New PSVR Releases For The Week Of 04/02/17
VRTV: Be The Batman. Use The Force. And… Feel The Bullets?
It’s been a busy week for virtual reality (VR) and a bit of a party week as well. VRFocus video correspondent Nina Salomons steps out of the ongoing EVE Fanfest to bring you the lowdown on all the big stories of the last seven days for this week’s edition of VRTV. Which includes details of a certain brooding billionaire playboy slipping the confines of the PlayStation VR to bring vigilante justice to PC VR.
Both Star Wars and Star Trek fans have had something VR to celebrate this week as well, although one is decidedly more official than the other. PlayStation VR has had a number of releases confirmed and there’s also a new haptic vest is being released for VR player from D&E Tech. How comfortable would you be with being able to feel bullets and explosions though?
Find out more about the stories concerned here:
- Batman Arkham VR Coming to HTC Vive and Oculus Rift this Month
- Star Wars Comes To Robo Recall With A Fan Made Mod
- Ubisoft Release A Teaser Trailer For Star Trek: Bridge Crew VR’s U.S.S. Enterprise
- Llamasoft Launching Trance-Shooter Polybius on PlayStation VR this Month
- SKonec Entertainment Launches Mortal Blitz for PlayStation VR
- Starblood Arena Goes Gold, New Features Trailer Released
- D&E Tech Announces INAVR Haptic Vest Developed in Partnership with Intel
VRFocus will be back on Tuesday with a VRTV review and will return with another weekly round-up on Thursday.
SKonec Entertainment Launches Mortal Blitz for PlayStation VR
Today, South Korean developer SKonec Entertainment has released its first-person shooter (FPS) Mortal Blitz for PlayStation VR.
Mortal Blitz EP-1 originally launched back in 2015 for Gear VR, for which it then created Mortal Blitz for Walking Attraction, a free roaming shooter for theme parks and arcades.
Just as the mobile version, Mortal Blitz casts players as a special agent finding themselves trapped in a secret research facility. Using an assortment of weapons, including environmental objects, they need to fight through Teratoma mutants as they search for a means of escape.
The studio has also developed what it calls a ‘Groggy System’, where the player can engaged in stylized gun play using slow motion and in-air shots.
Director of SKonec Entertainment’s B2C department, JongHyun Yuk,said in a statement: “Sony has recorded the most anticipated PSVR games on their demo disc for their global launching last fall, and SKonec Entertainment’s Mortal Blitz was the only game from S.Korea and by so doing proved its excellent technology and game elements. The commercial version of this game will fully support not only PS Move Motion Controller but also DualShock 4 Controller. This will surely slake many players’ thirst on fresh PSVR game titles.”
Mortal Blitz can only be downloaded through the PlayStation.Store in certain territories. These are US, Canada, S.Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong. The title currently supports four languages, Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese both simplified and traditional. At present there’s no confirmation of a European release date.
For further updates on Mortal Blitz, VRFocuskeep reading .
Mortal Blitz Review: Time Crisis Meets PSVR
Six months on and London Heist is arguably still PSVR’s best shooter. That’s something of a problem, considering there’s only about about 15 minutes of gunplay to it. Given the genre’s dominance in the wider gaming industry, it’s surprising that we haven’t seen more of them on Sony’s platform so far, but at least Mortal Blitz offers a longer — if still all too brief — taste of action.
Given the recent wave of underwhelming, somewhat rushed PSVR games from Asian territories (Dying Reborn, Weeping Doll, Pixel Gear), you’d be forgiven for thinking this first-person shooter from Korean studio Skonec Entertainment wouldn’t be worth your time. As it turns out, Mortal Blitz is a pleasingly capable shooter that channels the arcade action of what’s proving to be a seminal series for VR: Time Crisis.
I mean that for both better and worse. On a purely physical level, this is the logical evolution of the light gun game in VR. Set in a distant future with muscle-bound meatheads that wouldn’t look out of place in a Gears of War game, you use two Move controllers to dual wield weapons, gunning down swarms of faceless enemies that pour in through doors and windows, all too happy to catch a bullet. To take cover you’ll need to duck your head down below waist-high crates or lean into the sides of doors and walls. It also lets you play with just one Move controller or even one or two DualShock 4 gamepads with motion controls, which is appreciated.
This is the sort of game that you’ll need to clear our some space for in order to get the best experience. You can play from either seated or standing positions, and if you choose the latter be prepared to do a lot of ducking and diving. While it’s hard to avoid bullets, you can give yourself a pretty steady supply of health using the amusingly titled ‘Groggy System’ mechanic.
That involves weakening an enemy to the point that they become stunned, and then grabbing them with a Bulletstorm-esque laser leash and using it to yank them into the air. The game cuts to slow motion and you’ll get bonus points and items depending how many times you then shoot the enemy, with an Unreal Tournament-esque adjective like ‘Slayer’ being rewarded upon completion.
If you couldn’t tell, by the way, the Unreal Engine 4-developed Mortal Blitz certainly feels like a tribute to Epic Games at times. Fittingly, then, the story makes absolutely no sense, and it seems like major plot points and cutscenes were simply cut as you jump between the five missions. Tellingly, it’s adapted from a location-based VR arcade game in Korea, so it’s likely some content has been cut.
At its best, Mortal Blitz is a challenging thrill. Keeping yourself pinned to the floor while gunfire rains down upon you is intense and unnerving, especially as even poking your head out just a little will attract bullets like a giant magnet. Sadly, the game doesn’t really offer much else.
From a design standpoint, Mortal Blitz feels a little too much like it’s still 1995. The game features about five enemy types, none of whom hugely differ in tactics save for some drones. They’ll march in, find a spot to shoot you from, and then wait there to die. And that’s the whole 1 – 2 hour experience in a nutshell. You can use more powerful guns with limited ammunition, and throwing grenades back with your leash is a lot of fun, but repetition is the game’s main enemy.
In fact, even Time Crisis was more varied when it comes to environments; Mortal Blitz just alternates between a train setting and a drab facility between levels, and the last miaaion in particular even repeats the patterns in which you teleport and attack for 10 minutes.
Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun running through the campaign, which Skonec plans to expand upon with future episodes. There are more difficulty modes to run through once you’ve beaten it the first time and there’s a bog-standard target practice extra, which you can use to chase trophies should you so desire.
Final Score: 6/10 – Decent
For both better and worse, Mortal Blitz is effectively Time Crisis in VR. In some ways, it’s the game you dreamed of playing since you first picked up a G-Con gun in 1995; physically taking cover and trading fire with the enemy can be intense and thrilling. At the same time, though, its design is overly simplistic, and lacks the twists and hooks we’ve come to expect as the VR shooter begins to move into its second year. There’s plenty fun to be had here, but it’s dated even by VR’s standards.
Mortal Blitz will be available on the PlayStation Store in the US on April 5th. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Tagged with: Mortal Blitz, PlayStation VR, PSVR
Launch Trailer for PlayStation VR Version of Mortal Blitz Released
Developer Skonec Entertainment has released a new trailer for the upcoming PlayStation VR version of first-person shooter (FPS) videogame Mortal Blitz.
Korean developer Skonec first released Mortal Blitz for the Gear VR back in 2015. Since that version launched, the creators have been working on an upgraded version that will be coming to the PlayStation VR in April 2017.
Mortal Blitz is a fast-paced arcade shooter which puts the player in the role of a special agent trapped in the depths of a secret research facility, where a group of dangerous mutants have escaped from confinement. The player needs to find a way out while fighting off the mutant forces.
Skonec previously released an early gameplay trailer for the PlayStation VR version which showed off the improved graphical capabilities and the larger number of enemies on screen. The title has since seen more enhancements to take advantage of the PlayStation 4 hardware.
Though the title is slated to be released in April 2017, a date has not yet been confirmed, nor has a price point.
You can watch the PSVR launch trailer below.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Mortal Blitz and other PlayStation VR projects when they come in.
Mortal Blitz Arcade Version Gives You A Gun Controller And Backpack
As virtual reality becomes less and less the purview of wealthier players, those who find themselves stuck in apartments are continuing to look for attractions that might satiate their taste. Already, facilities like the Void, Urban Safari, and Dave & Busters are throwing their weight into the ring, but plenty more competitors are popping up to take a bite out of the market.
Skonec Entertainment, a South Korea-based company, is one such company among many. UploadVR took some time to check out their latest at the 2017 Game Developers Conference (GDC). At the show they had an updated build of Mortal Blitz VR, a shooter that’s already available on the Oculus Home Store for Gear VR, but this time it was adapted for a larger roomscale complete with a gun peripheral. It’s all part of their plan for a multi-room business that caters to quick experiences.
This newer version of Mortal Blitz was on display using Skonec’s VR Square setup at their GDC booth. It was designed for a roughly 20 foot by 20 foot space, though the developers plan to release on PlayStation VR in the near future, so one assumes the experience can be scaled down.
The first thing players may notice after entering the world of Mortal Blitz is how much it feels like a classic arcade shooter such as Time Crisis or House of the Dead, for better or worse. While wearing a mobile VR backpack that lets you traverse at your leisure, Skonec also gives players specialized gloves that track your interactions with wall-mounted buttons that activate doors and elevators, plus a full-sized rifle that feels ripped right out of Aliens.
My demo starts off with a quick introduction to a shadowy industrial complex filled with demon-alien hybrids similar to Dead Space’s necromorphs. After they take out a friendly soldier, you’re escorted through a series of areas where enemies quickly advance on you, before positioning themselves as easy targets on all sides of the room, including the walls and ceiling. Once they’ve advanced far enough, enemies spit out balls of blueish fire that quickly damage you. It’s possible to shoot them out of the air, and almost preferable, considering any amount of physical dodging seemed ineffective.
To Skonec’s credit, it’s not as uninventive as it could be. After a relatively drab series of shooting galleries, a quick trip in a plummeting elevator allows players to defend themselves from the enemies from behind the lip of a half-opened door, lending some thrill to it all. Unfortunately, by the time you’re shooting down winged versions of the same enemies (and witnessing a relatively cool explosion take any remaining enemies down), and a quick jaunt across a thin railing suspend in “midair,” my time with Mortal Blitz was over, and the experience quickly faded.
It’s important to note that, depending on your tastes in VR, Mortal Blitz may either remind you of the arcade’s classic shooter days, or bore you to tears. Even though I’m a child of Time Crisis (I once spent my entire 11th birthday’s earnings on a single run of the original), I found the experience quickly fading from memory after a few minutes. While a sense of rigid mobility was understandable for a game played on a screen, Mortal Blitz still feels restrictive in a similar way, despite the freedom that full-scale VR could ostensibly offer.
When a lit path appears to guide your next footsteps, it doesn’t feel like exploration. It feels like those precious moments in-between shooting galleries when you can see your character ducking into the next bit of cover. It makes me wonder how much more intense or frightening the experience might have been if I had the extra room to move around. To make matters just slightly worse, I did experience a slight amount of motion sickness as well.
Altogether, the experience lasted roughly 10 minutes, and it’s currently unknown if the experience will translate to a considerably longer adventure, in or out of full-scale VR. Mortal Blitz is far from the only game Skonec is planning on offering, and thankfully their catalog of experiences looks to take from far more than classic arcade shooters.
Skonec’s ultimate plan is to open up attraction centers with a number of rooms and “pods” that multiple users can cycle through, each with their own attraction taking roughly 15 minutes to get through. It sounds similar to VR arcades that have popped up in China, or even the recent IMAX centers.
Such attractions include Dino Adventures: Secret World, evoking a Robinson: The Journey vibe, The Road of Fear, and the family friendly, far-off Dark Tale Heroes, a supposed blend of Disney-esque characters and magic. Perhaps most notably, Installation VR will be Skonec’s attempt to branch out into more tangible experiences, supposedly incorporating stairs and various obstructions synced to your movement in the app.
At the end of my time with Mortal Blitz, a Skonec representative asked me to fill out a survey. When asked what I thought I might pay for the pleasure of experiencing something like Mortal Blitz at one of Skonec’s planned outlets, I half-heartedly answered $10. Granted, that would ostensibly be per attraction, but it remains to be seen, like any other virtual reality arcade, if Skonec Entertainment can manage to stay afloat when these aggressively “okay” attractions may not necessarily instill enough “awe” in its customers.
Tagged with: GDC, Mortal Blitz, Skonec Entertainment, VR Square
Mortal Blitz Attraction Showcased at Korean VR Festival 2016
Last week the Korean Virtual Reality Festival (KVRF) 2016 was held in the country’s capital Seoul. Exhibiting at the event was Skonec Entertainment with its VR videogame Mortal Blitz. The title originally launched on Samsung’s mobile head-mounted display (HMD) Gear VR back in November 2015, when the consumer version of the device arrived. For the festival though the developer has unveiled a new version that turns the title into a free roaming attraction.
Similar in design to VR experiences like The VOID, Mortal Blitz for Walking Attraction utilises what looks like a backpack PC along with a gun controller and an Oculus Rift headset.
As you’ll see from the trailer below, players are able to free roam around an environment littered with various blocks some of which can be interacted with in-game. There are parts of the video though where the players seem to walk on a dedicated platform possibly for certain ‘on-rails’ sections.
This type of experience is gaining popularity with theme parks and other public attractions as a new way for visitors to enjoy immersive entertainment. Hwang Dae Sil, Skonec Entertainment CEO, said in a statement: “Through collaboration with [the] world’s leading theme parks as well as related businesses in Korea will actively seek to help introduce the VR Korean theme park in China and global markets including Japan and the United States.”
Mortal Blitz was originally scheduled to see a worldwide launch on PlayStation VR this week but as yet hasn’t appeared on either the US or UK PlayStation Stores.
As VRFocus learns more about Mortal Blitz for Walking Attraction, we’ll endeavour to keep you updated.