Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
The PC has received a tremendous amount of adventure games over the years. Here are a few of our favorites, from the all-time classics like 'Myst' to sleeper hits like 'Life is Strange.'
The post The best adventure games you can play on PC appeared first on Digital Trends.
Downward Spiral: Prologue (2017) is a sci-fi adventure game that takes you into a lovingly recreated ’70s retro future of CRT monitors and space stations abound. Featuring a single-player and coop mission, and multiplayer death match mode Downward Spiral: Prologue feels like the creators have torn out the first few pages of an Arthur C. Clarke novel and realized it in virtual reality.
Official Site
Developer: 3rd Eye Studios Oy LTD
Available On: Steam (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift)
Reviewed On: HTC Vive, Oculus Touch
Release Date: March, 31st 2017
Generator power: offline. Life support: offline. Artificial gravity: offline.
You’re tossed in with little back story, but it’s clear what you have to do aboard what appears to be an abandoned space station orbiting Earth. Get systems back online and see what happens.
Grabbing the railing you propel yourself to the nearest airlock and enter the station. Because you’re in a microgravity environment, you have to stop yourself with your hand and navigate forward by pushing off walls, and using the world’s many hand railings and button-filled consoles for stability.
There’s a lot to like about Downward Spiral: Prologue, from its well-polished interiors to its innovative locomotion scheme that has you free-floating in space, but I wasn’t impressed at all by the 15-minute length of the game. That’s right, another short-lived VR game that’s selling for real money on Steam.
But if the short single player/coop mission doesn’t deter you, you’re in for some very cohesive art, some interesting exploration in what feels like a real space station and a satisfying conclusion of the little level that will definitely leave you wanting for more of everything. Considering this is the first installment of the game, which hasn’t gone through any sort of pre-funding scheme like Steam Greenlight program or Kickstarter, purchasing the game at $9.99 (€9,99 or £6,99) means you’re directly funding the second installment.
There aren’t really any puzzles to speak of, as the action is mostly driven by a few neat little button-filled consoles that jump-start the station’s various processes. There are also a few enemies to dispatch with a pistol, but the world’s little electric robot enemies are laughably easy to kill. It seems the atmosphere around you is really the star of the show here.
Deathmatch allows up to eight players to experience the same zero gravity gunplay in “environments familiar to the story,” meaning the same map. I wasn’t able to get into a deathmatch during pre-release of the game, so I can’t speak to its entirety. This isn’t a “shooter” however, so I’m still mystified as to why there’s a deathmatch in the first place. I’ll be updating my impressions (and score if need be) as soon as I get into a match.
At first it took me a few moments to get used to the locomotion style of floating around and pushing off the corridors of the space station, but after a little practice I was flying through the world with relative ease. I was surprised at just how good it was, similar to Oculus’ recently released Mission:ISS (2017).
Shooting the game’s pistols wasn’t an entirely a hitch-free experience. Aiming felt a little unnatural, a possible tribute to realism as my space suit didn’t entirely allow for free movement with the pistol. I found myself being more deliberate in how I aimed because of it though as my bullets zinged through the vast expanse of the engine room.
Getting zapped by a robot feels right. Your sight is slightly more red-tinted every time you take a hit, and the sound mutes ever so slightly the worse the onslaught.
I played the game with both the Oculus Rift (with Touch) and the HTC Vive. The game is an open 360 environment, so a 3-sensor set-up is a must for Rift players if you want to forget the Touch version’s snap-turn. As per usual, the stock Vive setup provided for a flawless 360-tracking experience.
Floating in space can be stomach-turning, but it seems the developers have nailed the locomotion scheme in Downward Spiral: Prologue to a pretty fine degree.
Besides relying on an hand-held air compressor you find midway through that lets you bebop around with your own personal jet, you have to use a little physicality to push off and stop yourself with walls. Thankfully grabbing out for any and all parts of the ship lets you stop yourself, and you sort of settle int your forward motion after a while.
The HUD design also helps anchor you in the world, keeping nausea at bay. The video walk-through below (warning: the full game is completely spoiled below) shows a bit of the left side of helmet in the frame, but it’s really not so intrusive. The helmet design only slightly cuts off your horizontal field of view (FOV).
Despite having a temperamental belly when it comes to artificial locomotion (I made myself sick playing Mission ISS), Downward Spiral seems to have done everything in its power to limit nausea, and I walked away feeling surprisingly normal.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
The post ‘Downward Spiral: Prologue’ Review appeared first on Road to VR.
In the early stages of our young industry the vast majority of VR games have been very tiny experiences that often focus on a core game mechanic and extrapolate gameplay elements from there. For example, The Unspoken is a fantastic game, but it’s really only about flinging spells at someone and that’s it. Similar to the early days of game development, it find complexity through its depth and singular focus. Experimentation and iteration dominates still as the VR development community collectively tries to figure things out. But ultimately what most early adopters of VR want more than anything are immersive worlds to get lost in.
It will likely be a long while before we accomplish a vast, massive virtual VR world with rich storytelling that’s online for everyone to enjoy such as Ready Player One’s Oasis or Sword Art Online, but steps in that direction are still occurring. While Emmerholt: Prologue by Oneiric Entertainment may not tap into the MMO-side of the dream, it is still a tantalizing taste of what an open world RPG adventure title in VR could be like.
To be clear, Emmerholt: Prologue is a free demo available on Steam right now and is meant to serve as an introduction to the world of Emmerholt. The plan is to expand this setting out into a fully-fledged open-world RPG adventure complete with rich storytelling, involved quests, and dense areas to explore. But in its current state, the Prologue iteration is only a mere tease of what is planned, although it’s looking like a promising future is ahead at this rate.
In Emmerholt: Prologue, you’re thrown into the world as a man named Eli that gets his life turned upside down. Things start out innocently enough as you’re gathered around a campfire with friends and ride on horseback into town. The horse riding mechanics are great, although may make some people feel a bit sick, as you’ll have to actually snap your hands up and down to make the horse go faster. The artificial locomotion won’t be comfortable for some players, but it added a great deal to the freedom and immersion from my perspective.
Throughout the village you can interact with NPCs, pick up and eat food, and knock things over if you’re not careful. It doesn’t feel like the bustling cities you’d find in modern AAA RPGs or the Hollywood-quality voice acting one might expect from a similarly ambitious projects, but it’s certainly a step above the silent, text-heavy menu-ridden interfaces of most VR experiences on the market. You can feel the heart and effort of the small indie studio showing through.
Near the beginning of the Prologue you get to engage in a horse race that’s fun in its own right, but is most impressive due to the sprawling landscapes I traveled across. Caves are tucked away behind tree lines, hills roll in the distance with grass swaying and starlight bathing the fields. The colorful textures evoke a calming sense of serene happiness and the chatter of my comrades as we race across the prairies made me feel like I was actually living in the shoes of Eli in this fantastical world.
Which is why it’s a bit of a shame that the combat fell so flat by comparison. This is still an extremely early build of the game, so a lot of work is left to be done in nailing down the core mechanics, but I’d love for an immersive open-world atmosphere like this to be combined with the tactical and responsive melee combat systems of games like Vanishing Realms and the upcoming Raiders of Erda.
Currently, you’re only given a sampling of telekinetic powers that let you pick up, move, and launch objects in the world. Throwing rocks at enemies or catching their spells and flinging them back at them lost its luster quickly and having a sword, shield, or at least bow & arrow as other options would have been appreciated. Hopefully that’s added eventually.
Many of the animations (such as during combat and the lack of emotion from NPCs while talking) are stiff and voice acting is very spotty in most places. Some character sound fine, but the volume wasn’t always right and much of the voice talent comes across as too earnest and unprofessional. Ultimately, this is all at the core of what makes Emmerholt worth keeping an eye on though: it goes outside of its comfort zone and tries to be different and bold.
My favorite moment in Emmerholt: Prologue took place at the end of the horse race. I stood at the edge of a mountain, peering down at a vast landscape before me with a village in the far off distance and stars dotting the blue night sky. A scene like this would simply be background imagery in most other “large” VR adventure titles, only granting the illusion of open-world exploration. But in Emmerholt I get the feeling that journeying to the center of valleys and to the tops of mountains will be commonplace. It’s just a tease right now, but I’ve got high hopes for something with such grand ambitions.
You can download and play the free introductory experience, Emmerholt: Prologue, on Steam right now for HTC Vive or Oculus Rift with Touch. Motion controllers and a 360-degree play space are required and it will last you about a half hour if you stick to the critical path.
If you’ve tried it, what do you think? What are your hopes for the future of open-world VR games? Let us know in the comments below!
Tagged with: adventure, emmerholt, Oneiric, rift, rpg, steam, touch, Vive
How do you make an already great game even better? Simple: You add Oculus Touch motion controller support, expand the ending with more possibilities, add a dense mini game, and incorporate brand new gameplay and storytelling elements. Instead of just packing in more content for the sake of it, this Technolust [Review: 8/10] update feels more like a free content expansion than a minor patch — and it’s a very good one at that.
When we first revealed that IRIS VR was working on a new Touch update for Technolust, details were sparse. The teaser trailer (included below) showed the player controlling a pair of green, neon hands, riding a motorcycle, and doing other activities that were clearly not in the core game. Since then we’ve learned more about what’s actually included and that it’s new name is now Technolust Extended Format.
“The expansion not only adds support for Oculus Touch but extends the original story with an entirely new questline allowing players to jack-in to the games digital inhabitants and experience their recent memories,” explains Blair Renaud, CEO of developer IRIS VR. “A mysterious new location (called the Wreckshop) has opened up across the street from your apartment. It’s owner (a being known as Halfjack) has a gift for you. A new protocol that allows you to re-live the memories of androids by jacking into a port located near the base of their necks. All he asks in return is that you share what you find. You must unravel a mystery and learn the secrets of the analog and the digital. The game now includes alternate endings, a new fast paced Road Rash inspired mini-game where you bash, throw and shoot enemies, new collectables, achievements, new tracks and much more.”
Adding Touch support is a great way of keeping adventure games alive and relevant in the age of VR and motion controllers. It can elevate existing games like The Assembly [Review: 7/10] but isn’t always enough by itself if the core experience isn’t compelling, such as with Loading Human: Chapter 1 [Review: 4/10].
Have you tried the new Technolust Extended Format update? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Tagged with: adventure, cyberpunk, dystopia, rift, Technolust, touch
Mervils: A VR Adventure is a charming little game. When we first previewed it on the HTC Vive, it reminded us of a slightly more open-ended, admittedly less polished, version of Lucky’s Tale [Review: 9/10]. At its core, Mervils is a platformer with adventure, action, and RPG elements sprinkled on top.
It’s already out for Vive and Rift, but now developer VitruviusVR has announced it’s coming to PlayStation VR as well on February 21st, 2017.
This is an indie game through and through. Mechanically it’s similar in concept to the excellent, but painfully short, Robot Rescue game from Sony’s free Playroom VR compilation, but you won’t get the same production values here. Many textures feel flat, character designs are a bit bland, and some of the controls are a little floaty. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a serviceable option for a genre that’s criminally underrepresented in the VR space right now.
After playing great entries like Lucky’s Tale and Robot Rescue, 3D platformers clearly have potential in the immersive space and it’s encouraging to see fledgling studios like this embracing the medium by adapting a beloved genre for VR headsets.
With over six hours of content spread across five unique worlds with several items to retrieve and upgrade over the course of the adventure, it should scratch a very specific itch for fans of old-school 3D platformer collectathon games. If you have fond memories of playing Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Jak & Daxter, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, and other similar adventures, then this should be right up your alley as long as you don’t go in expecting a AAA-quality masterpiece.
Mervils: A VR Adventure is currently slated for release on PS4 specifically for PlayStation VR through PSN on February 21st, 2017. VitruviusVR is aiming for a price point of $19.99 — the same as on Steam — but Sony has not yet confirmed that price as of the time of this publication.
Tagged with: adventure, mervils, platformer, playstation, PS VR, PSVR, Robot Rescue, rpg
In the fervor of the holiday season surrounding the release of PlayStation VR and Google Daydream, followed by the Oculus Touch controllers and the never-ending onslaught of new games and experiences on the Steam marketplace, it’s easy to forget about Samsung’s Gear VR. At CES 2017 it was quietly announced that they’d sold over 5 million headsets to date, purportedly putting them at the top of the food chain in terms of sheer market penetration, along with a surprisingly deep and diverse library of content.
Early adopters of PC-based VR and industry enthusiasts might be focused on more powerful alternatives, but the Samsung Gear VR appears to be the little headset that could and it keeps on pushing. That’s why stylish, new releases on the device, such as Rangi, should not fly under your radar.
Rangi is a visually beautiful upcoming puzzle/adventure title in development by Funsoft, published by Digigo. At first glance, it looks a bit reminiscent of other mobile VR titles such as Land’s End or Esper, with a unique mythical African twist.
From a gameplay perspective, you spend your time solving puzzles by interacting with objects such as ruins and exploring a detailed ancient environment. You can tell from the trailer above that solutions often involve lining up runes and lines to connect currents of energy, which all feeds back into the central narrative of the game’s world.
The development team is located in Casablanca, Morocco and is actually made up of several ex-members of Ubisoft Casablanca. “We sought to create in Rangi a strong relationship between the puzzle-based gameplay and African tribal art,” said Fabien Delpech, Creative Director at Funsoft in a prepared statement. “The level design entices players to interact with a multitude of elements within the environment, which makes the VR experience even more meaningful. Rangi is a truly unique mobile game due to it drawing inspiration from African music, folklore, and art, and we know that gamers will love playing it as much as we’re enjoying creating it.”
From what I’ve seen so far, the narrative is rather esoteric and cryptic in its delivery, insisting on a decidedly obscure presentation, which all lends itself well to the established setting. The music utilizes the 3D audio of the Gear VR very well to create an encompassing all-around you feeling.
The lack of position tracking continues to make the Gear VR feel inferior to the PS VR, Vive, and Rift, but that’s not Rangi‘s fault. It just so happens that the game delivers a rich world with such great visual individuality that you’ll often find yourself wanting to lean in and get a closer look even though you can’t.
Despite it all, Rangi isn’t going to be a game for everyone. It leans heavily on its stylized visuals, entrancing music, and thought-provoking gameplay to provide a deep and rewarding puzzle experience, but it’s far from the next great narrative masterpiece from what I’ve seen. Fans of the excellent Land’s End and challenging Esper series will feel right at home and should certainly keep their eyes on Rangi as it continues development.
Funsoft is planning to release Rangi for Gear VR early this year in 2017. You can find more information on the official website.
Tagged with: adventure, digigo, exploration, funsoft, puzzle, rangi, ubisoft