Echo Arena (2017), the futuristic multiplayer sports game from Ready at Dawn and Oculus Studios, is getting into the holiday spirit with an upcoming seasonal Halloween Bash that looks to be a devily fun time—a great incentive to get more people to download the game for free before the free download window expires on All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1st).
Starting today, you’ll be able to float around in a newly designed haunted lobby area, play with the gruesome collection of new toys, and unlock 20 new cosmetic styles that you can take with you before they vanish on November 1st.
New cosmetic items can be earned after you complete at least one public match, where you’ll automatically be granted “5 ghoulish patterns, 5 creepy tints, 7 unnerving decals, and 3 eerie emotes.”
Ready at Dawn previously stated that the free 3-month download window, which allows anyone to download and keep the game permanently for free, would end on October 20th, but the studio says in a blogpost announcing the Halloween Bash that its November 1st conclusion “also coincides with the end of the 3-month period where you can add Echo Arena to your Oculus library for free.”
The Halloween Bash begins on October 20th at 12:00pm PST (your local time here). The spooky lobby and the ability to claim the Halloween-themed items will disappear in the afternoon of November 1st, but users can continue to flaunt the spooky items (and smugly answer the question: “where did you get the skull helmet?”) long afterwards.
If you haven’t played Echo Arena yet, definitely take the chance to download this zero-g, adrenaline pumping game now for free before it becomes a paid app in November—unless you’re planning on buying the single-player adventure Lone Echo, which gets you the multiplayer Echo Arena for free at any time.
The Tron-like sports game boasts a healthy player base, and while substantial updates may be a little sluggish, the Halloween Bash represents one of the first big changes (albeit temporary) to the game since its last public beta. We’re hoping once the game heads into paid app territory that it’ll bring with it more substantive changes including more maps to keep people coming back for more.
Sony bietet bis November-Anfang etliche Spiele zu vergünstigten Preisen an. Bei der Auswahl sind auch einige VR-Titel dabei, die wir für euch gesichtet haben. Das Highlight ist sicherlich Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, das Sony in seinem Store um fast 60 Prozent vergünstigt anbietet. Auch die anderen RE-Teile sind neben anderen Horror-Titeln dank Halloween vergünstigt zu haben. Die Aktionen bieten eventuell manchem PlayStation-VR-Besitzer eine gute Gelegenheit, die Spiele-Bibliothek aufzufüllen.
Sony-Angebote zu Halloween mit kräftigen Rabatten für PSVR-Spiele
Neben den Rabatten in seiner Digital Zone hat Sony eine große Halloween-Angebots-Aktion gestartet. Dadurch lassen sich einige hochkarätige VR-Titel mit teilweise ordentlichen Nachlässen erwerben. Und wie es sich für Halloween gehört, sind viele Grusel- und Horrortitel wie Arizona Sunshine und Paranormal Activity dabei. Die Rabatte gelten bis 12:59 Uhr am 1. oder 2. November 2017. Diese Liste erhebt keinen Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit. Falls wir einen Titel übersehen haben, fügt ihn bitte in den Kommentaren dazu.
A special Pokémon Go Halloween event is coming at the end of the month, and avid trainers are already speculating about the new creatures that may be revealed. Will Generation 3 Pokémon finally make their long-awaited appearance in the game?
Update: This review was originally published on 11/2/2016 and specifically focused on the Gear VR version of the game. As of tomorrow, 3/23/2017, it will be releasing on the Oculus Rift as well with a large update that also improves and expands the game for Gear VR. This review has been updated by Games Editor David Jagneaux to now account for both versions of the game.
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Any Halloween season wouldn’t be complete without creepy, gore-filled action games, so Gear VR users were thankful for the timely release of Drop Dead late last year. This zombie-themed shooter will instantly feel familiar for anyone who spent hours in dark arcades (or in front of TV screens) playing light gun games like House of the Dead. Now in 2017, it’s getting full support for Oculus Rift and the Touch controllers with expanded content and enhanced visuals.
Granted, on-rails, wave-based shooting games are kind of a thing in VR, but we still appreciate a good one when it comes along. Drop Dead from Pixel Toys is, thankfully, a good one.
Part of its success is the game’s general inability to take itself too seriously. House of the Dead–the quintessential horror gun game–worked thanks to a mix of intense bloody action and incredibly deadpan B-movie level absurdity. Right from the start, Drop Dead is channeling a SyFy Channel-level mentality about not taking itself seriously, complete with a lunatic, goggle-wearing mad scientist and sarcastic companions.
The act of actually mowing down enemies in Drop Dead, generally speaking, couldn’t be simpler. You just look and shoot on Gear VR and on Rift you can use a gamepad, the Oculus Remote, or for the best results, Oculus Touch controllers. Pointing and pulling the trigger feels great. The action is entirely on rails, like a vaguely interactive movie, where the game moves you on a pre-scripted path and the only control the player has is what to kill. While simple at first, it’s satisfying and hides a lot of depth beneath the surface.
However, Drop Dead does take a minor nod from Gears of War with its reloading mechanic. When you reload, it’s visualized by a moving bar within a circle. There’s a sweet spot zone in the circle which you can hit for an instant reload. Each gun you acquire has different timing for reloading and missing the sweet spot results in a painfully long and potentially deadly delay in reloading. This provides an interesting and effective method for creating tension amidst the zombie-filled landscapes.
Drop Dead has a surprising amount of focus on its story as well, really more so than it even needs. The evil Doctor Monday is unleashing the zombie apocalypse on the world and because of your special time travel-capable DNA, you are the last person on Earth who can stop him. You have a father and daughter duo who brief you for each mission and occasionally interact during levels and there’s a lot of set up in the B-movie style premise from the start.
The first two levels of the game’s ~13 in the initial story campaign are really just plot exposition, along with 14 new missions for the Rift release (also coming to Gear VR). After that, the action stays pretty consistent. Drop Dead does a surprisingly good job of making use of multi-layered levels across a variety of urban, rural, and goofy science fiction landscapes. Zombies can come up from the ground, burst open doors, run across rooftops, and frequently come at you from multiple angles.
Beyond your basic pistol, there are other satisfying mainstays of zombie killing–the shotgun, assault rifle, explosives, and more. You pick up power ups such as health, guns, and ammo by looking at the object and tapping the touch screen. Whatever the item is, it telekinetically flies to you. The starter pistol has unlimited ammo, but still must be frequently reloaded.
There’s a decent variety of zombies as well, from crawling corpses and armed undead, to giant, lumbering hulks and toxic goop spitting fiends. The environments often feature exploding barrels and other useful features. So, while the gameplay isn’t particularly deep in the slightest, the shooting action is certainly meaty and fun.
The presentation is generally decent on Gear VR, although the graphics aren’t exactly cutting edge, with incredibly angular models that are likely to remind older gamers of 3D engines from the early 2000s of even older Sega arcade games. Still, it works, especially since the frame rate is high enough for the action to feel smooth and non-jarring. The voice acting and dialogue are nicely campy, which helps a lot. On Rift, things are turned up a few notches and everything looks noticeably crisper, smoother, and generally of much higher fidelity.
Drop Dead also features a novice player mode that strips out the story and motion-heavy transitions for the most part to allow for an even safer target shooting experience. There’s even multiplayer where players compete to get the highest scores. Since fancy shooting like headshots and multi-kills is a big focus of the action, playing for points against others has a nicely classic arcade feel.
This most recent update’s best additions though are the two multiplayer game modes. There’s a real-time competitive multiplayer system that takes full advantage of customized Oculus Avatars on Rift and a wave-based cooperative Horde mode as well. Combined with the March 2017 update it’s receiving as well with new weapons, missions, and other content, it takes an already good game and made it even better — especially if played on Rift with Touch.
Final Score:7.5/10 – Very Good (Updated from a 7/10)
Drop Dead is certainly one of the best shooting games on the Gear VR and a capable inclusion in the Rift’s growing library. The solid, smooth performance and accurate targeting make it plenty of fun and the new missions and brand new multiplayer mode add plenty of replay value. More than that though, it’s an excellent homage to the classic light gun games of old.
You can access Drop Dead on Gear VR through the Oculus Home store now, for $9.99. It will be available soon for Oculus Rift, including support for Touch controllers. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
This Halloween season wouldn’t be complete without creepy, gore-filled action games, so Gear VR users should be thankful for the timely release of Drop Dead. This zombie-themed shooter will instantly feel familiar for anyone who spent hours in dark arcades (or in front of TV screens) playing light gun games like House of the Dead.
Granted, on-rails, wave-based targeting games are kind of a thing in VR, but we still appreciate a good one when it comes along. Drop Dead from Pixel Toys is, thankfully, a good one.
Part of its success is the game’s general inability to take itself too seriously. House of the Dead–the quintessential horror gun game–worked thanks to a mix of intense bloody action and incredibly deadpan B-movie level absurdity. Right from the start, Drop Dead is channeling a SyFy Channel-level mentality about not taking itself seriously, complete with a lunatic, goggle-wearing mad scientist and sarcastic companions.
The act of actually mowing down enemies in Drop Dead, generally speaking, couldn’t be simpler. You just look and shoot. The action is entirely on rails, like a vaguely interactive movie, where the game moves you on a pre-scripted path and the only control the player has is what to kill. There’s a dot in your center of vision acting as a gun sight and you tap the touch panel on the side of the Gear VR to shoot. That’s it.
However, Drop Dead does take a minor nod from Gears of War with its reloading mechanic. Sliding down on the touch pad reloads, which is visualized by a moving bar within a circle. There’s a sweet spot zone in the circle which you can tap for an instant reload. Each gun you acquire has different timing for reloading and missing the sweet spot results in a painfully long and potentially deadly delay in reloading. This provides an interesting and effective method for creating tension amidst the zombie-filled landscapes.
Drop Dead has a surprising amount of focus on its story as well, really more so than it even needs. The evil Doctor Monday is unleashing the zombie apocalypse on the world and because of your special time travel-capable DNA, you are the last person on Earth who can stop him. You have a father and daughter duo who brief you for each mission and occasionally interact during levels and there’s a lot of set up in the B-movie style premise from the start.
The first two levels of the game’s 15 in the story campaign are really just plot exposition. After that, the action stays pretty consistent. Drop Dead does a surprisingly good job of making use of multi-layered levels across a variety of urban, rural, and goofy science fiction landscapes. Zombies can come up from the ground, burst open doors, run across rooftops, and frequently come at you from multiple angles.
Beyond your basic pistol, there are other satisfying mainstays of zombie killing–the shotgun, assault rifle, explosives, and more. You pick up power ups such as health, guns, and ammo by looking at the object and tapping the touch screen. Whatever the item is, it telekinetically flies to you. The starter pistol has unlimited ammo, but still must be frequently reloaded.
There’s a decent variety of zombies as well, from crawling corpses and armed undead, to giant, lumbering hulks and toxic goop spitting fiends. The environments often feature exploding barrels and other useful features. So, while the gameplay isn’t particularly deep in the slightest, the shooting action is certainly meaty and fun.
The presentation is generally decent, although the graphics aren’t exactly cutting edge, with incredibly angular models that are likely to remind older gamers of 3D engines from the early 2000s of even older Sega arcade games. Still, it works, especially since the frame rate is high enough for the action to feel smooth and non-jarring. The voice acting and dialogue are nicely campy, which helps a lot.
Drop Dead also features a novice player mode that strips out the story and motion-heavy transitions for the most part to allow for an even safer target shooting experience. There’s even multiplayer where players compete to get the highest scores. Since fancy shooting like headshots and multi-kills is a big focus of the action, playing for points against others has a nicely classic arcade feel.
Final Score:7/10 – Good
Drop Dead is certainly one of the best shooting games on the Gear VR. The solid, smooth performance and accurate targeting make it plenty of fun. The goofy zombie action is perfectly in-line with the recent Halloween season as well. More than that though, it’s an excellent homage to the classic light gun games of old.
You can access Drop Dead on Gear VR through the Oculus Home store now, for $9.99. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
For years, Google has flexed its creative muscles when it comes to their doodles, and this year's Halloween entry is no exception! Check out the spooky game you can play right in your browser.
We at Upload would like to wish a very spooky Halloween to all of you horrible ghouls and goblins out there (and also to those people not running for President). Today we’re very pleased to bring you a mixed reality broadcast filled with thrills, chills, and the chance to watch heart attacks in real time.
Watch us this evening as we attempt to survive Blue Effect VR from Divr Labs on the HTC Vive. Prepare to laugh as we scream, giggle as we cry, and sit safely in your nice dry pants while ours fill steadily with…terror.
The stream begins today at 5pm PT. Check it out below and don’t judge any man you you may see screaming like an eight year old girl. It’s a medical condition. Call my his doctor if you don’t believe me.
It’s that time of year again. Orange and black lights twinkle outside porches, scary ghosts and ghouls litters front yards, and bowls of candy are amassing wealth near the front door of houses around the world as families prepare for Halloween 2016. Notably, this is also the first Halloween during the age of consumer-grade VR headsets, which means it’s time for holiday game bundles.
Today, Oculus announced that you can purchase a Halloween Bundle of apps on the Gear VR for the low price of $8.99. This comes in at just around 70% off the full price ($28.95) of the five included games and apps in the bundle.
As you can see, the single purchase nets you Wands [Review: 7/10,] Affected: The Manor [Review: 7/10,] Dark Days [Review: 7/10,] Dead Secret, and Sonar. Luckily, this is a really strong collection of content. Both Affected and Dark Days made our list of the best VR horror games to check out this Halloween, and those two, plus Wands, also made our list of the overall best games on Gear VR right now.
Affected is the most traditional experience in the bunch, offering quick and thrilling scares, whereas Dark Days is a much longer, narrative-focused puzzles adventure game. Dead Secret is a mystery thriller with spooky atmosphere and Sonar isn’t so much a game as it is an immersive experience. Finally, Wands, isn’t really a horror game at all, but it does offer intense magic duels if you can find anyone to play with.
Oculus is no stranger to sales and it’s great to see them embracing seasonal price changes like this. As the Gear VR and Rift ecosystems continue to expand, users will eventually start to miss out on certain titles, especially since so many new experiences release each and every week. You can follow those by checking our site every Friday afternoon for our weekly release roundups.
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades (or H3VR) is a well-designed sandbox virtual reality title built for the HTC Vive that’s ultimately a collection of various VR experiments with a patriotic sheen. RUST LTD, the developers behind the game, have meticulously modeled historical, modern, and futuristic weapons that require realistic physical actions with both Vive controllers to operate correctly. The game has various mini-games centered around these weapons, time challenges and leaderboards, and even a grilling simulation. For the fall season, H3VR is getting a Halloween update and we spoke with RUST LTD CTO Anton Hand about the new update and reception for the game thus far.
“Since releasing H3 in April, I’ve been looking forward to the fall season specifically because it meant being able to do a Halloween update,” said Hand. “Halloween is such a great holiday to riff off of because it (and horror in general) pairs well with the action and it pairs well with room scale VR due to the player’s body being so central.”
Hand started plotting out the update roughly a month ago and decided to do something much more involved than throwing a festive theme over existing content. This needed to be something that fit snug with the game’s high level of simulation and precision. He decided on a horror survival narrated update called MeatGrinder.
“It’s in many ways the most ‘structured’ mode available in the game now, and the largest experiment we’ve done in seeing how H3‘s physical object systems and interactions work in a more complex and refined game context,” explained Hand.
Released back in April of this year, H3VR currently holds a “Very Positive” recent and overall rating on Steam. Hand was blown away by community reception since release and throughout 25 content updates (MeatGrinder, this Friday, October 28th, will make 26), recognizing the constant weekly cadence of the updates has been a boon.
“Moreover, it’s just been tremendously fulfilling engaging in really open development, letting folks peek behind the curtains of the project, see features and ideas as they develop, and engage in this huge messy dialogue from which interesting ideas arise about content, functionality, UX, balance, etc. that would have never occurred had I just worked away privately. It’s what gets me up every morning, and I imagine will continue to do so for some time!”
Grab Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades on Steam for $19.99 in Early Access and look for the MeatGrinder Halloween update, for free, this Friday, October 28th.
Ever since VR headsets first came into popularity, it seems like horror games have just always been a natural fit. When you play a scary video game on a traditional flat screen, you’re not actually immersed in the world. The room around you is empty, people can interrupt your session, the sounds bounce off of the walls as they emanate from speakers, and you generally have a level of separation between you and the game world.
In VR however, that’s not the case. Instead of simply looking at a screen, you’re placed inside the world. You can move, interact, and embrace the environment. The sounds come from all around you in 360-degrees, forcing you to turn and spin around to find the source of cracks and creaks. Each scream of fear results in a chill of terror in the realm of VR horror games.
We’ve put together this list for you this Halloween with updated recommendations of what we think are some of the most terrifying VR horror games on the market right now. Since not everyone has every headset, we’ve made sure to list two recommendations for each of the major platforms — PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Cardboard — as well as a few upcoming games we can’t wait to try. You can also read our list from last year for insight on older games, and our best Rift, best Gear VR, and best Vive game lists for more recommendations.
Happy Halloween! May your nightmares be just as terrifying as you dreamed.
Not all horror games have to scare you with horrendous creatures, disgusting visuals, and intense action. Sometimes if the game takes a slower, more methodical, and measured pace, it can actually end up being even scarier.
Here They Lie is a PS VR launch title that, while not being the best game on the platform by any means [Review: 6/10] it does deliver on creepy atmosphere and and intriguing setting. Worth a look for fans of the genre, for sure.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is an action packed shooter with a heavy sprinkle of horror elements on top. You’ll progress through a disturbing series of buildings and mines on a roller coaster that barrels towards the depths of hell.
Using the PlayStation Move controllers (or just the DualShock 4) you shoot down enemies accosting you and bask in the glory of disturbing, 3D spatial audio that surrounds you from all sides, chilling you to the bone. It has its issues [Review: 7/10] but it’s one of our favorite PS VR games so far.
Make no mistake — personally, this is my favorite VR horror game I’ve played so far. It takes the engrossing atmosphere of a psychiatric mental institution and gives you the freedom to explore and interact in full roomscale. The story is a dark and twisted affair and the scares are littered throughout the experience.
Above all else though, a sense of constant dread and uneasiness pervades the entire experience, keeping you on your toes and your palms sweaty. It’s not a great game to demo to people, as it’s better experienced quietly, alone, at home, but if you have the time and patience, we highly recommend it [Review: 8/10.]
This is the VR horror game (or perhaps even VR game, period) you’ve likely seen the most about on social media. The Brookhaven Experiment takes the terrifying prospect of being surrounded by monsters and zombies and puts you in VR with limited supplies and creepy settings.
The guns feel realistic, the visuals are gritty and detailed, and the mixture of a story-based mission structure and survival modes provide plenty of content to chew on. We loved the game when it first came out [Review: 8/10] and it’s still one of our favorites — it’s also great to show people that are new to VR.
I never understood the alure of playing games like hide and seek. As a kid, the last thing on the planet that I wanted was for someone to be frantically chasing and searching for me while I hid, stifling my breath, trying not to be found. That’s the thing of nightmares.
Now that nightmare can come to life in Dreadhalls, a dungeon full of dark, horrible beasts that want nothing more than to tear you limb from limb. Good luck peeking around that next corner without peeing your pants.
This was the first outing in VR for Insomniac Games, the lauded developers of classic console game franchises such as Ratchet & Clank. In Edge of Nowhere, you’ll take on the role of a man in his search of his loved one in the mountains of Antarctica. But it’s not at all what first meets the eye.
The trip quickly derails into a nightmarish hellscape of Cthulhu-inspired beasts and creatures and it’s truly one of the most unnerving VR games so far. The entire game is played from the third-person perspective, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s any less immersive or terrifying than its first-person brethren. It all adds up to one of the Rift’s very best [Review: 9/10] to date.
Not all VR horror games have to be long, involved affairs though. Sometimes something smaller, shorter, and more focused can have just as strong — if not more powerful — of an impact. In Affected: The Manor, you’ll creep around scary hallways and dark corners in a fist-clenching fright fest full of stress.
When we covered Affected: The Manor [Review: 7/10,] we loved the clever scripting and visuals, but the lack of interactivity and brevity were a bit disappointing. If you’re looking for something quick and easy to show people on the go, then you could do a lot worse than this one. Give it a shot.
For a different experience, Dark Days [Review: 7/10] employs a much longer-form experience for a mobile headset, tasking you with exploring a richly detailed world full of narration, characters, and dense environments. The nightmare-inducing creatures and spine-tingling scenes help this, as well.
It’s far from the most visually impressive VR game, but it offers a consistent and steady stream of frights to keep you on your toes throughout. However, the main character can get a bit annoying for some people and the jump scares are quite unnerving inside a VR headset.
Google Cardboard Horror Games
Sisters (Also on Gear VR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift)
As one of the first successful Google Cardboard games, Sisters still holds up to this day. It’s one of the easiest games to load up and show off to people and will really immerse you in its creepy, haunted house atmosphere. Given the lack of technical prowess afforded with a standard Cardboard viewer, it’s relatively impressive.
If you want to ratchet up the terror even further, you can also access this game on other, powerful headsets as well. There are plenty of jump scares to keep you coming back for more — that is, as long as you don’t rip the headset off in fear first.
Who said mobile VR can’t be immersive? House of Terror VR does a wonderful job of making you feel like you’re really exploring a dark, decrepit, and terrifying environment as you search for clues and items throughout a terrifying house — just as the game’s title hints.
However, as you continue your search and solve puzzles, the hideous traps and other paranormal events will start to happen. Enter if you dare.
Upcoming VR Horror Games
There are lots of upcoming VR horror games on the horizon, but the two that we are the most excited about are without a doubt Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul (PS VR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift) and Resident Evil 7: biohazard (PS VR Exclusive, Also on Non-VR PC.) Paranormal Activity is bringing the classic film franchise into the immersive medium for the first time with a video game adaptation and the iconic Resident Evil series — that helped kickstart the horror genre of video games decades ago — is shifting to first-person for the very first time in the series’ history.
What are some of your favorite VR horror games that you’ve tried so far and will you be playing any this Halloween?
