Heavy Metal Rhythm Shooter ‘Metal: Hellsinger’ is Coming to Major VR Headsets This Year

Popular rhythm shooter Metal: Hellsinger (2022) is getting a VR version, bringing its frenetic action and metal-heavy soundtrack to all major VR headsets this year.

Games publisher Funcom and original developer The Outsiders announced that Metal: Hellsinger VR is being developed from the ground-up in collaboration with Lab42 Games, a Sumo Digital studio since 2020.

While a VR version has been a fan request for a while now, the game has now been confirmed to launch sometime this year on Quest 2/3/Pro, PSVR 2 and SteamVR headsets.

Image courtesy Funcom

Metal: Hellsinger VR is said to include the game’s original soundtrack, featuring artists such as Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Matt Heafy (Trivium), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Randy Blythe (Lamb of God), and more.

In addition to the usual array of weapons and demon baddies, the VR version will also lets you dual-wield pistols independently, reload manually, and slay to the beat with your blade, which the studios say will include room-scale play and stick-based standing and seated locomotion.

We’re hoping to hear about how it’s being brought to VR, as the original game (rated ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ on Steam) offers up frenetic run and gun-style gameplay that is all about jumping impossible heights and blasting away at giant demons, which could be intense if ported directly without consideration for motion sickness.

Check out the trailer below:

The post Heavy Metal Rhythm Shooter ‘Metal: Hellsinger’ is Coming to Major VR Headsets This Year appeared first on Road to VR.

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 with Plans to Highlight “visionOS advancements”

Apple finally revealed when its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is happening this summer, and the company says it’s also slated to highlight some “advancements” on Vision Pro’s operating system, visionOS.

Coming June 10th – 14th, WWDC is set to feature updates to visionOS in addition to the regular deluge of stuff for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

It’s not certain what the company will have in store, however there are a few rumors out there worth considering the closer we head to the second week of June.

Marking one year since its initial unveiling, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed this week that Vision Pro is set to launch internationally in 2024, which also includes mainland China—a region where its competitor Meta can’t sell headsets. The timing on international rollout still isn’t clear however, making a WWDC announcement possible.

According to a recent report from MacRumors, Apple has been internally testing a new Apple Pencil that supports Vision Pro, which would allow it to work with XR drawing apps, such as Freeform and Pixelmator. To boot, the company recently published a patent for such a device, which could make it technically the headset’s first supported controller.

The most likely of prognostications: it’s also rumored we’ll be getting visionOS 2.0 at WWDC, which could come with a host of updates. We could see announcements surrounding its Personas avatars, improved Mac integration, Bluetooth mouse support, and updates to its hand and eye-tracking.

Like in years past, the company is holding WWDC online for free, however Apple will also be inviting a select few to join in person for an all-day event at Apple Park on Monday, June 10th. We’ll be following along then, so make sure to set your calendars.

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Wolf Territories gets better hosting, now top grid by size and users

A monthly social event on Wolf Territories Grid. (Image courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.)

In a move that promises a faster, smoother, and more responsive virtual world experience, Wolf Territories Grid has migrated to a new server cluster at a data center in Frankfurt, Germany.

The upgrade is expected to significantly enhance performance and reliability for the grid’s thousands of users, who can now enjoy lightning-fast teleports, quicker rezzing of objects, and an overall more responsive environment.

The switchover incurred minimal downtime for the grid — just 14 minutes.

Paul Clevett, also known as Lone Wolf in-world, is the director of Wolf Software Systems Ltd., the company that owns the grid. It was hosted at the Myloc Data Centre in Dusseldorf for the past three years.

“We had a hodge-podge of servers from Ryzen 5’s to Ryzen 9’s in the old cluster that we built up over the years,” he told Hypergrid Business. “Plus that data center had all our servers split over different networks. What this effectively meant was that the traffic between the servers would have to route around the data center. Plus, there was no high availability.”

The new server cluster boasts an impressive array of hardware, including AMD Ryzen 9 processors with 32 cores, at least 128GB RAM, and 2TB Server Grade NVMEs in RAID one configuration. There was no price increase for people who rent land on the grid.

“We were a pretty much lag free grid before, but this takes us to the next level,” Clevett said.

Users have already noticed the difference, with comments like, “It’s much more wizzy!,” he said. The improvements go beyond just reduced lag, with teleports now being nearly instantaneous and objects rezzing at a much faster rate, he added.

The grid’s large map, which previously took some time to load despite fast-loading tiles, has also seen a significant improvement.

“Because we have a huge map it used to take a while to load it in,” Clevett said. “You’d click on a region and it would take some time to bring up the region name. That is completely fixed by this upgrade.”

The migration process, while complex, was made possible through the efforts of the Wolf Territories Grid team, including grid administrators DJ Illusions and Luna Stormfeather, as well as the tech team comprised of Clevett himself, Busty, and Daja.

“From a technical perspective, it was not easy and without the help of Busty and Daja we definitely wouldn’t be where we are,” said Clevett. “The key really was making sure the cluster design was right and that it met our needs. What we had in our old cluster was something we kind of built as we learned.”

The grid also now has its own network in the data center, he added.

“Everything is faster because we’re not having to route our data round the data center,” he said. “There are noticeable speed differences, especially in heavier regions. This means the whole grid is way faster and ready for the future.”

Despite all the improvements, the cost of running the new cluster is about the same as the old one, he said, although the grid has incurred a large one-time cost this month due to running both clusters simultaneously during the transfer process.

Clevett said he’s open to helping other grids with similar projects — even if they might be considered competitors. He’s assisted other grids with technical issues in the past, he said, including providing server resources during emergencies and even helping revive grids that were on the brink of closure.

“I just think we’re better working together on this incredible OpenSim project,” Clevett said.

The entire Wolf Territories Grid team, including the friendly AI robot “Bobby,” is excited to welcome users to the improved virtual space, which is now better equipped to handle the grid’s goal of reaching 100,000 regions and 100,000 registered users, he added.

According to Hypergrid Business data, Wolf Territories Grid, founded in 2021, surpassed OSgrid in land area in November of last year, becoming the biggest grid by land area. It has held that spot ever since.

Wolf Territories has also been growing rapidly in active user numbers as well. In this month’s stats report, it was only five active users behind OSgrid, the most popular grid in OpenSim.

The grid had 5,271 active users in March, and the equivalent of 28,496 standard regions.

Here at Hypergrid Business, I use “standard region equivalents” as a measure of land size, instead of named regions, because OpenSim allows for regions of various sizes. So, for example, in OpenSim, you can have four Second Life-sized regions, each with, say, 15,000 prims — or a single two-by-two region with, say, 60,000 prims. From the perspective of a visitor to that grid, the two-by-two setup will look the same as four individual regions, except that border crossings would be easier — and it will be labeled as a single region on the map. But also, I’m the boss here. If you want to measure land in some other way, start your own blog.

I’m serious, please start your own blog! We don’t have enough publications covering OpenSim! I’d love to help in any way I can, and will run free ads for you, and introduce you to all the grid owners.

Back to Wolf Territories.

The grid offers regions in four-by-four, eight-by-eight, and 12-by-12 configurations, with a maximum capacity of up to 1.2 million prims.

“We may go crazy and see how a 32-by-32 performs but that’s for testing,” said Clevett.

Prices start at US $25 a month for a four-by-four region — the equivalent of 16 standard Second Life regions — with up to 20,000 prims total. The prices go up to $76 a month for the 1.2 million prim configuration, and there are discounts for bulk orders.

I just went and checked the latest stats. As of this writing, the grid reports 5,361 active users and 28,512 standard region equivalents. OSgrid, the previous leader, reports 5,280 active users and 27,985 standard region equivalents.

So Wolf Territories is now in the lead by both metrics.

‘Max Mustard’ Review – An ‘Astro Bot’ Style VR Platformer That Cuts the Mustard

Max Mustard may be a bit of a curveball when it comes to names, but this traditional 3D platformer reimagined for VR delivers in nearly every other way, serving up some very Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018) and Lucky’s Tale (2016) vibes in the process.

Max Mustard Details:

Available On: Quest 2/3/Pro (coming later to Steam & PSVR 2)
Reviewed On: Quest 3
Release Date: March 21st, 2024
Price: $30
Developer: Toast Interactive

Gameplay

Max Mustard isn’t reinventing the wheel here: it’s a solid, extremely well-built 3D platformer that, for all its positives, is a pretty standard experience overall if you’ve played any 3D platformer in the past 30 years, flatscreen or otherwise.

That’s probably the most negative thing I’ll say about this plucky little adventure, which tasks you with guiding the eponymous rocket-boot-clad companion through a world of fairly easy enemies, less easy environmental stuff, and four boss encounters that follow the strict orthodoxy of a ‘hurt it three times and it dies’ variety.

Image courtesy Toast Interactive

While the story is fairly forgettable—delivered almost entirely through letters that pop up at the end of levels—the action rarely disappoints, as you’re served up straight shots through 40 bespoke levels, many of which harken back to the Super Mario titles from the late ’80s and early ’90s.

That said, there isn’t a ton of enemy variety, as all baddies regardless of movement or attack style only take a single bonk on the head to kill, making enemies less interesting than the admittedly very cool environmental gadgets that you start encountering around the second (of four) worlds. Those fun and inventive moving platforms and increasingly difficult environmental traps are the real stars of the show here, it seems.

View post on imgur.com

And if you haven’t noticed from the clip above, Max Mustard is unabashedly a love letter to those platformers past and present, like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario World, and the more recent Super Mario 3D Land, but also the headlining VR platformers of today too, including the illustrious Astro Bot Rescue Mission on PSVR and Lucky’s Tale on PC VR, PSVR and Quest. With the level of fit and finish, and first-person interaction (more on that below), you might even think of Max Mustard as the Astro Bot of the Quest platform.

And like those platformers from years past, Max Mustard also offers up the familiar overworld map that takes you linearly to the final boss battle, which (no spoilers!) satisfyingly puts together all of the skills you learned throughout the game.

Overworld map | Image captured by Road to VR

Along the way you’ll find minigames and the occasional shop too where you can spend coins on abilities, such as extra hearts, coin bonuses, and new combat moves. You’ll want (but probably not really need) those new moves too, as levels start to ramp in difficulty around world three, which introduces some challenging environmental obstacles, like boxes that disappear and reappear to the beat of the game’s soundtrack, torrents of cannonballs, one-use jump pads, and more. Having an extra heart, a better attack move, or rocket boots that do damage to enemies is all a neat bonus to help out.

You wouldn’t be far off in calling Max Mustard the “spiritual successor” to Sony’s Astro Bot, because like Astro Bot every so often you’re given first-person gadgets, like a dart gun and a fan gun, which you use in certain levels, the dart gun making the biggest impact throughout the game. Here I am blasting at incoming rockets from the game’s tutorial boss:

View post on imgur.com

Still, I wish the first-person gadgets were a little better integrated into regular levels, and had more variation overall considering how cool they can be. You do however get the chance to hone your shooting skills in minigame challenges where you can earn coins to use in the shop, as well as get extra ‘mudpups’, which are normally littered throughout regular levels, acting as a sort of secondary currency which are used to unlock levels as you move forward.

As for enemies, regular baddies don’t really put up much of a challenge, however the game’s four main boss battles are significantly more interesting, each of them staying very loyal to the well-worn platforming tropes you’re probably used to. That said, it’s hard not to smile at just how well Max Mustard nails the whole aesthetic and feel of basically everything.

Max Mustard took me around five hours to complete, although I took it pretty slow due to wanting to collecting all three mudpups found in each level. You don’t need to be a completionist to get through the game with ease though, which could take you three to four hours overall.

Immersion

Max Mustard is stupid cute, and offers a lots of level variation in both functional design and overall feel. Here’s me using the fan gun to suck up enemies and errant coins after having splashed down into the water—the sort of totally unexpected one-off level transitions you’ll experience throughout.

View post on imgur.com

That said, first-person interactions are comparatively rare in Max Mustard, so you’ll be bopping around as Max most of the time instead of dealing with enemies like you see in the clip above. That puts an increased importance on the visual and functional aspects of levels, which are thankfully so rock solid that it’s easy to snap into your new ‘floating head’ POV and enjoying the game’s bright and colorful art style.

Again, I wish there were more first-person gadgets, although you have to give it to Max Mustard for including them at all, as the game seems to prioritize fast and fluid movement through levels instead of the heavier Astro Bot-y mix of first and third-person gameplay.

Comfort

The game’s camera necessary follows around Max, but does so in a way that’s gentle and comfortable. The decision by the studio to include snap turning as a purchasable upgrade back at the shop however feels a bit weird, as it’s pretty necessary to reposition yourself when turn around in levels to grab coins or mudpups you may have missed. Granted, this feature is unlocked with in-game coins, although it should be a standard movement scheme out of the box.

There are a few moments of forced motion in one-off events, although nothing that should set off alarm bells in motion sick-prone users, making Max Mustard pretty much perfect for anyone, including VR first-timers.

Max Mustard’ Comfort Settings – March 21st, 2024

Turning
Artificial turning
Snap-turn ✔
Quick-turn ✖
Smooth-turn ✖
Movement
Artificial movement
Teleport-move ✖
Dash-move ✖
Smooth-move ✔
Blinders ✖
Head-based ✖
Controller-based ✔
Swappable movement hand ✖
Posture
Standing mode ✔
Seated mode ✔
Artificial crouch ✖
Real crouch ✖
Accessibility
Subtitles ✖
Interface language
Languages English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean
Dialogue audio
Languages English
Adjustable difficulty ✖
Two hands required ✔
Real crouch required ✖
Hearing required ✖
Adjustable player height ✔

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