, can be toggled on and off in the full version of the experience. Clocking in at around 2.5 minutes, we’re hoping for a longer, more intense dive into the studio’s dream-like world for the full release, because while the svelte textures and wild shapes easily entertain, a ride covering any less than the full 7 minute track would be a shame for both the user and the artist.

No date or pricing information has been established for the full release of Fantasynth.

The post ‘Fantasynth’ Alpha Preview appeared first on Road to VR.