Developed by Google, Tilt Brush lets you create art in an immersive three dimensional space using your own two hands. We’ve seen a lot of amazing things created in the software. We’ve even seen an entire short film created in the app. What we haven’t seen, however, is a game which uses Tilt Brush to create assets and animations. In a few days, that is going to change.
Paulo’s Wing is a VR game created by the New York studio Angry Array. “You play a cherub in the game and are tasked with defending heaven’s gate from waves of demons. You get to unlock special powers, such as lighting strikes or slow time to help you accomplish your goals,” according to the developer.
Angry Array is targeting a February 23 release date for Paulo’s Wing. According to the studio, all the art in the game was made using Tilt Brush.
This appears to be one the most comprehensive uses of Tilt Brush we have seen. Recently, Google updated its toolkit meant to empower creators to export and manipulate their works for these kinds of purposes.
Paulo’s Wing looks like it has a charming, drawn aesthetic that could stand out as one of the first examples of a new kind of game made in VR. Angry Array is targeting February 23 as a release date for Paulo’s Wing on the HTC Vive.
Fancy a free trip into space? Perform well on a gaming app and you could find yourself heading to the International Space Station. The plan is the brainchild of Finland-based Space Nation, and the contest could kick off as early as this fall.
On Thursday, Ludacris helped release Slang N' Friendz, a mobile game that "gives players of all ages the chance to communicate using their favorite words by incorporating a dictionary database of slang words compiled from across the globe."
R-Motion Golf is a simulator designed for home play that lets golfers use their real clubs to play through 15 virtual courses. But does it come close to the real thing?
A few months ago we reported that UK videogame retailer, GAME, had started charging for demos of the PlayStation VR headset. The move was heavily criticized but, instead of abandoning it, the store seems to have doubled down on the concept.
GAME this week announced a new location-based initiative known as BELONG. Instead of a simple store, these sites also let you experience games at kiosks with high-powered PCs and consoles. It’s the retailer’s attempt at tapping into the lucrative eSports market at a time when physical copies of games face stiff challenge as digitally downloading becomes even more popular. As you might have guessed, VR will also play a big part in this new initiative.
The company has confirmed to UploadVR that VR headsets feature in seven BELONG sites across the UK. Outlets at Hull, Trafford Centre, Wardour Street, Portsmouth, Cribbs and Metrocentre each have HTC Vive and PS VR units, while one in Milton Keynes also has a PS VR.
As with the previous PS VR setup, you can pay £5 (about $6.16) to play for 10 minutes, and £15 (about $18.48) to play for 30 minutes. If you then decide to purchase a headset, you’ll have the cost of the session deducted from the price.
Previously, GAME told us that payment for these experiences went towards employing staff that would maintain the kiosks. PS VR maker Sony, meanwhile, said that retailers could run in-store activity “at their own discretion”. It doesn’t look like either will be changing their stance with the introduction of this new initiative.
It sounds a little like a VR arcade, which are becoming an increasingly promising source of revenue for developers through initiatives like Viveport Arcade. We’ve asked the company if there are any plans to pay the makers of the VR content they showcase with this new scheme.
Does setting up dedicated sites for sampling content change your stance on if GAME should be charging to try headsets? Is it so different from a VR arcade?
I never knew a shovel could be this powerful. Seriously, my twin uzis lay forgotten on the ground. Their pitiful bullets simply could not compete with the unstoppable savagery of my spade. I named her Gwendalyn and she eats zombies for breakfast.
The undead in question are swarming around me as I play through Playside Studios’ brand new VR experience, ZR: Zombie Riot. ZR is wave-based shooter that launched alongside the Oculus Touch control system earlier this week. The game pits you against swarms of ravenous corpses while arming you with a constantly shifting array of firearms to keep the biters at bay. However, despite all the effort put into the guns its the melee weapons that pack the real punch. Each baseball bat, crowbar or pitchfork you find in the game is a weapon of destruction more powerful than any grenade. This is a fun thrill at first, but it also serves as a good representation of the problems with Zombie Riot. And there are, unfortunately, quite a few.
The biggest issue in this game is its pacing. As the player you begin your apocalyptic journey by snagging a buzzing radio in an abandoned garage as you’re guided from waypoint to waypoint by a mysterious stranger on the other end. In order to progress to the next point you need to slay several waves of zombies at each location. The lack of any sort of locomotion system is not uncommon for a wave-based shooter, but if a game wants to root you to one spot for its duration then that spot better be entertaining enough to back that decision up. For Zombie Riot, this is unfortunately not the case.
You are always armed with two pistols — each with unlimited ammo — and most levels give you a special gun, such as an assault rifle or uzi, that can be used for that wave only. These weapons also come with unlimited clips and reloading is accomplished through a simple press of a face button on either Touch controller. Reloading in VR can be a highly satisfying experience when done well and can also help to build immersion or tension. Playside’s choice to reduce this action down to a single, motion-free, input seems like a disappointing shortcut and these types of half measures are not restricted to your weapons.
The enemies themselves are highly underwhelming in Zombie Riot as well. Despite the bright, colorful, and inviting visual aesthetic, they presented very little actual variety. At each combat point zombies will begin to stumble towards you at either a lumbering walk or a slightly faster jog. There is only a small handful of enemy types to go around and the models that are there have severely limited animations. Enemies show no reaction to being pumped full of lead until they are damaged enough to be defeated. Getting a headshot does result in a satisfying lopping off of their head, though.
This turns most waves into bullet-sponge parades that force you to point, click, and watch your shots find their marks while the seconds tick by or you land a fortunate headshot. If a zombie ever did make it to me, it would often lunge at a space I was not occupying. This still damaged me but it also looked very odd and broke the immersion of the combat significantly.
Difficulty scaling feels oddly disjointed in ZR as well. Most waves can be beaten without any considerable effort. You never really feel in danger especially if you’re on a level with one of the games many overpowered weapons. All melee weapons as well as most shotguns and some of the rifles all take down enemies with absurd ease. This combined with the never-ending ammunition makes many waves in ZR rather un-engaging in their simplicity.
When Zombie Riot isn’t simple it’s just frustratingly. I arrived at one point in which I was tasked with protecting a gas canister from incoming undead from the rafters of a barn. No matter how well I shot, for the longest time it seemed like I could could not kill the enemies quickly enough to keep them from destroying my objective. In other protect-the-target missions the health of the quarry I was attempting to protect would randomly drop from almost full, to zero in what seemed like a single hit. Difficulty spikes like these are either distressing game design flaws, or glitches. I wasn’t able to reproduce this issue on trying again, so it was likely the latter.
In addition to the randomly depleting health bars I also experienced issues with the guns themselves with regards to them not appearing within range of my hands, or sporadically bouncing and knocking other things off of tables that I then could not reach. Luckily this seems to have been patched since I noticed it, so it shouldn’t impact end users, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
The sound in Zombie Riot is somewhat poor overall. It is spatial in direction but not in proximity. This means that in any given wave you can hear where a zombie is coming from in direction, but it always sounds like it is only a few feet away. This defeats the purpose of using sound to help shooters identify their targets and can actually become a bit disorienting when multiple enemies are approaching that all sound equally close.
The background music also does little to add to the drama of the combat and on more than one occasion it simply cut out for me all together. The voice over from my mysterious guide also seemed to get triggered either out of order and he repeated himself unnecessarily or out of context on more than one occasion as well. I also noted occasional popping, which sounded like someone forgot the pop filter on their microphone.
On the positive side, Playside has done an incredible job in giving their weapons a satisfying feel to them in the game itself. There are a few guns that allow for two handed firing and this feels surprisingly immersive with Touch. They’ve also gone out of their way to create a good variety of weapons, although the crafting system they alluded to before has unfortunately been removed for now. Playside informs us they will be adding it in through an eventual update, but something that was so highly-touted and would have added needed depth feels like a glaring omission.
Final Score: 4/10 – Disappointing
I really wanted to like ZR:Zombie Riot but, unfortunately, the simplistic gameplay, frustrating difficulty spikes, and occasional glitches knock this one down the quality ladder. However, Playside did demonstrate real skill when it comes to VR gunplay and hopefully they’ll be back again with something that builds upon those strengths. The presentation is strong and it could be a good buy for staunch zombie fans or gamers that can’t handle the intensity of something like The Brookhaven Experiment.
ZR: Zombioe Riot is now available on the Oculus Home Store for Oculus Rift with Touch at a price point of $19.99. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
At the Playstation Experience conference, it was expected that virtual reality games would have a more prominent role on the keynote stages. Setting the standard early, PS VR was mentioned with the Resident Evil 7 demo and the Ace Combat 7 trailer reveal. Soon after those, a new and original PlayStation VR game was revealed via trailer.
Starblood Arena drops you into the cockpit of your own highly maneuverable mech in an intense, first-person action shooter exclusive for PlayStation VR.
The trailer shows Battle Royale and Team Deathmatch modes and the player maneuvers around an enclosed arena with various objects obscuring your path or offering cover. There’s a variety of mechs with different strengths and weaknesses. The gameplay looks more geared toward a multi-player experience, but PS Plus is required for online play so the game will have to offer up a substantial single-player experience at the least. Online, there is also 2-4 player co-op combat mode where you face waves of enemies as a team.
The game has been in development for over a year with more than 40 people on the team. One of our writers got some hands-on time at PSX and didn’t experience any discomfort after taking on a few bots, despite the ability to . move the mech in any direction fairly quickly. So players with quicker reflexes are likely to stand above the crowd in the multiplayer engagements. The trailer says the release is pointed at Spring 2017, but our conversation with the team at PSX suggested a more specific launch date in March planned. We’ll update with more information as it comes and stay tuned for more coverage of the PlayStation Experience.
While you can just buy a normal videogame of the shelves developers and publishers try to squeeze that extra bit of cash out of consumers by offering limited edition versions of titles. These can range from additional artwork or a fancy steel case, to much more elaborate offerings involving models, clothing and much more. This hasn’t really happened yet in the world of virtual reality (VR), as content has been purely digital, but with the release of PlayStation VR for PlayStation 4 that time has now come. UK-retailer GAME now has an exclusive Steelbook Edition available for Capcom’s Resident Evil 7 biohazard.
This special edition – as the name suggests – comes in a fancy metal case (for extra protection of that special disk. Whilst that might not tempt gamers to spend the £54.99 GBP asking price, the included DLC might.
This is the Survival Pack: Action Set, featuring .44 MAG ammo x4; Special Grenade x1; Lock Pick x 1; Solid Fuel x1; Gunpowder x1; Herb x1 and the Madhouse Mode Unlocked. As far as VRFocus is aware Capcom hasn’t yet revealed any details about this mode.
The developer previously revealed four Survival Pack Sets back in September, the Recovery Set, Handgun Set, Burner Set and Chem Fluid Set. Each has their own specific qualities depending on how gamers want to play the title, and they all include one coin. GAME’s exclusive ‘Action Set’ doesn’t seem to feature any of the previously revealed coins.
Resident Evil 7 biohazard is set for release on 24th January 2017, both on traditional 2D monitors for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and as an exclusive VR experience for PlayStation VR for 12 months. VRFocus will continue to keep you updated with all the latest details on Resident Evil 7 biohazard.
Virtual reality can be a bridge to many experiences that may be out of reach for some. With VR, you can play board games with people halfway around the world, visit foreign countries, and more. With Percussive VR, the developer hopes to deliver a different kind of experience that connects to real life: Learning to play an instrument. This is no far-flung interest for Eisenhauer; the game is the result of his own experiences growing up.
“I started out with percussion in 6th-grade band and continued through high school,” he says. “I try to stay involved with concert percussion by playing with a local community orchestra, but, without being able to own and store large and expensive instruments in my small apartment, it’s pretty hard to practice at home in a meaningful way. With the Vive’s ridiculous positional tracking, it was a fairly obvious project idea for me!”
Percussive VR, in its current form, features the marimba, steel drums, and glockenspiel. You can practice or perform for friends and you have a choice of mallets that influence the different sounds you can create. It’s only in early access currently and Eisenhauer says there’s more on the way.
“New instruments are definitely in the works; I’d really love to see a xylophone, vibraphone, tubular bells, and crotales added in the near future, but modeling these in 3D takes time and especially expertise (which I lack quite a bit!),” he explains. “I’ve also been getting a lot of questions about adding instructions/tutorials for new players, which is another big priority of mine.”
Along with those ideas, Eisenhauer also hopes to implement a means for users to upload their own sheet music and a virtual metronome help to keep a rhythm.
Travel and learning instruments can be elusive endeavors for many reasons, but they can be supplemented with digital content. Virtual reality is the most immersive means to do so, which is what makes Percussive VR and applications like them so intriguing. Though lacking the accurate resistance of hitting the instrumentals, hopefully someone will be able to adapt to real life play.
Percussive VR is currently available on Steam for the discounted price of $8.49.
With so many resources available to us, anyone with the correct amount of ambition and discipline can make a mark in the gaming industry. Developer Frooxius has dabbled a great deal with applications and games and a quick glance at the older work on his site will show you a programming language centered on music called MusicString, a few casual games, and even a VR solar system model. His latest project is inspired by the later and is arguably his most ambitious: The first dedicated VR world engine.
Game engines such as Unreal engine, Source, and RPG Maker provide the framework for visual, aural, AI, and other crucial elements for many of the games we play today. Many different games and genres can be created within the different engines, but some of them offer specific benefits to some types of play styles. Frooxius is content with retrofitting existing engines for VR development and are providing an engine, called Neos VR, built from the ground up for virtual reality experiences. Via the website, the mantra is to create a platform with the ease of use of Minecraft, the collaboration of Google docs, the ecosystem of Youtube, and intuitive controls that mirror real life interaction.
Neos VR has been three years in the making and is finally available in its Alpha form, as revealed by Frooxius on Reddit . Its core feature is the generic synchronization engine, a system geared toward easy development of multi-player interactions and behaviors, but there are additional features available in the alpha for curious developers and enthusiasts to try out. On the Reddit post, Frooxius makes it clear the goal is to work with those interested in the platform as opposed to developing behind the scenes. There are bugs to be expected considering alpha tests are largely incomplete works of software, but if you’re interested you can register here for the download.
