Kill X

January 24, 2019

Kill X Renamed Immortal Legacy: The Jade Cipher, Launching March for PlayStation VR

During the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 VRFocus came across a new virtual reality (VR) first-person shooter (FPS) called Kill X, by Chinese studio Viva Games. Today, the team has revealed a new name for the title, Immortal Legacy: The Jade Cipher as well as a release date on PlayStation VR.

Immortal Legacy

An action-adventure/horror experience, Immortal Legacy: The Jade Cipher is based on an ancient Chinese legend with a modern day twist.

Detailing the story via PlayStation Blog, Viva Games explains: “You play as Tyre, an ex-special forces soldier travelling to the isle of Yingzhou after the mysterious death of his mother. Together with Ksana (an estranged friend of his mother’s), Tyre seeks to uncover the truth behind her death and her even more enigmatic past.

“The isle itself is bound in local legend, notorious for its enshrouding tempest in the midst of the mysterious Dragon’s Triangle, and soon Tyre finds himself fighting for his life. As he explores deeper into the island, he encounters unspeakable horrors and unique characters with their own motives for braving Yingzhou’s perils, including some who may prove essential to his survival…”

Supporting PlayStation Move, players will be able to use an arsenal of 15 weapons, from close combat knives to pistols, rifles, and grenades. The environments are open and designed to be explored, with players able to freely wander ancient ruins and dark caverns at their leisure. And alongside all the action, Viva Games has included puzzles to solve and traps to avoid if players are smart and quick enough.

What VRFocus is particularly interested in is how development has progressed since E3 2018. It got a bit of a hammering in our preview when we said: “Kill X has all the charm, grace and originality of a modern Steven Seagal film, you know what’s going to happen before its occurred and getting to the end just seems like it’ll take way too much will power. With certain aspects that can, and cannot be lived with Viva Games still has some way to go until Kill X should be taken seriously by FPS fans.”

Immortal Legacy: The Jade Cipher will launch exclusively for PlayStation VR on 20th March 2019. You can pre-order the title now from PlayStation Store for £15.99 GBP which will gain you a bonus WWII SMG. For further updates as the launch nears, keep reading VRFocus.

August 6, 2018

PSVR’s Kill X, Pervader Return In New ChinaJoy Trailers

Two PSVR titles we’ve been keeping a close eye on made a return at ChinaJoy this month.

Sony’s showcase at the event included fresh looks at creepy first-person shooter (FPS), Kill X, and monster-slaying action game, Pervader. For the former, it’s the first look at the game we’ve had that shows environments outside of the dingy mines that featured in a playable demo released last year. We’re still not entirely confident that Kill X will have the kind of gameplay that will make it a truly engaging shooter, but it is at least nice that a full narrative-driven campaign is on the way.

As for Pervader, well, it’s a bit of a weird one. Rather than a trailer for the game, it appears Sony is making an animated movie based on it, and this is a trailer for that. It frankly looks a little 90’s, but perhaps the game will intentionally recapture the cheesy magic of an early Resident Evil game. We’d definitely like to see more of it in action before we make any conclusions.

No word yet on when we’ll get to play either Kill X or Pervader for ourselves.

Tagged with: Kill X, Pervader

The post PSVR’s Kill X, Pervader Return In New ChinaJoy Trailers appeared first on UploadVR.

June 15, 2018

Preview: Kill X – A Generic Shooter That’ll Struggle to Standout

It would be difficult to find anyone who’s come into contact with videogames that hasn’t played the odd first-person shooter (FPS) or two. Even with virtual reality’s (VR) brief time as a consumer product headsets like PlayStation VR have been inundated with zombie and military style shooters that lack innovation. So when another comes along it gets heavily put under the microscope to see what sets the experience apart from the rest. With the appearance of Kill X by Vivagames at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 this week, not a lot by the looks of it.

Kill X goes for the classic, military combat simulator experience, pitting you against a bunch of dudes hiding behind walls. If there’s a story arc its difficult to tell at present as the only in-game information is in Chinese on various posters and pieces of paper.

The current build being demoed for Kill X is a basic tutorial of the videogames’ mechanics, which are a little stiff yet reasonably acceptable when considering the PlayStation Move controllers. You walk by pressing the ‘move’ button and looking in the direction you want to head. Press the same buttons down on both Moves and you get a little jog on. All simple so far, however movement becomes trickier when you want to turn and walk.

With a roomscale system you could just physically turn, or with DualShock4 use the analogue stick. Instead, on PlayStation Move it’s a case of pressing the triangle or square buttons, resulting in a tank like system similar to the original Resident Evil videogames. While that was fine back in the day (some do still prefer it), nowadays it feels cumbersome and inorganic, especially in VR. It’s easier to stand in the open and take a few hits whilst shooting enemies than trying to make any use of cover.

Kill X - Screenshot Also fundamental for any FPS is a decent shooting mechanic, one that feels like you’re not just holding the gun but that each shot does generally go where you intend. Yet Kill X features some giant arms that jiggle and wave around erratically. They’ so big you’d have thought they were dangerous weapons just by themselves but alas not, no melee here, its all guns.

Of which there are a reasonable selection, pistols, machine guns, grenades, all the usual, with each hand able to hold three weapons at a time that can be cycled through. As mentioned however, shooting the bad guys is neither fun nor exciting, more a necessary chore and for those that like headsets best of luck.

Kill X has all the charm, grace and originality of a modern Steven Seagal film, you know what’s going to happen before its occurred and getting to the end just seems like it’ll take way too much will power. With certain aspects that can, and cannot be lived with Vivagames still has some way to go until Kill X should be taken seriously be FPS fans.

May 21, 2018

Catch Up With PSVR’s Kill X And Pervader VR In New China Hero Project Video

Just over a year ago now Sony revealed a slate of new games coming to PS4 via its China Hero Project, which lends support to Chinese developers. Among these games were a handful of PSVR titles that caught our eye. Last week, we got an update on how they’re coming along.

The below video catches up with a handful of the developers included in the project. On the VR front there’s Animal Force, Kill X and Pervader VR. Animal Force is one you’ve likely heard of by now; it’s releasing on PSVR later this week, offering a unique take on the tower defense genre.

Kill X is also one we’ve had our eye on for some time, especially after playing a demo of the game on the Asian PlayStation Store. It’s a first-person shooter (FPS) that has players exploring dark caves and taking on hordes of monsters. The most progress, though, seems to come from Pervader VR, which didn’t have any gameplay to speak of this time last year but now has some pretty promising footage developed on Unreal Engine 4. It looks like another FPS in which we’ll be taking down monsters.

Sadly there’s no sign of The Walker, which was one of the most interesting PSVR titles revealed last year. It’s not clear if the game is still in development right now.

The video mainly focuses on how the development teams are holding up rather than showcasing their games, but it’s a good reminder that there’s some promising stuff on the way for PSVR fans. When these games will get a western release remains unclear.

Tagged with: Kill X, Pervader VR

July 26, 2017

Sony Announces 4 Asia-Developed PSVR Titles Are Coming West

images courtesy Sony Interactive Entertainment

Sony today announced four new titles for PlayStation VR at the annual ChinaJoy Expo in Shanghai—all of which have been confirmed to make it over to Western audiences. The games come as a result of a partnership between Sony Interactive Entertainment and what they call “some of Asia’s most exciting developers.”

Specific release dates haven’t been established yet, but the following games are said to release sometime in 2017.

Stifled

Coming from Singapore-based Gattai Games is an interesting take on the horror genre that puts you, a sight-impaired character, at the forefront. Using echolocation to reveal your surroundings, you dodge enemies that ‘light up’ when they make sound. You can even use the PSVR’s built-in mic to help illuminate the way as you clamber away to safety.

The Walker

From Chinese developer Haymaker, The Walker is a fantasy combat tale that places you in historic Shanghai as the descendant of an ancient sword-wielding, magic-using family. After the rise of a demonic militia, you’re thrown into the fray to save the world. The Walker makes heavy use of spells and charms so you can infuse weapons with special powers.

From China-based VIVA Games comes Kill X, a claustrophobic thriller set on a secret island where human test subjects were turned into horrible mutants—all in the search for immortality, of course. Experiencing every level of monster created, the studio promises head-exploding combat, plenty of weaponry and some puzzles too.

Legion Commander

ChangYou Games is known for their martial arts MMORPGs in China, and the company has teamed up with Sony to bring out a real-time strategy game. Using special cards to cast spells on the battlefield and giving you three distinct races to choose from; Orcs, Humans and Elves, you battle against an evil overlord.

The post Sony Announces 4 Asia-Developed PSVR Titles Are Coming West appeared first on Road to VR.

January 2, 2017

‘Kill X’ Is A Spooky PlayStation VR FPS With Full Movement

Do you know what I would do if I was really in The Brookhaven Experiment? Run. I would run faster than I have ever run before, probably throwing my weapons to one side to help increase speed, screaming as I go and almost certainly crapping myself. Screw fighting to the last bullet, I want to live.

But I can’t run, I have to stand my ground (and still crap myself). It’s with good reason, of course, as room-scale tracking has its limits on Vive and is non-existent on PlayStation VR, but it leaves me wondering what type of game we might have gotten if Phosphor Games had let us roam free. The answer is probably something close to Kill X.

Created by Vivagames, this was one of thirteen games Sony announced from Asian developers earlier this year, and a demo is currently available on the Chinese PlayStation Store (which you can access by making a free Chinese account). It’s a spooky shooter that uses two PlayStation Move controllers and has you creeping through a network of tunnels as an inexplicably beefy protagonist, whose fascinatingly muscular arms awkwardly stretch out in front of you as you hold a flashlight in one hand and gun in the other.

I couldn’t tell you the story since I don’t read Chinese, other than that our hero finds himself trapped in this desolate environment with a series of slimy humanoid monsters (that look a little too similar to The Clickers from The Last of Us). The rest is pretty straight forward; illuminate the occasionally branching tunnel ahead, aim and shoot at enemies before they take chunks out of you.

The last time we saw full navigation with two of Sony’s motion controllers was Loading Human [Review: 4/10], which had serviceable if imperfect integration. Kill X is much the same story; you hold the trigger on the left Move to walk in the direction your facing, and then press the square or triangle buttons to make slight turns. The right trigger, meanwhile fires your gun, and shaking it reloads. Despite having arms the size of boulders, you can’t use melee attacks, presumably because the force they would deliver would shatter the earth itself.

Intentional or not, the inescapable stiffness of these controls invoke classic survival horror games, which were both hated and loved for the ‘tank’ control schemes. You can’t use the quick turn buttons when moving, and you can’t really defend yourself from behind thanks to PS VR’s limited tracking. It’s an annoyance to some extent, but there’s also a nostalgic panic to seeing a monster circle around you and having to cumbersomely turn to get it in view. Firing a shotgun blast and watching them fly relieves that stress in an instant. It’s a bit of a thrill.

In the space of the 10 minute demo you’ll get a pistol, shotgun, and machine gun to defend yourself with, along with occasional ammo drops too. Your ammo count doesn’t feel restricted, more calculated to give you just enough to take out the set amount of enemies in the level, though one nice touch is not actually showing the ammo display, leaving you guessing how many bullets you have left. There’s a final showdown with an enemy that crawls on the walls too, and he takes up a lot of your ammo count, making the pressure mount deliciously with each bullet gone.

That said, I don’t know if Kill X is crafted with the kind of mechanical precision to build this solid foundation into something more meaningful. Things quickly get messy when a flood of enemies swarm around you, and you have no hope of surviving, and the level design is bland. There’s no verticality or unpredictability to its world, and no methodical systems to its combat. It’s all about spotting the next corner that enemies will likely spill out from and blasting away. That detracts from any sense of fear gained in those first few unknown moments in which you wonder what lingers in the dark.

Kill X might end up leaning more towards the blander side of horror shooters, then, even if its freedom of movement sets it apart from other PS VR games right now. A fun distraction in these early days of VR, perhaps, but Farpoint and Resident Evil 7 might have more to offer in the long run.

According to the demo, Kill X is coming soon to PS VR, though a western release has not been confirmed.

Tagged with: FPS, horror, Kill X, PS VR, shooter