Retro-Bit's Super Retro Boy lets you return to your Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games, while adding some modern conveniences you'll need.
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New HTC Vive Releases For The Week Of 01/01/17
Happy New Year! The very first list of releases for the year doesn’t have a heavy roster, adding a handful of casual experiences and escape the room content. With the two highlights, though, we have games pushing into a newer format for VR and one potentially setting the bar for another. Visual novels have a solid niche corner in gaming, but devs are still feeling around on translating the narrative genre to VR. Archipelago is a living comic book that you explore as the stories take place and may or may not work out in this format. Manastorm: Champions of G’nar is tackling the card game genre, one of the first types of games people expected to explode in the VR ecosystem. With it’s mechanic of throwing the cards onto the battlefield along with a room scale area to create more spells and enchantments, it’s showing new tricks for future card or board games.
In the meantime, if you missed last week, you can see those new releases here. And don’t forget that UploadVR has a Steam community group, complete with a curated list of recommendations so that you don’t have to waste any money finding out what’s good in the world of VR.
We also have a top list of the absolute best HTC Vive games — which is updated every few months with the latest and greatest options.
GoalkeepVR, from DigitalBadger
Price: $3.59 (Currently Discounted)
GoalkeepVR is a soccer goalie sim with 8 different modes to challenge your coordination and reflexes as you knock down a constant barrage of soccer balls with different rules.
Recommendation: Fluid with enough challenges to make this a really solid buy. Grab it if you’re running out of new content.
Archipelago: Navigable VR Comic, from Walkie Entertainment
Price: $4.24 (Currently Discounted)
Archipelago: Navigable VR Comic attempts to bring the graphic novel format into a virtual world that can be explored. The stories unfold before you and you wander to catch the characters dialogue to put the story together.
Recommendation: Very cool that may be a bit overwhelming in the way it’s presented. Keep an eye on this one.
Tiny Wheels, from Robbie Tilton
Price: $1.99
In this VR sandbox, reminisce of the heights of your childhood (and possibly adulthood) as you create race tracks and drive your remote control car through them. No rules or scores, just reckless driving and fun.
Recommendation: Inexpensive with tons of potential for fun. Give it a go.
AudioBeats, from Famiku
Price: $5.99 (Currently Discounted)
AudioBeats is entering into the meager VR rhythm genre and bringing a lot of flash to the scene. The VR form of input adds a layer of difficulty to this title that tries to stay true to its roots.
Recommendation: At its sale price, it may be worth grab but there’s not a ton of content to play at the current moment. Keep an eye on it.
Unknown Pharaoh, from 4 Fun Studio
Price: $5.99
Take control of an archaeologist and explore an ancient Egyptian pyramid using arm swing locomotion in adventure game Unknown Pharaoh. You’re in for about an hour of content as you decipher hieroglyphs and find artifacts.
Recommendation: Price pairs okay with length, but still not a lot to do. Pass on this one for now.
UMA-WAR VR, from One Show
Price: $3.99
UMA-WAR VR blends some archery action with the color-matching fun of popular casual games as you use different colored arrows to shoot the UMA creatures.
Recommendation: Good casual fun with solid archery mechanics. Worth the grab at the price if you’re not tired of casual shooters.
Perch, from Douglas Liang
Price: $4.79 (Currently Discounted)
In a war between a believer of the world being round and an assailant who declares the world if flat, stand upon your Perch and take down an army of naysayers.
Recommendation: Keep an eye on this game to see if the premise and gameplay expand in Early Access. Could be a solid buy.
Blortasia, from Shape Space VR
Price: $4.99
The man behind the VFX of films like Ghost Rider and Fifth Element gives us an opportunity to fly around a Blortasia; a twisted world of abstract, evolving sculptures.
Recommendation: If exploring art is your cup of tea, check out this write-up we did on the experience with the creator and give the app a shot.
The Cabin: VR Escape the Room, from Blue Entropy Studios
Price: $3.99 (Currently Discounted)
In The Cabin: VR Escape the Room, you’re able to explore full cabin up to the rafters as you unravel the mystery of the dwelling and find your way out. Oh…and you may or may not be alone.
Recommendation: Another inexpensive, solid escape experience to add to your collection.
VR: The Puzzle Room, from Bellcat
Price: $12.99
VR: The Puzzle Room is yet another escape the room affair with a bit more dense of an interactive experience when compared to similar games.
Recommendation: If you value well-crafted escape at a bit of a higher price, this could be for you. But it’s nothing revolutionary.
Mesh Maker VR, from CreateThis.com
Price: $14.99
Mesh Maker is a 3D modeling tool based on vertices. Intuitive VR control and interface lessen the learning curve, allowing you to create freely.
Recommendation: Keep an eye on this as it evolves in Early Access. May eventually stand up to similar tools.
Happy Drummer VR, from Lusionsoft
Price: $5.39 (Currently Discounted)
Another rhythm game for the week, Happy Drummer VR lets you become a master of percussion with your two VR controllers while a collection of fantasy creatures jam to your music.
Recommendation: A steal for the price with a great deal of potential. Will likely evolve throughout Early Access.
Fovos VR, from OnSkull Games
Price: Free To Play
Fovos VR is a wave shooter set within a tense post-apocalyptic horror. In this world, an omnipotent AI is taking over humans via genetic implants and leaving zombie like husks.
Recommendation: Grab it for free to see if it grows, but beware motion sickness.
Manastorm: Champions of G’nar, from DaGGsSoft
Price: $4.99
This game takes traditional card games and brings the creatures to life as you sit at a table and toss your cards onto a battlefield. You also have room scale lab to create new spells and enchantment to help in combat.
Recommendation: Must have. There’s a lot of potential here to further VR card and board game genre. Fans of the genre are missing options on the Vive right now.
Escape the Bunker, from Virtual Escapes, Inc.
Price: $4.99
Explore half a dozen connected rooms and traverse various puzzles as you attempt to Escape the Bunker. Depending on your deductive skills, the experience lasts about 40 minutes to over an hour.
Recommendation: Glitchy with poor physics. Pass.
Marimba VR, from Ruby Games
Price: $1.49 (Currently Discounted)
Tapping into the slim VR instrumental sim ecosystem, Marimba VR gives you a way to practice percussion on a virtually recreated version of the instrument without a huge investment.
Recommendation: If you want to learn the instrument, this is a cheap path to your goal.
Tagged with: htc vive, new releases, steam, valve
Sony Has Now Sold Over 53 Million PlayStation 4 Consoles To Date After Big Holiday Push
Sony’s PlayStation 4 continues to widen the gap between it and the Xbox One with a strong 2016. In a statement, the consumer electronics company announced that over 53 million PlayStation 4 consoles had been sold to date. After the launch of the PlayStation VR headset, the PlayStation 4 Pro, and the remodeled PlayStation 4 Slim all at the end of the year, as well as big software releases for the holiday season, Sony sits comfortably on top of the current generation sales charts, nearly doubling the Xbox One’s numbers so far.
While it can’t be confirmed at this time, we suspect the mid-October release of the PS VR — a device that has no comparable equivalent on Microsoft’s console yet — as well as the 4K-capable PS4 Pro have factored into the surge. Over the holiday season alone in 2016 Sony announced that more than 6.2 million PS4s were sold across all iterations of the console. During that same holiday time period, Sony stated that between both digital and retail, over 50 million games were sold. The most popular PS VR game digitally on PSN in 2016 was Job Simulator, which just announced surpassing $3 million in sales today.
“We are truly grateful for the tremendous support from our fans and partners, which has helped to make this holiday season one of the best in our history,” said Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, in a prepared statement. “We will aim to continue the momentum this year by broadening the PS4 title portfolio, further enriching the revolutionary gaming experiences on PlayStation VR and high quality gaming experience on PlayStation 4 Pro, while also expanding network services. We will remain steadfast in making the PS4 the best place to play.”
At CES 2017 this week, Samsung confirmed it has sold 5 million Gear VR headsets, which is one of the first times a major VR headset manufacturer has truly provided a specific and hard sales figure.
Firm sales figures have not been made publicly available at this time regarding the PS VR unit itself, but following its launch week, Sony did state it had sold better than expected in the realm of “many hundreds of thousand“. Since this was over two months ago, one can only speculate what that number looks like now.
Digital Trends Top Tech of CES 2017 Award Winners
The new year had barely arrived when the Digital Trends team rolled into Las Vegas, but we wasted no time prowling the Las Vegas Convention Center for the gadgets that will come to define tech in 2017. With more than 2.6 million square feet of exhibition space sprawling across nearly every convention center in Vegas, […]
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Bring on the neon! Gaming laptops are gaudy for a reason
Modern gaming laptops aren't beautiful, it's true, but to demand they become a pillar of design and elegance is missing the point. Gaming is about performance, and if that means a sacrifice in looks, so be it.
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Modders hacked NES Classic Edition, expanding its library to 84 games
Less than two months after its worldwide debut, the NES Classic Edition has been hacked to add support for many Nintendo Entertainment System games that aren't featured in the plug-and-play console's default lineup.
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Steam beta client adds customization support for Xbox One, Xbox 360 controllers
Valve is rolling out official Steam Controller Configurator support for Xbox 360 and Xbox One gamepads, granting licensed Microsoft peripherals access to the application's advanced mapping features.
The post Steam beta client adds customization support for Xbox One, Xbox 360 controllers appeared first on Digital Trends.
HTC Vive Tracker: Our first take
The HTC Vive tracker is a little black "puck" that opens the door to a new wave of VR simulations, the kind where we aren't confined to the limitations of a controller.
The post HTC Vive Tracker: Our first take appeared first on Digital Trends.
Watch the first contact with alien life in ‘Elite: Dangerous’
After years of developer hints, mysterious signals, and constant searching across the Milky Way Galaxy, one player has finally made contact with extraterrestrials in Elite: Dangerous.
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Mobile Room-Scale VR ‘Fully Doable’ With Vive Tracker Says Dev
Amidst the hustle and bustle of Vive’s CES booth, there’s a war zone. It’s a hellish battlefield in which three brave brothers are making a last stand against a hive mind of silent soldiers, uniformly marching forward. The heroes twist and turn, covering every angle, ducking and weaving out of the line of fire — but it’s hopeless; the enemy never ceases in their conquest.
This memorable struggle I experienced was made possible by an HTC Vive, a couple of smartphones, and a lot of plastic.
The game, or rather the concept, was Master of Shapes’ Cover Me, a unique take on VR local multiplayer that adapts to the realities of current VR tech. You’re probably not going to have two Vives to play with and, even if you did, you’d walk into each other all the time. But why not take use smartphone and give a second player a window into the game? Better yet, why not attach the phone to the Vive’s new tracker peripheral with a gun and have it appear within VR?
That could be interesting.
Cover Me is in the very, very early stages of development right now, but on a conceptual and mechanical level alone it shows a lot of promise. One player is experiencing the everyday Vive shooter; enemies swarming in from all sides, using your two controllers to blast away at them. If others want to join in on the action, they can grab their smartphone, attach it to a plastic gun peripheral fitted with the tracker, and then use the screen to aim and move about in the world. They’re not seeing the world in VR, but they can interact with your world in a very meaningful way.
What you get is an effective workaround for local multiplayer, or at least a glimpse of it. This demo didn’t have any damage enabled so it was more of a shooting gallery than an action stand-off, but you can see how this concept would quickly take shape into something more exciting. Imagine having to constantly cover each other’s backs (the game’s name came from one of the developers literally yelling “cover me!”), calling out enemy positions with your life on the line, perhaps having to keep out of the way of friendly fire.
“We’d been playing around with the Vive controller a couple of months ago and how it could be used for something other than just a VR tool only,” Creative Director Adam Amaral tells me. They started looking into pairing the controller with a phone, as others have done recently, and then HTC got in touch about its tracker. A few weeks later and here we are with a working prototype.
So it’s not the ultimate immersive experience for those on a smartphone, but it does give them a serious role to play in their friend’s world, and gives them a very similar experience from a mechanical point of view. The Vive user will see bigger versions of the other players’ arms and guns so that they know to keep their distance from them.
But, in Master of Shapes’ eyes, this concept goes far beyond Cover Me. “Our hope is that this is almost like a new ecosystem for maybe the Vive or just mobile gaming in general,” Amaral says. “It’s like a new game dynamic. You now can fully move around but you have a small view port, which is kind of cool, it allows you to do some new things.”
Amaral and co. think the applications extend beyond games too. The maker community, for example, could outline real objects in apps like Tilt Brush by running them over with the phone and tracker, though I can’t help but think of the possibilities this might have for a multiplayer horror game, giving you the chance to create jump scares for friends.
The plan is to release a Unity and Unreal plug-in that allows others to quickly integrate the foundation that Master of Shapes is laying here. The team are even talking to Vive about the possibility of having a phone and tracker paired together being recognized as a SteamVR headset so that almost anyone could access the ecosystem, not just Vive owners, though it would obviously limit some content.
Of course that brings about the big question: could you make a position-tracked mobile VR headset with this tracker? “That was the first thing we thought: Cardboard, Gear VR, everything’s room-scale,” Amaral said, describing it as “fully doable”. He joked that he bought a Gear VR just to make sure no one beat him to the idea.
It might have been a joke, but that certainly seems like a big opportunity for mobile platforms, especially with Viveport Mobile serving as a possible way to sell and highlight position-tracked games. Inside-out tracking is an increasingly closer reality for mobile VR but this could be the most viable workaround for current headsets we’ve yet seen.
Tagged with: CES, cover me, mobile, room scale, vive tracker