Category: vive

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Hands-On: Symphony of the Machine is a VR Puzzle Game About Changing the Weather

Hands-On: Symphony of the Machine is a VR Puzzle Game About Changing the Weather

The great thing about VR games is that they can take the most seemingly trivial action and turn it into an immersive gameplay mechanic. Games like Bounce create an entire multi-hour adventure out of trying to get a ball into a hole. Audioshield asks you to punch colored orbs. And now Symphony of the Machine, an upcoming VR puzzle game by Stirfire Studios, wants you to bounce light off of mirrors to trigger a weather changing device. That’s it, but it can be pretty magical.

Symphony of the Machine was first created during the Global Game Jam last year with restrictions such as no violence, one-handed play, and the game’s story being communicated through its gameplay only.

I played a preview build of the game that lasted around 15 minutes, but the potential for a more complex experience was apparent. Things started in a seemingly desolate desert environment. I looked around and all I saw were brown mountains. There was a metal stand with a magical orb nearby. After placing the orb in the stand, things lit up. That’s how I learned my first game mechanic.

From there, the game taught me to point and click to utilize Blink teleportation as my movement system, with an arc emanating from my controller guiding my trajectory. I proceeded up a path between the mountains, making my way towards a massive tower in the distance.

Upon reaching the tower, I entered an elevator and waited as it slowly rose to the top, granting an incredible view of the game’s world. I could see for what felt like miles around me, but found myself a bit disappointed at the lack of environmental variation — it was just all brown desert.

In the tower there was what appeared to be a hovering robot of some kind that supplied me with objects I was meant to interact with, such as floating mirrors. I placed the mirror on top of the bright light beam blasting from the center of the tower and realized I could angle its trajectory towards various colored nodes around me. Each node resulted in a different change in the weather, such as making it sunny, cloudy, rainy, or windy.

Eventually I got the ability to plant seeds in floating pots that would sprout into flowers, but only if I followed their instructions for making them grow. Some needed water, then wind, and then rain. Others wanted a different order. Soon, I was able to split the beam into two beams and use multiple mirrors to bounce the light at more than one node at a time. It never got too complex to figure out, but the mechanics were slowly ramping up as I tinkered with the results.

From what I saw, Symphony of the Machine is beautiful to behold and intriguing to experience. The way the entire world around me shifts its weather patterns was mesmerizing and I found myself combining the nodes not only to solve puzzles, but also to marvel at the changing climate. Perhaps in the future, this same process can be used to add some color and variation to not only the plants floating around me, but the desolate world in which I inhabit as well.

Symphony of the Machine is currently slated to arrive on HTC Vive and PlayStation VR (PSVR) in Q1 of 2017, so essentially within the next month or so. Pricing and other details aren’t available at this time, but you can find more information about the game on the official website.

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Oculus Engineers are Working to Make Rift Games More Compatible With Vive Hacks

Oculus Engineers are Working to Make Rift Games More Compatible With Vive Hacks

During a panel discussion at DICE Summit 2017, Oculus’ Head of Content Jason Rubin was asked to discuss the concept of open platforms in the virtual reality industry. Rubin’s company has infamously been at the center of an exclusivity debate following its decisions to keep the games it funds on Oculus platforms only.

Rubin was asked by CEO of Insomniac Games Ted Price: “What would it take for Oculus to be more open to having its titles on other platforms?” By way of an answer, Rubin addressed the hacks and workarounds people are using to play Rift games on other platforms such as the HTC Vive.

“Just this week I played Dead and Buried with Vive users. I could tell they were Vive users,” Rubin said. According to him, he knew they were Vive users because their in game voice chat was being distorted by the “hacks they were using.” Rather than condemning these actions, Rubin claims that, “we have done nothing to stop this right now and in fact members of the team in Menlo Park are working now to fix the mic problem.“

Rubin’s comments here paint the picture of a much different company than the one that once patched one of its launch games to block users of a hack known as ReVive. That patch was later undone in an even further patch and Rubin is now admitting that Oculus is apparently moving from passive acceptance to actively fixing problems when it comes to these types of hacks. Rubin did not specify which hack he was referring to in this particular case.

Rubin’s response was that “[at Oculus] we totally agree [with the idea of an open platform]” adding that “this is an issue where we agree with the industry more than most people think.”

Jason Rubin and Ted Price at DICE Summit 2017

Rubin pointed to Oculus support of The Khronos Initiative as a sign of its commitment to keeping VR an open platform.“[At Oculus] we support the Khronos Initiative…if there was an open platform for VR we would support it…an open platform is never created by one company and the right way to do this is through the open standard……we believe in the open standard and we will be part of that ecosystem no matter what…it’s not that we don’t support openness, but right now is not the right time in our belief system with what’s available.” 

The “one company” Rubin is referring to is most likely Valve who’s Steam content distribution platform is hailed by many as a more open platform than Oculus’ own Home due to its willingness to make VR programs available to both Rift and Vive users.

Rubin, then would challenge the notion that a truly open platform for VR exists as of yet, even including Steam. Instead, he restated Oculus’ commitment to The Khronos Initiative and says that the company is “committed to join it.”

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Emmerholt: Prologue Is a Promising Taste of Open World VR Adventure RPGs

Emmerholt: Prologue Is a Promising Taste of Open World VR Adventure RPGs

In the early stages of our young industry the vast majority of VR games have been very tiny experiences that often focus on a core game mechanic and extrapolate gameplay elements from there. For example, The Unspoken is a fantastic game, but it’s really only about flinging spells at someone and that’s it. Similar to the early days of game development, it find complexity through its depth and singular focus. Experimentation and iteration dominates still as the VR development community collectively tries to figure things out. But ultimately what most early adopters of VR want more than anything are immersive worlds to get lost in.

It will likely be a long while before we accomplish a vast, massive virtual VR world with rich storytelling that’s online for everyone to enjoy such as Ready Player One’s Oasis or Sword Art Online, but steps in that direction are still occurring. While Emmerholt: Prologue by Oneiric Entertainment may not tap into the MMO-side of the dream, it is still a tantalizing taste of what an open world RPG adventure title in VR could be like.

To be clear, Emmerholt: Prologue is a free demo available on Steam right now and is meant to serve as an introduction to the world of Emmerholt. The plan is to expand this setting out into a fully-fledged open-world RPG adventure complete with rich storytelling, involved quests, and dense areas to explore. But in its current state, the Prologue iteration is only a mere tease of what is planned, although it’s looking like a promising future is ahead at this rate.

In Emmerholt: Prologue, you’re thrown into the world as a man named Eli that gets his life turned upside down. Things start out innocently enough as you’re gathered around a campfire with friends and ride on horseback into town. The horse riding mechanics are great, although may make some people feel a bit sick, as you’ll have to actually snap your hands up and down to make the horse go faster. The artificial locomotion won’t be comfortable for some players, but it added a great deal to the freedom and immersion from my perspective.

Throughout the village you can interact with NPCs, pick up and eat food, and knock things over if you’re not careful. It doesn’t feel like the bustling cities you’d find in modern AAA RPGs or the Hollywood-quality voice acting one might expect from a similarly ambitious projects, but it’s certainly a step above the silent, text-heavy menu-ridden interfaces of most VR experiences on the market. You can feel the heart and effort of the small indie studio showing through.

Near the beginning of the Prologue you get to engage in a horse race that’s fun in its own right, but is most impressive due to the sprawling landscapes I traveled across. Caves are tucked away behind tree lines, hills roll in the distance with grass swaying and starlight bathing the fields. The colorful textures evoke a calming sense of serene happiness and the chatter of my comrades as we race across the prairies made me feel like I was actually living in the shoes of Eli in this fantastical world.

Which is why it’s a bit of a shame that the combat fell so flat by comparison. This is still an extremely early build of the game, so a lot of work is left to be done in nailing down the core mechanics, but I’d love for an immersive open-world atmosphere like this to be combined with the tactical and responsive melee combat systems of games like Vanishing Realms and the upcoming Raiders of Erda.

Currently, you’re only given a sampling of telekinetic powers that let you pick up, move, and launch objects in the world. Throwing rocks at enemies or catching their spells and flinging them back at them lost its luster quickly and having a sword, shield, or at least bow & arrow as other options would have been appreciated. Hopefully that’s added eventually.

Many of the animations (such as during combat and the lack of emotion from NPCs while talking) are stiff and voice acting is very spotty in most places. Some character sound fine, but the volume wasn’t always right and much of the voice talent comes across as too earnest and unprofessional. Ultimately, this is all at the core of what makes Emmerholt worth keeping an eye on though: it goes outside of its comfort zone and tries to be different and bold.

My favorite moment in Emmerholt: Prologue took place at the end of the horse race. I stood at the edge of a mountain, peering down at a vast landscape before me with a village in the far off distance and stars dotting the blue night sky. A scene like this would simply be background imagery in most other “large” VR adventure titles, only granting the illusion of open-world exploration. But in Emmerholt I get the feeling that journeying to the center of valleys and to the tops of mountains will be commonplace. It’s just a tease right now, but I’ve got high hopes for something with such grand ambitions.

You can download and play the free introductory experience, Emmerholt: Prologue, on Steam right now for HTC Vive or Oculus Rift with Touch. Motion controllers and a 360-degree play space are required and it will last you about a half hour if you stick to the critical path.

If you’ve tried it, what do you think? What are your hopes for the future of open-world VR games? Let us know in the comments below!

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7 VR Horror Games to Look Forward to After Playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

7 VR Horror Games to Look Forward to After Playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

The combination of technology and genre focus that led to the creation of VR horror games feel like a match made in Hell (for horror buffs, that’s a good thing). After all, horror games are most effective when you feel immersed in their dark, threatening worlds. And there’s no better way to immerse yourself in a game than to strap on a VR headset and just jump right in.

A number of fine horror games are already available, with Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] being the most notable and recent. But maybe you’ve played through them all by now. Maybe you’re itching for another fright-fest you can dive into in VR. Luckily for you, a number of VR horror games are currently in the works. Here are some of the most promising ones you’ll be able to play in the near future.

Visage

Visage is a Kickstarted game from SadSquare Studio that wears its inspiration on its sleeve. That inspiration is P.T., Konami’s “playable teaser” for the doomed game Silent Hills. The difference is that you won’t be playing Silent Hills anytime soon (or P.T. for that matter, unless you downloaded it while it was available on the PlayStation Store). Visage, on the other hand, will actually materialize.

Like P.T., Visage promises to make chilling use of horror imagery, jump scares, mystery, and tension as you make your way through an abandoned house that’s been the scene of many gruesome deaths. As you progress, the stories of those who died will bubble up to the surface in all-too-horrifying ways.

The developers promise a single play-through of Visage will last between six and seven hours, with replay value added by way of certain randomized events. Look for Visage on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR sometime in 2017.

Don’t Knock Twice

Developed alongside the horror movie of the same name, Don’t Knock Twice is VR game based on an urban legend about a witch who resides in a decrepit old manor. You play as a mother searching the house for your daughter, who made the mistake of — you guessed it — knocking twice on the front door. As you soon find out, the house contains mysteries you’ll have to solve and horrors you’ll have to face before you can come to your daughter’s aid.

You can play a Don’t Knock Twice demo now on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. The full game is set to launch in April on both headsets, as well as PlayStation VR and non-VR platforms.

Get Even

It’s hard to know quite what to make of Get Even, an upcoming VR game from Bandai Namco and The Farm 51. That’s because the trailers don’t make a whole lot of sense, and the developers are keeping their lips sealed. What we do know is that you play as Cole Black, a man apparently trapped in a run-down asylum, who has to save a teenage girl with a bomb strapped to her chest.

The terrifying things you see as you try to figure out what’s going on may or may not actually be happening. All you really know is that you have a camera and an array of weaponry on hand to ward back the forces of evil. Or do you?

Whether the developers can turn this mind-bending premise into a killer VR game remains to be seen, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Look for Get Even around May 26, 2017 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul

If you consider yourself a horror fan, you’re probably familiar with the Paranormal Activity movies. This game is based in that universe, which is to say that it brings demons into everyday settings. When we tried it last, we saw someone literally throw off their headset it was so scary.

Like many other upcoming horror titles, Paranormal Activity puts you in a spooky abandoned house and has you wander around, trying to figure out what’s going on. Meanwhile, a pall of terror and tension presses down on you as strange things begin to happen. Doors slam, lights flicker, bloody letters spelling out “Lucifer” appear on the wall. Basically, things start to get weird.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul will land in Early Access on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on March 14, 2017, with a final version landing a little later on those headsets as well as PlayStation VR.

Stifled

We’re used to controlling VR games using gamepads, motion controllers, and head movement. Stifled adds another method: sound. The game world is completely black until you either make noise into your microphone, or your character makes noise in the game. When that happens, your surroundings materialize thanks to echolocation. In other words, you experience the world like a bat. We were enamored with how it comes together when we went hands-on with the demo.

There’s a catch, though. You’re not alone in the darkness, and when you make sounds, enemies can hear you, too. It seems like a creative and unique setup for an intense horror experience. Watch the video to see it in action, and look for Stifled on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR (along with non-VR platforms) sometime in 2017.

Wilson’s Heart

If you have an Oculus Rift and an appreciation for Hollywood talent in your horror games, Wilson’s Heart deserves a spot on your radar. This black-and-white psychological thriller stars Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, and Peter Weller (yes, RoboCop himself) as characters in a mysterious hospital in the 1940s.

You play as Robert Wilson, a man who wakes up to discover his heart has been replaced by some kind of strange gadget. Your job is to make your way through a hospital filled with era-appropriate horrors to retrieve your vital organ. Wilson’s Heart is slated to release on Oculus Rift with Touch in 2017.

Narcosis

Haunted houses and abandoned asylums are scary and all, but few places on earth are more perilous than the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you find yourself in Narcosis, a game about an industrial diver who’s stranded on the seafloor, with nothing but a few tools, a flashlight, and a limited supply of oxygen. The goal is to find a way to the surface before you die — or go insane.

The idea behind Narcosis was to create a survival horror game using no supernatural elements. The enemies you encounter are actual deep-sea creatures, and the dangers you face are all too real for divers. Narcosis is scheduled to launch on Oculus Rift sometime this year, and other platforms later.

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7 VR Horror Games to Look Forward to After Playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

7 VR Horror Games to Look Forward to After Playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

The combination of technology and genre focus that led to the creation of VR horror games feel like a match made in Hell (for horror buffs, that’s a good thing). After all, horror games are most effective when you feel immersed in their dark, threatening worlds. And there’s no better way to immerse yourself in a game than to strap on a VR headset and just jump right in.

A number of fine horror games are already available, with Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] being the most notable and recent. But maybe you’ve played through them all by now. Maybe you’re itching for another fright-fest you can dive into in VR. Luckily for you, a number of VR horror games are currently in the works. Here are some of the most promising ones you’ll be able to play in the near future.

Visage

Visage is a Kickstarted game from SadSquare Studio that wears its inspiration on its sleeve. That inspiration is P.T., Konami’s “playable teaser” for the doomed game Silent Hills. The difference is that you won’t be playing Silent Hills anytime soon (or P.T. for that matter, unless you downloaded it while it was available on the PlayStation Store). Visage, on the other hand, will actually materialize.

Like P.T., Visage promises to make chilling use of horror imagery, jump scares, mystery, and tension as you make your way through an abandoned house that’s been the scene of many gruesome deaths. As you progress, the stories of those who died will bubble up to the surface in all-too-horrifying ways.

The developers promise a single play-through of Visage will last between six and seven hours, with replay value added by way of certain randomized events. Look for Visage on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR sometime in 2017.

Don’t Knock Twice

Developed alongside the horror movie of the same name, Don’t Knock Twice is VR game based on an urban legend about a witch who resides in a decrepit old manor. You play as a mother searching the house for your daughter, who made the mistake of — you guessed it — knocking twice on the front door. As you soon find out, the house contains mysteries you’ll have to solve and horrors you’ll have to face before you can come to your daughter’s aid.

You can play a Don’t Knock Twice demo now on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. The full game is set to launch in April on both headsets, as well as PlayStation VR and non-VR platforms.

Get Even

It’s hard to know quite what to make of Get Even, an upcoming VR game from Bandai Namco and The Farm 51. That’s because the trailers don’t make a whole lot of sense, and the developers are keeping their lips sealed. What we do know is that you play as Cole Black, a man apparently trapped in a run-down asylum, who has to save a teenage girl with a bomb strapped to her chest.

The terrifying things you see as you try to figure out what’s going on may or may not actually be happening. All you really know is that you have a camera and an array of weaponry on hand to ward back the forces of evil. Or do you?

Whether the developers can turn this mind-bending premise into a killer VR game remains to be seen, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Look for Get Even around May 26, 2017 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul

If you consider yourself a horror fan, you’re probably familiar with the Paranormal Activity movies. This game is based in that universe, which is to say that it brings demons into everyday settings. When we tried it last, we saw someone literally throw off their headset it was so scary.

Like many other upcoming horror titles, Paranormal Activity puts you in a spooky abandoned house and has you wander around, trying to figure out what’s going on. Meanwhile, a pall of terror and tension presses down on you as strange things begin to happen. Doors slam, lights flicker, bloody letters spelling out “Lucifer” appear on the wall. Basically, things start to get weird.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul will land in Early Access on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on March 14, 2017, with a final version landing a little later on those headsets as well as PlayStation VR.

Stifled

We’re used to controlling VR games using gamepads, motion controllers, and head movement. Stifled adds another method: sound. The game world is completely black until you either make noise into your microphone, or your character makes noise in the game. When that happens, your surroundings materialize thanks to echolocation. In other words, you experience the world like a bat. We were enamored with how it comes together when we went hands-on with the demo.

There’s a catch, though. You’re not alone in the darkness, and when you make sounds, enemies can hear you, too. It seems like a creative and unique setup for an intense horror experience. Watch the video to see it in action, and look for Stifled on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR (along with non-VR platforms) sometime in 2017.

Wilson’s Heart

If you have an Oculus Rift and an appreciation for Hollywood talent in your horror games, Wilson’s Heart deserves a spot on your radar. This black-and-white psychological thriller stars Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, and Peter Weller (yes, RoboCop himself) as characters in a mysterious hospital in the 1940s.

You play as Robert Wilson, a man who wakes up to discover his heart has been replaced by some kind of strange gadget. Your job is to make your way through a hospital filled with era-appropriate horrors to retrieve your vital organ. Wilson’s Heart is slated to release on Oculus Rift with Touch in 2017.

Narcosis

Haunted houses and abandoned asylums are scary and all, but few places on earth are more perilous than the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you find yourself in Narcosis, a game about an industrial diver who’s stranded on the seafloor, with nothing but a few tools, a flashlight, and a limited supply of oxygen. The goal is to find a way to the surface before you die — or go insane.

The idea behind Narcosis was to create a survival horror game using no supernatural elements. The enemies you encounter are actual deep-sea creatures, and the dangers you face are all too real for divers. Narcosis is scheduled to launch on Oculus Rift sometime this year, and other platforms later.

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Paulo’s Wing Is A VR Game Created Using Google’s Tilt Brush

Paulo’s Wing Is A VR Game Created Using Google’s Tilt Brush

Developed by Google, Tilt Brush lets you create art in an immersive three dimensional space using your own two hands. We’ve seen a lot of amazing things created in the software. We’ve even seen an entire short film created in the app. What we haven’t seen, however, is a game which uses Tilt Brush to create assets and animations. In a few days, that is going to change.

Paulo’s Wing is a VR game created by the New York studio Angry Array. “You play a cherub in the game and are tasked with defending heaven’s gate from waves of demons. You get to unlock special powers, such as lighting strikes or slow time to help you accomplish your goals,” according to the developer.

Angry Array is targeting a February 23 release date for Paulo’s Wing. According to the studio, all the art in the game was made using Tilt Brush.

This appears to be one the most comprehensive uses of Tilt Brush we have seen. Recently, Google updated its toolkit meant to empower creators to export and manipulate their works for these kinds of purposes.

Paulo’s Wing looks like it has a charming, drawn aesthetic that could stand out as one of the first examples of a new kind of game made in VR. Angry Array is targeting February 23  as a release date for Paulo’s Wing on the HTC Vive.

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Die großen Gewinner der 2017 Lumiere Awards

Am 13. Februar wurden in Hollywood die Lumiere Awards in den Warner Brothers Studios abgehalten. Die Auszeichnungen gehen an die innovativsten und fortschrittlichsten Technologien. Im Folgenden kommt eine Liste mit den größten Gewinnern aus den Bereichen VR und AR.

HTC Vive und Google Earth VR

Der CEO von HTC, Cher Wang, bekam den Sir Charles Wheatstone Award für seine außergewöhnlich fortschrittlichen Bemühungen im Bereich der VR. Die Auszeichnung übergaben der Präsident der AIS-VR Gesellschaft Jim Chabin und Schauspielerin Maria Bello. Die HTC Vive gilt als eine der monumentalsten Fortschritte im Bereich Optik, Steuerung und 3-D-Positionstracking innerhalb der VR.

Ebenfalls freuen kann sich Google, denn der Umweltaktivist Ed Begley Jr. übergab den Century Award für VR an Google Earth VR für einen Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Umwelt. Durch Google Earth VR wird die Welt in einen digitalen Spielplatz verwandelt, in dem man an jeden Ort unseres Planeten fliegen oder sich teleportieren kann. Die Begründung für die Auszeichnung war folgende: Jeder kann inspiriert werden unseren schönen Planeten zu beschützen, wenn man erst einmal die Aussicht auf der Spitze des Empire States Buildings oder des Grand Canyon betrachtet hat.

Google Earth VR als ein Gewinner der Lumiere Awards

Ghostbusters, Dear Angelica, Nomads, Tilt Brush und weitere

Ghostbusters VR von Sony Pictures Entertainment und The Void gewann den Preis für die beste VR-Live-Action-Erfahrung. Das virtuelle Spektakel wird in Madame Tussauds in New York City angeboten. Außerdem bekam das von Oculus Studios entwickelte Dear Angelica den Lumiere für den besten VR-Zeichentrickfilm. Die Entwicklung des VR-Erlebnis basiert auf dem neuen Oculus-Programm Quill und zeigt eindrucksvoll was damit möglich ist.

Dear Angelica-Gewinner-Lumiere-Awards

Weiter geht es mit der VR-Serie Invisible vom Regisseur von Die Bourne Identität Doug Liman. Die Serie erhielt die Auszeichnung für die beste 360-Grad-Serie. Ebenfalls mit einem ähnlichen Award wurde Nomads: Sea Gypsies von Felix und Paul Studios ausgezeichnet. Das Meisterwerk über die Sama-Bajau-Völker erhielt den Award für die beste 360-Grad-live-Action.

In The Click Effect kann man sich selbst als Unterwasserjournalist versuchen. Dafür gab es den Preis für die beste VR-Dokumentation. Weitere Lumiere gingen an Branded Experience, die VR-Symphonie von Jushua Bell erhielt die Auszeichnung für das beste VR-Musikvideo, Job Simulator, für das beste VR-Spiel und Tilt Brush von Google erhielt die begehrte Auszeichnung für die beste VR-Produktion.

Der Beitrag Die großen Gewinner der 2017 Lumiere Awards zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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The 2017 Lumiere Awards: Google and Dear Angelica Win Big

The 2017 Lumiere Awards: Google and Dear Angelica Win Big

Tonight in Hollywood, California the Lumiere Awards were held at Warner Brothers Studios. These awards honor the year’s best in “cutting edge content and technology achievement.” This year, virtual and augmented reality were well represented throughout the ceremony. Check out this list of tonight’s biggest VR/AR winners.

Cher Wang – HTC Vive

AIS-VR Society President Jim Chabin and actress Maria Bello honored the CEO of HTC with the Sir Charles Wheatstone Award for exemplifying exceptional forward movement in the VR Sciences. HTC is the maker of the Vive VR headset, a monumental achievement in optics, controls and 3D positional tracking for VR.

Google Earth VR

Longtime Hollywood environmental activist, Ed Begley Jr. presented Google Earth VR with the Century Award  for VR in service of environmental enrichment. Google Earth VR turns much of the world into a digital playground that you can fly or teleport around in immersive 3D space. From standing on top of the Empire State Building, to swooping into the Grand Canyon, Google Earth VR could certainly inspire anyone to protect the beauty of our planet.

Ghostbusters 

The Ghostbusters VR Experience won Best VR live action experience. This is a VR installation put on by Sony Pictures Entertainment and The Void in New York City.

Dear Angelica

The recently released jaw-dropper from Oculus Studios won tonight’s Lumiere for Best VR Animated Experience. Dear Angelica was created using the new Oculus art program, Quill and the results are simply astonishing. Bring your Kleenex for this one.

Invisible 

Doug Liman, 30 Ninjas, Condé Nast, Jaunt VR and Samsung won tonight’s Best 360 Series award for Invisible.

Nomads: Sea Gypsies

It was inevitable that Felix and Paul would end up on this list. The groundbreaking 360 video studio won the Best 360 Live Action award for this masterful work that gives viewers “an encounter with the Sama-Bajau people who have lived on the sea along the coasts of Borneo for centuries.”

The Click Effect

Best VR Documentary went to this piece of undersea VR journalism.

Branded Experience

The aptly named 360 Tour of the Shinola Factory with Luke Wilson won Best Branded VR experience.

Music

The beautiful string symphonies of Joshua Bell VR earned Sony PlayStation and Vicom Inc. the nod for Best VR Music Video.

Tilt Brush

The two-time Academy-award winning director Robert Stromberg presented the award for Best VR Experience to Google’s Tilt Brush. Tilt Brush is a tool for artistic creation that has become one of the most recognizable VR experiences and led to some truly beautiful creations.

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New Patent Suggests Sony Is Working On Vive-Like Tracking For PSVR

New Patent Suggests Sony Is Working On Vive-Like Tracking For PSVR

Sony’s PlayStation VR (PSVR) is a great headset, but tracking quality is a common complaint from users. A new patent from the company, however, suggests it could be working on a fix for that.

A new patent from Sony Interactive Entertainment, filed last year and published earlier this month, reveals the company is working on a new tracking system that looks similar in concept and setup to the Lighthouse tracking seen in HTC and Valve’s Vive. As reported by CGM, the patent details a “method for determining an orientation of a photosensor of a controller with respect to a projector” which uses beam forming to pick up the location of both a “head-mounted display” like the PSVR and a controller like the DualShock 4.

The above image shows how these beams will “further determine a position” of a headset “with respect to a projector.” It is similar to the Lighthouse stations that come with the Vive and were developed as part of Valve’s SteamVR system. Two of these stations shoot beams across the room, which allows the headset’s location to be tracked.

Currently, PSVR uses the PlayStation Camera to track a series of lights fitted around the front and back of the device. While the system works, light interference and a reliance on a single tracking sensor can cause drift, with users observing movement inside even if they aren’t moving their head or controllers. It could be that this alternative method of tracking is more accurate, solving what is one of the biggest complaints for the headset.

Of course, patents aren’t confirmation of products, and even if Sony is planning to more effective means of tracking, who’s to say it’s for this iteration of PlayStation VR and the PlayStation 4? This could just as easily be the company laying the foundation for future versions of its tech.

Intriguingly, the description for this figure notes that the headset may be linked to a computing device (aka: the PS4) wirelessly via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, radio frequency, protocol or other methods. Could that suggest that Sony is also working on a wireless version of PSVR? At the very least the documentation doesn’t rule out the possibility, but it could also just be overly-descriptive.

Until this concept turns into a reality, you might want to keep closing your blinds and turning off the lights when using PSVR.

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King Kaiju Review: Casual and Comical Sandbox Destruction

King Kaiju Review: Casual and Comical Sandbox Destruction

Some days the sun shines, birds sing and everything is right in the world. But other days, clouds loom, birds leave a mess and the world goes sideways and you feel like knocking something over. Boston-based developer Fire Hose Games made King Kaiju, which left Steam Early Access Jan. 31, for the latter kinds of days — when you want to break things.

King Kaiju is a first-person standing and room-scale sandbox that puts you in the hands and head of a Godzilla-sized monster in a fully destructible town filled with buildings, cars, pedestrians, and planes. You can smash houses, pick up objects, and throw things until the semi-urban landscape is destroyed, which offers moments of catharsis.

But King Kaiju is at its best when you play as Megacat, the game’s second character that you unlock after finishing every level, which should take around an hour.

And why is Megacat the best part of King Kaiju, you ask? The answer, my fellow gamer, is laser eyes. Yes, the behemoth kitty sports eye-born lasers, which — for reasons still unknown to science — are more satisfying with which to destroy things than the main character’s mouth-born fire. Someday, science will solve this laser > fire mystery. But until then, Megacat will reign supreme.

Whatever the character, King Kaiju supports the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift and works with both system’s tracked motion controllers. To move within the virtual world without walking in room-scale, you can teleport, which is point-and-click straightforward. Additionally, you can teleport onto pedestrians and cars directly to crush them, which satisfies.

However, you can’t change your orientation when teleporting like you can in games such as The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed or Arizona Sunshine, so playing King Kaiju sitting down or facing in the same direction is a bit of a challenge because when you teleport your point of view will always face the direction you are in the real world.

In-game, the controllers transform into your character’s hands or paws. But King Kaiju isn’t a hardcore simulation by any means. It’s more of a whimsical cartoon fantasy. For example, the game presents a bird’s-eye view of the action on the secondary monitor in a news-style presentation with comical remarks in a scrolling ticker.

“Experts say the monster is collecting ‘points’ like it’s in some kind of video game,” the ticker says.

Meta.

Additionally, there’s no story — just destruction. However, the game does offer four levels, three of which have score-based objectives. The last level is an open sandbox with no objective.

As for the graphics, the arcade-style textures won’t blow you away with their cartoony looks, but they fit the game just fine. The sound design, with screaming pedestrians, buzzing airplanes, and annoying ice cream trucks — oh, how I want to destroy those blaring ice cream trucks with their soul-grating music — also fits the game’s casual style.

The audio plays back in binaural virtual surround over stereo headphones, which makes pinpointing the location of attacking planes and fleeing pedestrians easy. However, the game outputs stereo only through surround speakers, which is a bit of a disappointment.

On the other hand, stability isn’t an issue because King Kaiju doesn’t crash on my Rift-based test system, which has two Oculus Sensor IR trackers, an AMD RX 480 graphics card and Windows 10. However, the Rift displays an otherwise game-breaking double image when anti-aliasing is enabled in King Kaiju. Thankfully, disabling anti-aliasing fixes the problem. I don’t know if this is also an issue with the Vive.

Final Score: 6/10 — Decent

King Kaiju offers an hour or two of casual motion controller-based gameplay in a destructible sandbox environment. If you’re looking for the second coming of Pacific Rim, then save your money and wait for Pacific Rim: Uprising. But if your world has gone sideways and you want to unleash your inner monster for an hour or two, then King Kaiju is worth a look.

King Kaiju is available on Steam for $4.99 with support for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.

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