Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
We'll need to wait until it airs to find out what the Candy Crush TV show is all about, but we now know that's not that far away. On July 9, CBS will air its very first episode of the new game show.
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John Wick Chronicles feels like one giant metaphor for Keanu Reeves’ acting career. The man has starred in some of the best films Hollywood has ever birthed, such as The Matrix, Point Break, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and of course the John Wick series. I’d also throw in Hardball as a personal favorite, but it’s not for everybody. In addition to these, he has starred in some real stinkers as well and some films that would have been far better had anyone else taken the main role instead of him.
You see, the problem is that he’s just not a very good actor. His performances are wooden and lacking real character and his delivery leaves much to be desired. But at the end of the day he does a great job of looking and acting like a badass. Luckily, he fits the John Wick persona perfectly. And just like Reeves himself, John Wick Chronicles is a VR game that does a passable job of feeling and looking like a badass experience, but when you dig beneath the surface, it’s lacking enough substance to really make you feel satisfied.
The premise of John Wick Chronicles is that you take control of the titular assassin as you embark on a killing spree of your very own. There are lots of guns to use and enemies to kill in this 1-2 hour action romp that will leave you sweaty and sore from all of its pulse-pounding intensity. Things start off with a Training scenario that runs you through the game’s basics and teaches you to take stock of your surroundings in full 360-degrees, but it’s quite a bit more active than the training scenarios in most other games.
At its core, John Wick Chronicles isn’t much more than a standard wave shooter. Enemies will funnel in towards you from all sides until the game has determined you’ve killed enough of them. It doesn’t number the waves, but it’s still just a wave shooter at its heart. Imagine something along the lines of of Time Crisis, but in the John Wick universe.
Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but after playing the game it’s clear to me that this was originally designed to be featured in location-based entertainment settings and marketing activations at events. The action is spot-on, the production values are leagues beyond the vast majority of VR content, and the gunplay feels fast, responsive, and smooth. You’ll have to really get up and move around your play space, ducking behind cover, and even crawling on the ground. It’s one of the more visceral shooters on the Vive so far, no doubt. But it just ends far too quickly.
With only three real missions (each ending in a boss fight) and a 2nd “mode” of play that’s only slightly different than the standard game mode, it feels like it’s missing content. I struggled to muster up the desire to revisit levels after completing them and there’s just nothing to do really after you finish it once or twice.
You don’t have any progression systems for unlocking new items beyond playing the training mode, there are no ways to improve your abilities, alter the gameplay, or do much of anything other than shoot through the levels. It’s fun while it lasts, but it feels like it ends right after it’s getting started.
To get the most pleasure out of the game, I’d highly recommend taking breaks between missions and spacing it out as much as possible to elongate the length of the experience. Some guns and mechanics that feel novel and interesting at first are underutilized, making you feel a bit cheated.
John Wick Chronicles feels like it’s exactly what the teams at Starbreeze and Lionsgate intended to create. You feel like a badass while playing it, the overtones of the universe are there, and the action is fun enough to keep you pushing through to the end. In terms of gameplay mechanics, it was fun. But just as you get into it and feel the intensity reaching a point of true adrenaline, it’s all over. There is little reason to come back and the floor is left littered with dead bodies and under-utilized potential. As a result, just like Keanu Reeves himself, it lacks depth.
John Wick Chronicles is available for purchase on Steam for $19.99 with official support for HTC Vive. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Tagged with: John Wick Chronicles, keanu reeves, lionsgate, shooter, starbreeze, steam, Vive
John Wick: Chapter 2 releases in theaters around the world starting today. The reviews are in and it looks like a certifiably fantastic follow-up to the engrossing original action film. There aren’t many traditional, straight-laced, and pure action franchises these days, but John Wick sits near the top of the pile in regards to the best of the best. The first film showed off a unique world of assassins complete with some of the best fight scenes in recent memory. The second films cranks things up a notch to deliver an even more intense, pulse-pounding follow-up, complete with a sprinkling of jokes and dry humor to break up the action.
In the case of John Wick Chronicles, the VR game designed to lead up to coincide with the release of the second film, you take on the role of the titular assassin himself. The game was designed in collaboration between Starbreeze Studios, Grab Games, and Big Red Button. At its core, it may be just another wave shooter with tons of enemies to mow down, but it’s also one of the most frenetic and polished VR experiences to release so far clocking in at approximately 2-3 hours. It’s been shown in activations nad live demonstrations for months with an abbreviated demo, but is now finally releasing on Steam for home audiences to indulge in.
In preparation for the launch of John Wick Chronicles today, we spoke with Peter Levin, President of Lionsgate Interactive, about what the game means for the franchise and how they tried to capture the brutality of what it means to be the Keanu Reeves-portrayed iconic killer.
UploadVR: John Wick is highly regarded as one of the best pure action movies in recent years. How does the game capture that same sense of adrenaline?
Peter Levin: The John Wick films are all about relentless action, and that is exactly what John Wick Chronicles focuses on. We designed this to be an arcade style shooter, except in VR you get to move around, and in our game, you do that a lot. The goal for us was to create an experience that captured the physicality and energy of being John Wick. So while you are limited to a room-scale play space, the game design has you ducking and dodging, maybe even diving and rolling on the ground.
Wick is a highly-skilled assassin — something that no one playing the game will be. How difficult was it to make people feel badass and still make it an accessible game experience?
Peter Levin: We focused very heavily on making the input mechanics simple and intuitive. We love that our activations around the world are attracting a wide spectrum of players – gamers, VR enthusiasts and non-gamers who have zero experience with VR. Even newbies, so to speak, are diving in and having a great time, much like you would expect with an arcade game. But of course John Wick is infamous for taking on impossible tasks, so we have included three difficulty levels – Daisy (lovingly named after Wick’s dog), Mr. Wick and Baba Yaga. We also offer players two styles of gunplay. Arcade Mode, which allows for quick reloading by bringing the gun to your waist, and Simulation Mode, which requires players to load and rack the weapon.
How closely connected to the first and second movie is Chronicles?
Peter Levin: Part of the reason we were so excited to make a John Wick game is that the first movie sets up a universe that is begging to be further explored. This game immerses players into that world with a distinct storyline that is not tied to the first or second movie.
Chronicles allows limited roomscale movement, but the game is relatively wave-based with stationary locations and objects to hide behind for cover. Players won’t be able to engage in frantic hand-to-hand combat or freely run and jump around rooms. How did you account for this relative lack of mobility when compared to how fast-paced Wick is in the films?
Peter Levin: The gameplay was built from the ground up to maximize the play space and encourage players to be active within it. At our activations around the world, players are traversing across their space, crouching, sliding along the ground, diving, even rolling to avoid getting shot and to get a better angle on their enemies. It makes for a fast paced (and exhausting!) experience.
Does the game include some of the assassin meta elements from the films? For example, it takes place in the hotel, but do you earn the same currency as they did? Can you spend it on better weapons or on health throughout the game?
Peter Levin: Gold coins are indeed featured in the game and we threw in some other fun Easter eggs.
For more on John Wick Chronicles, read our detailed hands-on preview with the game and stay tuned to UploadVR for a full review in the coming days after we dig into the completed experience. The game is set to release on Steam today with official HTC Vive support at a price point of $19.99.
Are you excited to see John Wick: Chapter 2 in theaters? Will you be playing the game when it releases today? Let us know in the comments below!
Tagged with: John Wick Chronicles, lionsgate, peter levin, starbreeze
Starbreeze Studios’ John Wick Chronicles has become one of the most highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) videogames amongst early adopters since its announcement. An action-orientated motion-picture that seems perfect for adaptation to VR, John Wick Chronicles will debut next week with John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye, coming exclusively to HTC Vive.
In a selection of brand new screenshots taken from the videogame, you can see just how much John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye deviates from the early demonstration versions witnessed by VRFocus. In a hands-on preview of John Wick Chronicles: The Impossible Task, VRFocus discussed the high visual standard achieved and the slower pace of gameplay. John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye however, appears to be a more gunplay heavy experience.
Whether or not John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye and John Wick Chronicles: The Impossible Task will see release as two separate entities remains to be seen, however with a release date of 9th February 2017 for the former, it won’t be long until VR gamers get to find out whether the videogame editions of John Wick can live-up to the hype.
John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye will launch on HTC Vive next week, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on the John Wick Chronicles VR experiences.
Way back in August 2015 Starbreeze Studios and Lionsgate announced a virtual reality (VR) version of Keanu Reeves film John Wick. Called John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye, the experience has made an appearance at several events over the past year, and today the developers have announced a launch date for the first-person shooter.
Supporting HTC Vive, John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye has now been scheduled for 9th February, for release via Steam. Created in collaboration with Grab Games, Big Red Button and GameCo, the experience puts players into the shoes of titular character John Wick, tasking them with assassinating targets in the Continental Hotel with an arsenal of weapons, from handguns and grenades to sniper rifles and SMGs.
The VR release is set to coincide with the film launch of John Wick: Chapter 2, which has also been scheduled for February, although the two will offer separate storylines.
VRFocus got to preview the video game a while back, stating that: “The visual quality of John Wick: The VR Experience is remarkable. A significant step above that which VR enthusiasts have become used to, John Wick: The VR Experience is easily on par with the high end output of traditional 2D monitor videogames.”
John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye is available for pre-order on Steam for $19.99 USD/ £14.99 GBP. Pre-ordering the videogame will also net users a free copy of PAYDAY 2 as well as a John Wick weapon pack in Payday. US residents also have the option to pre-order a deluxe edition that includes the original John Wick movie at $9.99.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of John Wick Chronicles: An Eye for an Eye, reporting back with any further announcements.