Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know which game genre you think is missing most in the VR market?
Did you miss the latest episode of our VR Download podcast show? We ranked every single PSVR exclusive. Check it out in the video above or on your preferred podcast platform.
Over the last 5+ years VR has slowly grown into its own format for computing. More and more we’re seeing big made-for-VR games or seeing big publishers fund VR ports of existing games that deliver deep, immersive experiences for players. Now more than ever it’s a good time to be a fan of VR if you’re also into gaming.
But it also seems like most developers cater to very specific types of gamers with their VR experiences. Horror games release in droves, zombie-related content is well-represented, and if you like shooting things with guns then you’re absolutely covered. The action-based FPS, competitive online shooter, and wave shooter are all three of the most popular genres in VR.
Don’t get me wrong, it totally makes sense, but there are lots of underrepresented genres in VR I’d love to see more of. For starters, more strategy games would be great. Brass Tactics is really one of the only solid VR strategy games and there haven’t been many sense. I’d also love more action-adventure fantasy-themed games like Asgard’s Wrath, but I fully accept those take years of development to make properly.
Missing VR Genres?
What kind of VR games do you want to see more of? Which genres do you think are missing most or are most underrepresented in the VR space?
Putting together these sorts of lists can be both good and bad. They can be a major headache as they can’t be infinite, so there’s alway’s going to be a few people disappointed that their favourite wasn’t included, while on the flip side they can help you pick out some choice virtual reality (VR) offerings. With more videogames than ever, choosing VRFocus’ favourites has been very difficult, getting that balance between variety and just sheer awesomeness – and the fact it had to launch in 2018. So here we go, if you own an Oculus Rift then these titles should be in your library.
The Best Oculus Rift Games of 2018
Beat Saber – Beat Games
Of course, this had to feature in VRFocus’ list, it has been one of the most talked about VR titles since launch. It’s simple and addictive controls are what have made this experience what it is, who would have thought slicing away at coloured blocks in time to music would catch on like it did. There’s a version for all the main headsets, but if you’re on PC then you can make use of the modding community to greatly increase that track roster. And that would be VRFocus’ main gripe, the lack of official tracks is still very small.
Brass Tactics – Hidden Path Entertainment
An early release at the beginning of the year, Hidden Path Entertainment saw a gap in the VR market for a tabletop real-time strategy (RTS) experience and created the rather enjoyable Brass Tactics. Featuring some gorgeous graphics, lots of troops choices and upgrade options, the title was well received in VRFocus’review, saying that it was: “a well-tuned VR RTS that fans of the genre should be easily impressed by.”
Creed: Rise to Glory – Survios
It seems that at times LA-based VR developer Survios can do no wrong when it comes to the quality of its videogames. The most recent to come from the studio, Creed: Rise to Gloryshows that movie tie-ins can work when approached correctly. One for those VR players who love to work up a sweat, the energetic experience will make you feel those shoulder muscles in no time, whether that’s in the ring or training with Rocky Balboa himself.
Echo Combat – Ready at Dawn
After the successful release of Lone Echoand Echo Arena in 2017, Ready at Dawn returned in 2018 with its multiplayer followup Echo Combat. A team-based zero-g combat experience, Echo Combat pits up to 4vs4 in an array of modes such as Capture Point, with players armed with both offensive and defensive capabilities to help win matches. The frantic, high-octane gameplay makes this title a must for fans of team-based videogames.
Electronauts – Survios
The only developer with two titles on this list, Survios released this musical gem during the summer. If you love electronic music but never had the turntable skills for DJing, then Electronautsis a great place to employ your musical passions. Thanks to its ‘Music Reality Engine’, Electronauts allows anyone to perform and produce music that’s always on key and never skips a beat. You don’t so much as make your own original tunes, instead, Electronauts gives you the ability to heavily remix tracks from some top music artists.
In Death – Solfar Studios
A roguelike first-person shooter (FPS) for those that enjoy a challenge, Solfar Studios’ In Death is a procedurally generated dungeon crawler set in the afterlife, where you have to battle demons and angels alike. Gorgeous to look at, this is a pure bow shooter, with the weapon used for not only killing enemies but also movement. The difficulty comes from the fact that there are no checkpoints, and dying means going right back to the start. When this happens any progress made in terms of the number of enemies killed or bonuses achieved will be added to your character, improving stats such as health and damage. Of course, there is a flip side. Enemies will also improve just to make sure it’s not a walk in the park.
Pixel Ripped 1989 – ARVORE
Brilliantly original in its concept, Pixel Ripped 1989was the brainchild of solo developer Ana Ribeiro. In development since 2014, there were times when it didn’t look like the title would ever see release, that was until Ribeiro joined Brazilian studio ARVORE. Mixing retro gaming with the immersive worlds of VR, Pixel Ripped 1989 is a homage to those old-school mobile platforms, where you play the role of young videogame fan Nicola, who needs to beat several classic-style videogames in order to thwart an invasion of the real world by the evil Cyblin Lord. The title will have you playing 2D videogames whilst at the same time interacting with the world around you to keep you on your toes. There’s lots of fun to be had here.
Red Matter – Vertical Robot
One for those who love a good puzzle experience mixed with a thriller storyline, Red Matteris not for the faint of heart. One of only two titles on this list that might make your spine tingle, the narrative-driven experience set in an alternate future where an ongoing cold war ensues between two superpowers. You play as Agent Epsilon, an astronaut dispatched to an abandoned base on Rhea, one of Saturn’s moons to recover top-secret information. You’re very much alone on this base, which makes the hallways and cavernous rooms even more intimidating. Red Matter isn’t overly long, but it is engrossing throughout.
Transference – Ubisoft Montréal and Spectrevision
Horror is one of VRFocus’ favourite VR genres as some of the best titles can be so intensely scary. One of the surprise’s of 2018, Transferenceis a mind-bending, psychological story that blurs the lines between live-action movies and videogame dynamics. The story which involves a brilliant but troubled scientist and inventor called Raymond Hayes. He has been collecting data from himself and his family which then congeals into a dark and twisted consciousness of its own. In doing so this new entity forms its own digital world which starts to alter the perceptions of Raymond, his wife Katherine and their son Benjamin. Weird and surreal right from the outset, there’s a lot to take in, and should only be attempted by the bravest.
Vox Machinae – Space Bullet Dynamics Corporation
Another online multiplayer, Space Bullet Dynamics Corporation’s giant mech fighter Vox Machinae is still in Early Access, but for those wanting to engage in vehicular combat then this is worth a look. Vox Machinaeputs you in charge of enormous walking robots called GDRs or “Grinders”, bristling with weaponry. You choose a chassis then customize it with a selection of powerful weapons including lasers, missiles, cannons and more to take down enemies. With detailed cabs stuffed with levers and switches, the gameplay is very ‘hands-on’, where you have to actually handle the controls, really making you feel in control of this massive war machine.
Fresh off of its free weekend, Hidden Path Entertainment’s Brass Tactics just got a huge new update adding some long-requested features.
The biggest addition in update 11 is Tower Rally Points. This gives you more control over the battlefield; you’ll be able to issue a standing order to all units spawned from a certain tower to gather at a specific location on the map. This is done simply by highlighting your tower of choice and then pulling and holding the trigger. This will bring up a rally destination that you can drag across the map to where you want it to be. Units spawned will then move to this location as soon as they’re made.
Elsewhere there are some minor but appreciated updates. The leaderboards have been reset to make room for new boards that display different information, you can now see your estimated skill level in the Play While You Wait mode, co-op mode now randomly selects enemy AI, and there’s a quick mute-unmute option.
There’s some small fixes and optimizations too, like filling in some missing dialogue. You can see the full list of changes over on the game’s subreddit.
To celebrate the update’s release, Hidden Path is hosting a quick sale for the game. You can get it for $29.99 (instead of $39.99) up until next Tuesday. Brass Tactics comes with our full recommendation; we gave it 8.5/10 in our review.
Neuer MWC, vertraute Gesichter: Unser VR-Nerds-TV startet durch. Chris und Patrick kommentieren, was sich in der Welt der virtuellen Realität in jüngster Zeit so getan hat. Für Chris als alter RTS-Fan steht ganz oben auf der Liste der VR-Titel Brass Tactics. Außerdem große Themen: Das Fazit zum Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona und der Preis der HTC Vive Pro.
VR-Nerds-TV zum MWC 2018
Traditionell war der Mobile World Congress in Barcelona ein wichtiger Termin für Virtual-Reality-Fans. Immerhin stellte HTC auf der Messe damals erstmals die HTC Vive vor. Auch dieses Jahr war der Hersteller auf dem MWC, hatte allerdings nicht allzu viel Neuigkeiten im Gepäck. Neben Erneut nutzte Samsung die Messe, um das neue Spitzenmodell der Galaxy-Reihe auszupacken. Traditionell gab es dazu eine neue Gear VR. Und was gab es dieses Jahr? Chris und Patrick ziehen ein ernüchterndes Resümee.
Positiver fällt da das Fazit zum Echtzeit-Strategietitel Brass Tactics für die Oculus Rift aus, das wir letzte Woche im großen Test hatten. Die Erwartungen waren hoch, schließlich war der Lead-Designer von Age of Empires II für das von Grund auf für VR entwickelte Spiel verantwortlich. Chris hat sich mit Brass Tactics die Nächte um die Ohren geschlagen und bescheinigt dem RTS eine sehr gute Qualität. Aber völlig überzeugen konnte der VR-Titel dann doch nicht. Warum, erklärt er im Video.
Der Preis der HTC Vive Pro scheint letzte Woche durchgesickert zu sein, das gute Stück soll demnach 799 US-Dollar kosten. Die HTC Vive kostet aktuell 599 Dollar, wodurch die Preisangabe durchaus realistisch erscheint und die Pro 200 Dollar teurer wäre. Noch hat HTC keine offiziellen Preisangaben gemacht und auch das genaue Veröffentlichungsdatum liegt weiterhin im Dunkeln. Lange sollten die Ankündigungen aber nicht mehr auf sich warten lassen. Immerhin hat der Hersteller die Vive Pro bereits an Entwickler versandt und eine zeitnahe Ankündigung der Preise angekündigt.
Die nächste Ausgabe des VR-Nerds-TV erwartet euch dann in zwei Wochen.
Brass Tactics ist ein frisches RTS, das exklusiv für die Oculus Rift erschienen ist und den Lead Designer von Age of Empires II zu seinen Entwicklern zählen darf. Die kostenlose Demo, bei der der Mutliplayer-Modus vorgestellt wird, haben wir uns bereits angeschaut. Doch was hat die kostenpflichtige Version auf dem Kasten? Wenn ihr wissen wollt, wie Brass Tactics funktioniert, dann schaut bitte in unseren Artikel zu Brass Tactics: Arena. In diesem Artikel beschränken wir uns auf die Unterschiede zur Vollversion.
Tolle Multiplayer-Schlachten und brauchbare Missionen
Brass Tactics Paradedisziplin ist auch in der Vollversion der Multiplayer-Modus. Glücklicherweise sind stets genügend Spielende online. Sollte die Wartezeit trotzdem etwas länger dauern, kann man sich die Zeit mit einem kleinen Gefecht gegen den Computer vertreiben.
In der Vollversion erwarten euch die selben Einheiten wie in Brass Tactics: Arena, doch ihr könnt eure Sets individuell gestalten und frei entscheiden, welche Einheiten ihr mit welcher Ausbaustufe der Burg erhalten wollt. Außerdem erhaltet ihr Zugriff auf weitere Maps, welche sich nicht nur auf die Kampagne beschränken. Es gibt zusätzlich acht verschiedene Schauplätze für Multiplayer-Schlachten und sechs Maps für kooperative Partien. Was zunächst wenig klingt, fühlt sich aber überhaupt nicht problematisch an. Dadurch, dass verschiedene Gebiete eingenommen werden müssen, spielt sich jede Runde anders und der starke Tabletop-Charakter schürt bei uns auch kein Verlangen nach unendlich vielen Karten. Die vorhanden Schauplätze sind wunderschön gestaltet und versprühen alle ihren eigenen Charme. Leider hat man viel zu wenig Zeit, die Karten zu betrachten, da es in Brass Tactics sehr schnell wild zur Sache geht.
Bei den Einheiten ist die künstliche Verknappung störender als bei den Maps. Zwar spielt sich Brass Tactics somit ausgeglichen, doch das ist auch nicht verwunderlich, da es nur eine Spezies beziehungsweise ein Volk gibt. Dieser Umstand verdirbt zwar nicht die Spannung, beschränkt jedoch die spielerische und taktische Vielfalt. Hieraus resultiert auch, dass sich nach einigen Runden die Schlachten relativ ähnlich spielen, auch wenn der Widersacher mal einen kreativen Einfall hat. Da man die gleiche „Rasse“ spielt, gibt es kaum unvorhersehbare oder unvertraute Taktiken. Auch die optische Abwechslung bleibt auf der Strecke, was schnell das Gefühl aufkommen lässt, dass sich alles wiederholt.
Zudem fehlt es den Einheiten selbst an Tiefgang. Zusätzliche Modi, Waffen oder Befehle sucht man vergeblich. Diese Reduzierung auf das Wesentliche ist vermutlich dem VR-Setting geschuldet, um den Spielenden nicht zu überfordern und ein schnelles und zielgerichtetes Duellieren zu ermöglichen. Zudem wäre ein kleinteiliges Micromanagement mit den Touch Controllern ohnehin ziemlich schwierig. Deshalb sollte man sich auch nicht von der augenscheinliche Einfachheit der Einheiten abschrecken lassen, denn die Entwickler holen wahrscheinlich schon sehr viel von dem heraus, was mit den Touch Controllern bei einem RTS überhaupt möglich ist. Außerdem liegt der Fokus eher auf dem geschickten Agieren und Taktieren in größeren Gruppen. So teilt sich beispielsweise eine Gruppe an Einheiten stets eine Anzeige für die Gesundheit, welche wunderschön durch eine kleine Flagge über der Gruppe dargestellt wird, wodurch kleine Patzer beim Tiefgang der Einheiten verschmerzbar sind. Durch die Reduzierung ist Brass Tactics ein sehr übersichtliches Spiel und die Fortbewegungen über den Tisch, das Bauen und das Herstellen von Einheiten klappt hervorragend.
Was uns jedoch wirklich genervt hat, war die Steuerung der Einheiten in Gefechtssituationen. Das Micromanagement mit den Motion Controllern kann euch das Genick brechen, denn schnell ist eine falsche Einheit markiert und eure Formation ist hinfällig, der Angriff abgebrochen oder eure Einheiten ziehen sich aus der Schlacht zurück und werden beim Rückzug ermordet. Durch fehlende Hotkeys und Gruppierungen muss man stets selbst Hand anlegen, was zwangsläufig zu Fehlern führt. Wenn man den Dreh jedoch raus hat und nicht ständig versucht, die Positionen seiner Einheiten zu optimieren, wird man auch im kompetitiven Modus erste Erfolge einfahren können. Ein RTS in VR spielt sich halt anders als ein RTS mit Tastatur und Maus.
Brass Tactics: KI Royal
Im Einzelspieler-Modus erwarten euch acht verschiedene Schauplätze und bis zu sechs Stunden Spielzeit, wobei ihr zwischen drei unterschiedlich starken digitalen KIs wählen könnt. Wie in jedem RTS ist die Kampagne hervorragend geeignet, um sich mit den Einheiten vertraut zu machen und alle Mechaniken und Tricks aufzusaugen. Jedoch nervt zwischen den Missionen der ständige Wechsel ins Menü.
Auf der Habenseite sind die Gegner mit viel Liebe inszeniert und sie geben euch nicht das Gefühl, gegen eine stumpfe und seelenlose KI zu spielen. So wird beispielsweise euer Erzfeind Zavolto von Game-of-Thrones-Darsteller Aidan Gillen (Little Finger) gesprochen, wobei diese Auswahl beim Setting wie die Faust aufs Auge passt. Dennoch fühlen sich die Missionen nicht wie ein wirklich wichtiges Element des Spiels an. Das Duellieren mit echten Menschen macht letztendlich doch viel mehr Spaß als die Gefechte gegen die KI. Durch den sichtbaren Avatar sowie die – deaktivierbare – Sprachverbindung könnt ihr euren Konkurrenten sogar online hervorragend provozieren und vorführen. Oder einfach ein netter Mitspieler sein.
Fazit
In Brass Tactics dürfte einiges an Zeit in die Optimierung geflossen sein. Das Spiel fühlt sich sehr hochwertig an und gibt uns nicht das Gefühl, in einer reduzierten VR-Welt zu stehen. Die Steuerung ist durchdacht, die Tasten der Touch-Controller sinnvoll belegt und alles wirkt wie aus einem Guss. Somit schafft es Brass Tactics, uns schnell in seinen Bann zu ziehen.
Leider führte dieser Hang zur Perfektion auch dazu, dass die Entwickler nur sehr wenige Einheiten in das Spiel integriert haben, welche in ihrer Verwendung zusätzlich auch sehr begrenzt sind. Zu schnell verfällt Brass Tactics in ein sehr offensichtliches Schere-Stein-Papier-Prinzip, da es bei acht Einheiten nur eine begrenzte Auswahl an sinnvollen Einheiten zum Kontern gibt. Dennoch ist Brass Tactics derzeit eines der besten RTS-Spiele für die Virtual Reality. Strategie-Fans werden auf ihre Kosten kommen und sollten definitiv einen Blick in die kostenfreie Demo riskieren. Wenn ihr die Demo schon kennt, dann findet ihr hier die Vollversion des Spiels für knapp 40 Euro im Oculus Store.
Stark
Hochwertiges Spielgefühl
Schnelle und spannende Runden
Großartige Immersion durch Avatare und Tabletop-Optik
Schwach
Nur sehr wenige und einfallslose Einheiten
Steuerung in Stresssituationen nicht präzise genug
Virtual reality (VR) real-time strategy title Brass Tactics was released today and to celebrate its release Oculus have announced a Creators Tournament for the title.
Hidden Path Entertainment have been working on the steampunk-inspired RTS title for quite some time, having previously released the free Brass Tactics Arena to allows users a taste of the experience prior to the release of the full version.
Eight creators from the VR community will be competing in a single elimination style consisting of one match per round with three rounds total. The two finalists will be able to award a Oculus Rift and Touch bundle to their followers and audience, who will be picked at random via social media. The Oculus Rift bundle will be supplied by Oculus.
Taking part in the tournament will be Chary (from Cas & Chary VR), Friskk, PCVR Frank, Reality Check VR, RowdyGuy, VR Dreamer Dude, Virtual Reality Oasis and Zimtok 5.
Brass Tactics received a mostly positive review from VRFocus, saying: “As for the experience itself, Brass Tactics is almost everything you could want out of a VR RTS. Controls have been well tuned to Oculus Touch, allowing precise movement of the table and forces, whether you wish to move a single squad or your entire force in one massive push. One cravat that does pop up up when planning strategic placement of troops comes in the form of selecting the same troop.”
The tournament will take place from 11am PST on 21st February, 2018. There will be a variety of way to tune in via the channels of the creators involved. The following links can be used to watch:
After a long tiring day it can be nice to chill out in virtual reality (VR). As good as roomscale is, there are those times when you don’t want to stand up for several hours playing an adventure experience like Fallout 4 VR, instead sitting back and relaxing in a virtual world. That’s where table top style VR titles come into play, and for those lovers of real-time strategy (RTS), one of the best to come to Oculus Rift is Brass Tactics by Hidden Path Entertainment.
As you may already be aware Hidden Path Entertainment released Brass Tactics Arena a short while back for free, giving you access to most of the online functionality of Brass Tactics plus a brief glimpse at the single-player campaign. With the full launch you’ll now have access to the full campaign as well as every map for online and local skirmishes.
As for the experience itself, Brass Tactics is almost everything you could want out of a VR RTS. Controls have been well tuned to Oculus Touch, allowing precise movement of the table and forces, whether you wish to move a single squad or your entire force in one massive push. One cravat that does pop up up when planning strategic placement of troops comes in the form of selecting the same troop. For example, after a small battle involving some warriors and archers you may want to split them up, warriors in front whilst the archers stay further back. There’s no actual way of selecting just the archers to move them as a group, you’ve got to select each squad individually, making it a time consuming a laborious process. It’s not gameplay breaking, just annoying.
Another usual standard of RTS’ is resource collecting. In Brass Tactics there is none. It’s all automatic depending on how many areas you’ve managed to capture. Again, it’s not something you may miss but it does reduce that extra element to think about, which used to make or break some strategies. What that does mean however is it makes Brass Tactics a far more action oriented title focused on building armies and wiping out opponents, which is no bad thing.
And there’s still plenty to think about in battle. The videogame features a decent number of troops, from your basic archers, to winged wasps, tanks and massive titans. All of which have their particular strengths and weaknesses, especially to each other. Warriors are good against cavalry whilst archers are deadly at taking out warriors at range. This makes for a nice dynamic setup, so that a decent pick of troops can destroy a more focused approach. Then there are all the upgrades for each troop as well as the castle. Unfortunately there aren’t enough slots for them all so you have to plan wisely.
With 20 maps in total, a single-player campaign, single-player skirmish, then online options against other players as well as AI, Brass Tactics should keep you busy for many hours. That and the option to either play it seated or standing makes the gameplay suitable for any play style. Plus it’s not a bad looker either. Most of the time you’ll be wanting to keep a lofty viewpoint to see everything going on but on those quiet moments zoom in and you’ll spot an excellent level of detail.
All in all Hidden Path Entertainment has achieved what it set out to deliver, a well-tuned VR RTS that fans of the genre should be easily impressed by. Sure it’s not perfect, but in comparison to others in the same class Brass Tactics is one of the best.
When the Oculus Rift first launched back in 2016 there was a little game named AirMech Command. It was quite good for the time, especially considering it was played with just a gamepad initially, and it let us experience a more immersive way to play a top-down view game as if we were a General in the sky. Eventually it got hand controller support and it’s still quite solid, but in hindsight it never truly takes full advantage of the medium.
Now we’ve got Brass Tactics from Hidden Path Entertainment. We first played the game at GDC last year, saw a follow-up demo a few months later, and just got our hands on the free-to-play Arena mode variant last week, but now with the full release right around the corner we can confidently say that Brass Tactics may very well be the best RTS we’ve seen in VR yet. What Landfall does for real-time tactics based action games, Brass Tactics does for the RTS market in VR.
For fans of the genre, it’s got just about everything you’d want. The unique steampunk setting serves as a backdrop for a surprisingly solid campaign that boasts approximately 4-6 hours of content. Across the whole game you’ll find over 20 different highly-detailed and varied maps, multiple armies to choose from with branching unit upgrade paths, and a mixture of both cooperative and competitive multiplayer.
Before Brass Tactics, it seemed like VR RTS games would try to boil down the experience as much as possible to ratchet up the “interaction” but scale down the “features” so it became more of a MOBA than a true-to-form RTS. Recent examples like League of War and Skyworld both fall into that category. But Brass Tactics manages to retain the depth and complexity the genre is known for.
Each match generally starts the same with opponents beginning at opposite ends of the map floating as Oculus avatars near their home base castle. Small gathering units scavenge for crystals and gold, the main resources in Brass Tactics, which can be used to build structures, spawn units, and upgrade your kingdom.
Throughout the map are circular nodes that can be captured by placing a unit nearby and once captured you can reach over to place a summoning tower. Once the tower is built, this is how you spawn new units. This is a clever mechanic because it means turtling up and clustering all of your structures together back at your home base isn’t an option — you’re forced to stretch out into the game world to create units and expand your forces. Stretching yourself too thin is a very real and likely scenario.
Each new region you unlock nets you more resource gatherers as well, so the more towers you have the more resources you’re gathering per minute, which means you can build more units more quickly. It’s a very satisfying gameplay loop and really incentivizes you to be flexible across the map.
The way you actually move around the map itself is really creative. By placing your hands on the table, which feels like a giant tabletop game board, you can drag yourself across it or raise and lower it for a better viewing angle. Once you get the hang of it you can slide across the map with a flick of the wrist to quickly access forgotten corners.
Since your avatar is floating over the map from the very start this means that there is no fog of war, which is usually a staple of RTS games. Instead, the developers at Hidden Path have informally coined a term we heard them use dubbed the “fog of attention” which is a uniquely VR thing. The map is always visible at all times, but because of how immersive and involved the game becomes, you end up forgetting about the areas not immediately in front of you — hence fogging up your “attention” span instead.
Each map has a very distinct personality in and of itself, requiring different strategies. Some are very straight-forward with open areas aching for battles to play out, while others are more segmented and varied. Matches usually take around 20 minutes or so, give or take, but the end-game can play out very slowly if two sides are evenly matched. When you’ve got siege tanks and dragons and forces of a half-dozen heavily armored rocketeeers duking it out in a climactic final battle things can get very, very epic very quickly.
The biggest missing piece of the experience as compared to other modern RTS games is that the units themselves lack a bit of the nuance you might be looking for. You can upgrade your units individually back at your main base, but when actually using them you won’t be able to use different weapons, take cover, set traps, or other things that more tactically-designed RTS games let you do. And the lack of “real” base building eliminates some of the personalization so each match ends up feeling vaguely the same for the most part.
The campaign is much more robust than I expected, but it’s not the reason why people should buy this game. It’s a great introductory experience, but the multiplayer is where this one really sings. Playing competitively is just excellent. Since you can visibly see your enemy’s avatar scanning around the map you can tell precisely where they’re attention is occupied which makes flanking much more exciting and head-to-head skirmishes become way more intense this way as well.
Cooperative multiplayer is great fun too if you’d rather work together, but I’ve got a feeling the competitive mode is what’s going to help this one really stand out from the pack.
Final Score –8.5/10 – Great
Brass Tactics is a big step forward for RTS games in VR. The tactile feeling of picking up, directing, and interacting with units using your own hands is excellent and the mixture of single player, as well as both cooperative and competitive multiplayer, all adds up to one of the most feature-rich strategy games we’ve seen yet. It lacks some of the depth and complexity of its modern non-VR counterparts, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more competent and engaging RTS in VR right now.
Echtzeit-Strategiefans erwarten mit Spannung den VR-Titel Brass Tactics von den Age-of-Empires-II-Machern Hidden Games. Noch bevor das Hauptspiel Ende Februar erscheint, steht ab sofort wie angekündigtBrass Tactics Arena zum kostenlosen Download für die Oculus Rift bereit.
Brass Tactics Arena: Kostenlose Demo für Echtzeit-Strategiespiel
Die kostenlose Demo Brass Tactics Arena lässt Spieler ab sofort in das Echtzeit-Strategiespiel hineinschnuppern. Eine Karte steht bereit, auf der man gegen einen menschlichen Spieler, im Co-op-Modus oder gegen die A.I. kämpfen kann. Damit lässt sich schon gut herausfinden, ob einem das Spielprinzip liegt und man später in die Vollversion Brass Tactics investieren will. Die bietet dann 20 Karten und drei A.I.-Persönlichkeiten mit je vier Schwierigkeitsgraden. Game of Thrones Fans freuen sich über Aidan Gillen (Lord Petyr Baelish), der eine der künstlichen Intelligenzen verkörpert. Außerdem versprechen die Entwickler für ihren VR-Titel einen Story-Modus mit über sechs Stunden Spielzeit, womit auch Single Player einige Zeit beschäftigt sind.
Das Hauptspiel Brass Tactics soll am 22. Februar 2018 erscheinen. Derzeit lässt sich der VR-Titel im Oculus Store mit einem kräftigen Preisnachlass vorbestellen: 25 Euro kostet das Echtzeit-Strategiespiel aktuell, nach der Vorbestellphase soll der Preis auf 40 Euro steigen. Es kann sich also lohnen, möglichst früh die Demo-Version zu spielen und auf der Grundlage zu entscheiden, ob man den Vollpreis-Titel erwerben will.
Brass Tactics Arena is the free version of the upcoming real-time strategy game Brass Tactics from Hidden Path Entertainment, the studio behind the Defense Grid franchise and Age of Empires II HD (2013). Available today on Oculus Home for free,BT Arena is definitely looking to hook you into getting the full paid game with its unlimited online gameplay and bite-sized campaign.
While more of a demo than a game unto itself, casual and hardcore RTS players will likely appreciate the chunk of content available in the free Arena version, which includes competitive and co-op play, and player vs. AI on single map. For comparison, the full paid game boasts 20 maps and 3 AI personalities, each with four difficulty settings. One of those AI enemies is played by Aidan Gillen, aka Lord Petyr Baelish of Game of Thrones fame.
With dozens of units and upgrades to outfit your tiny army, it’s easy to see from BT Arena that the full game won’t be pulling any punches in the balance department; and it’s definitely a game of balance. You’ll be swooping around the map trying to see what the other player is doing while physically conducting troop movements, creating units, and upgrading buildings—all while trying to crush the enemy. Because you can’t hotkey to home, or parts of your sprawling node-based fortresses, multitasking is a significantly slower experience than traditional PC RTSs, but this actually gives you more time to choose the right units for the right job.
Check out our latest hands-on with Brass Tactics to learn more about the base game. We’ll of course have a review out next week in time for launch that will go into greater depth.
We’ll update this article once the download link for Brass Tactics Arena go live.
