VR Game – Page 374 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

May 18, 2018December 25, 2021

How To Download And Install New Custom Songs On Beat Saber – Winter 2021 Update

Beat Saber is one of the most popular VR games around. However, not only is the rhythm game popular for its base game and DLC tracks, but also for its huge custom map community.

There’s a wealth of great community maps available online, and with a little bit of tinkering you can start playing some fantastic custom maps in Beat Saber. Here’s our guide on how to get started.

The following guide is for the PC VR version of Beat Saber only. Modifying the game doesn’t seem to be possible on PSVR and the Oculus Quest has a very different process that changes regularly, depending on which tools are currently available.

This guide is up to date as of February 2021 for version 1.13.2 of Beat Saber. We’ll try to keep this guide up to date as much as possible, but sometimes it can be hard to keep up with all the patches and changes to the modding tools.

If you’re using a newer version of Beat Saber and this article hasn’t been updated, it’s likely that the process remains exactly the same. If not, let us know in the comments and keep an eye out for an update.

Tools and Sites

There are a bunch of different tools and sites you can use for Beat Saber modification. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll be using Mod Assistant for installation and first-time setup and the site Beast Saber to find and download custom maps.

Although we won’t cover it here, if you want to read up on an alternative for managing your custom maps, check out BeatDrop 2.

While we prefer using Mod Assistant to keep things simple, it is possible to manually download and install custom maps yourself, without any external tools. To see how, scroll to the bottom of this guide.

Setting Up

Before getting started, we suggest making an account on Beast Saber and downloading the latest release of Mod Assistant from GitHub.

You might also need to know the install location of Beat Saber on your system. If you simply installed the game through Oculus or Steam on your standard C:// drive in the default location, then you shouldn’t need to worry. However, if you have your games installed in a custom location or you have multiple drives with different programs installed across them, you might want to locate your Beat Saber install folder location now (you should be able to use the Oculus app or Steam to find the location). In this instance, the folder you want to select is the one called ‘hyperbolic-magnetism-beat-saber’.

Also, make sure you’ve run/played Beat Saber at least once on your system before proceeding or installing any mods.

First Time Install

If you’ve never installed custom maps on your copy of Beat Saber, you’ll need to install some plugins and mods that enable third-party map support in-game. When Beat Saber updates, your custom maps may or may not be intact/enabled. For example, previous updates (such as going from 1.6 to 1.7 of Beat Saber) did not disable or remove any custom maps. However, patches and updates do have the potential to break mod support, so you’ll have to check on a case-by-case basis with each new update.

In this event, a new version of ModAssistant will be released to work with the new patch. As of the most recent 1.13 patch of Beat Saber, ModAssistant is up-to-date and should work with Beat Saber.

For future updates, there’s a chance you may have to repeat these steps again, perhaps with some changes to accommodate for a new patch.

To set up a first-time install or update your modded Beat Saber after a new patch:

1. Open up ModAssistant.exe and agree to the terms of use.

You don’t need to install Mod Assistant — you can place it anywhere and open it from wherever, whenever you want to use it.

If Mod Assistant can’t find you Beat Saber install folder, it will ask you to locate it. Point it toward the folder you located earlier, if so.

2. Open up the Mods tab.

When you open the mods tab, all of the prerequisite mods for custom maps should be automatically ticked. There are a whole bunch of others you can install, but for the purposes of this tutorial, just click the “Install or Update” button in the bottom right for now. You only need to install the basic, pre-selected mods to play and install custom maps.

NOTE: On the left hand side, you’ll see a drop down menu indicating your Beat Saber version. Sometimes, after an update, the latest release of Mod Assistant might not technically support the latest version of Beat Saber. In this case, Mod Assistant should warn you that your Beat Saber version is newer than what the program supports. It should also ask if you want to proceed anyway. In the past, we’ve successfully been able to proceed anyway and just continue the process with the most recent supported version of Beat Saber selected in Mod Assistant, even if it doesn’t completely match the version we have installed. While we didn’t run into any problems, this might vary on a patch-by-patch basis or might change in the future.

3. Wait for mods to finish installing.

Once mods are finished installing, you’re ready to install some custom maps.

Install Custom Maps

If you didn’t change any of the preset mod installs, then Mod Assistant should have installed a tool that will allow you to search for and install custom maps in-game. You can find this on the left hand side of the Beat Saber main menu next to release notes. There will be a tab reading “Mods”. Clicking on that tab will offer the option “More Songs”.

If you would rather install maps from your desktop and then hop into VR later to play them, go back to Mod Assistant and go the options tab. Under “Enable One Click Installs,” tick Beast Saber (You should only need to do this once, just to turn the feature on). Then, while browsing maps on Beast Saber, you can simply click the cloud-install button (pictured below) to install a map (you may need to be logged into Beast Saber, you can register a free account).

beast saver buttons — The cloud download button, third from the right, will install the maps from Beast Saber via Mod Assistant.

When you go to one-click install a map from Beast Saber, your browser might ask if you want to allow the site to open Mod Assistant — click yes. This will bring up a Mod Assistant window showing the install progress — it will say ‘Done’ when the install is complete.

After downloading and installing maps, either in-game or on your desktop, they should appear in-game under a custom songs tab. Go get slicing!

Installing Without Mods

Mod Assistant is an easy one-click solution when used with Beast Saber. However, if you’d rather avoid modding tools all together, you can manually install custom songs yourself without modifying Beat Saber at all.

Simply download your custom song from Beast Saber (or elsewhere), which should come as a ZIP file. Unzip it and copy the resulting folder. Navigate to your Beat Saber install location, and then go to Beat Saber_Data\CustomLevels. Paste the unzipped custom song folder into your Custom Levels folder and you’re good to go.

That should be everything you need to start installing custom maps on Beat Saber for PC VR. If you have any questions or problems, comment below and we’ll try our best to help you out.

This article was initially published in 2018 with a different, now outdated, process. This guide has been updated several times, most recently on the 15th of December 2020, to reflect current methods and remove outdated ones. If you’d like to see an archive of past methods and the previous article content, check out this archive post here.

Looking for more guides like this one? Check out the New to VR? section of our site.

April 24, 2018

‘Paper Valley’ Review – Settling the Busy Mind by Throwing Paper Airplanes

Paper Valley is as pretty unique experience. Although it’s decidedly a more zen-like game without any real pressure to succeed, there’s something to it that’s just engaging enough to keep you moving forward, hopefully getting you into the quiet, focused flowstate.

Paper Valley Details:

Official Site

Developer: Vitei Backroom
Available On: Oculus Home (Rift)
Release Date: April 19th, 2018

Gameplay

Paper Valley takes place in a desolate, grey world filled with crumbling statues and monuments. But there’s a way to bring life and color back to the bleak landscape and make the waters of life flow once again. Given a number of paper airplanes styles to throw—normal, fast, loop-de-loop, and heavy—you unlock a magic that returns to world to the living by hitting talismans that spring up along your way through the half-dozen levels.

Getting the hang of throwing the airplanes takes practice. It is however pretty intuitive – simply snatch one of the airplanes lazily floating around you and let go of the trigger while executing a throwing motion. Because you can change its in-flight path with the movement of your Touch controller, you’ll have to get fairly good at correcting for obstacles such as cave walls, stalactites, and strong winds. You can also take the optional route of stretching your paper plane throwing abilities to the limit to hit those bonus orbs, which give you more ammo to throw. If you miss the golden talisman, what results is a beautiful, but equally useless plant springing up where it landed.

Talismans range from small golden targets that simply bring the lush plant life back to small sections of the world, to larger targets that give you a teleportation node so you can move forward through the level, usually accounting for about a third of every target you aim presented to you. In addition to your stock of yellow paper airplanes that float around you, you’re also given a immortal purple plane that lets you teleport to these specific nodes.

You really don’t even have to be all that good at throwing—there’s no ‘Game Over’ screen, no lives, not even a penalty for running out of planes. If you finish your yellow planes, instead you’re given an infinite supply of red-colored airplanes so you can keep trying for that next talisman; it’s a more psychological penalty than anything. You can also always choose to ignore bonus obstacles and just play the game for what it’s meant to be: a calm, relaxing exercise in quiet concentration. Getting that far off target, or challenging yourself to hit that out-of-the-way bonus orb and swooping back around for a direct hit on a talisman is all the excitement you’ll get.

At the end of each level, you return to a hub with a giant tree, where your airplane buddies can swirl around in a beautiful display of sentient magic. There is no obvious point system, so I assume that moving forward is its own reward, as I would do miserably in one level and still move on without a problem.

After having beat Paper Valley in about two hours, I felt the game was missing some variability in level design, and also didn’t deliver enough of those big ‘wow’ moments it periodically feeds you.

Because the world is grey and mostly just caves, gorges and dry riverbeds, the scenery becomes one big amorphous blob, which I thought could have used some world-building elements to better flesh out the reason for my existence there. Levels are typically straight shots from beginning to end, leading you from one teleportation node to the next, which after a while can get a bit tedious. As for wow moments, I loved seeing the colorful plants grow and take back the world, but I was still curious about what happened there, who lives there and what they were like—questions that still go unanswered.

In the end, I divided my time with the game into 30-minute sessions, using it as a relaxation tool more than anything. I still can’t shake the feeling that there’s a really engaging game underneath the quiet serenity of it all, one that I would want to explore for hours on end if the obstacles were more varied, the levels more difficult, and in more interesting locales.

Immersion

The world, although drab at the beginning, really becomes a rich and expressive place once you’ve done your duty as an airplane-throwing deity. The art style is fun and colorful to offset this drabness, and the cartoony style is ultimately really charming.

Teleportation can be disorienting at points though, especially when you’re given a few different paths to traverse near the end stages.

Airplane flight behavior is pretty darn consistent, although sometimes I was left scratching my head as to why my standard yellow plane, which always worked outside of windy conditions, just wouldn’t make some higher, far-off targets when it easy did similarly placed ones. Although this wasn’t usual behavior, it quickly depleted my store of planes as I futilely toss everything I had at it.

Gathering a mass of paper airplanes, all floating around you can also be annoying at moments, and they aren’t something you can simply brush out of your field of view so you can line up that next shot. Air planes would also get into a big clump and start drifting away from me, making it difficult (and sometimes nearly impossible) to get one from my arsenal, putting a complete halt to the game until I could trick them into coming back to me by teleporting to another node. This last bit seems more like a bug than a feature though.

Comfort

Because Paper Valley is a teleportation-only experience, it is ultimately very comfortable. The game makes special allowance for two-sensor setups as well, offering a novel repositioning system that spins your field of view towards your chosen destination while applying a heavy black filter, leaving only a pinhole view of the world for the brief moment during the transition.

Both systems ensure a nausea-free experience, although I would gladly exchange the turning mechanic for a simple snap-turn, as fine corrections are sometimes difficult to achieve with the current system.

The post ‘Paper Valley’ Review – Settling the Busy Mind by Throwing Paper Airplanes appeared first on Road to VR.

September 26, 2017July 4, 2019

Madcap Social VR Party Game ‘RADtv’ Resurfaces with August Launch Date

Ruffian Games, a Dundee, Scotland-based game studio, recently announced their long-awaited hot-seat multiplayer VR party game, RADtv, finally has a release date.

Update (July 4th, 2019): It’s been a while since we last reported on RADtv, and while we thought the innovative (and admittedly pretty rad-looking) social VR party game had gone by the wayside, Ruffian Games recently tossed out a new announce trailer, bringing with it a launch date of August 2nd, 2019.

Along with it comes a brand new announce trailer, linked above and at the bottom of the article.

You can wishlist the game on Steam here. RADtv is priced at £6.99/$9.99/€7.99, and will also be available through the Oculus Store for the Rift platform.

Original Article (September 26th, 2017): RADtv features 2-6 multiplayer, letting you and a group of friends play any one of its 25 madcap games, which if the trailer tells us anything, are mini-games in the vein of the Mario Party franchise.

Ruffian Games animator and UI artist Gary Whitton told us RADtv has been developed on the Oculus Rift, but will “ideally [target] every major platform.”

According to Ruffian, the game delivers a fast and fun ‘hot seat’ experience including a challenge mode, 25 sets of unlockable player customizations, and even unlockable feet and hands. Brilliant.

There’s also supposedly a premise to all of this, although considering how fast-paced and fun it looks, it’s hard to say if it really needs one. Here’s what the studio has to say:

You and your friends are sucked into a sentient TV – transporting you into a virtual world of weird and wonderful challenges where your mental and physical skills are tested in 25 hugely varied rapid-fire games.

From hurling old records at Zombies to Quick Draws against Cowboys to flying Drones through checkpoints to speed eating burgers – the situation changes as quickly as surfing TV Channels.

There’s no specific launch date yet, although the studio says on their website they’ll be launching “maybe 2017-ish” (see update).

The post Madcap Social VR Party Game ‘RADtv’ Resurfaces with August Launch Date appeared first on Road to VR.

July 10, 2017January 20, 2020

The 5 Best Cross-Play Multiplayer Games for PC VR & PlayStation VR

Single-player games can immersive and rewarding, but when the campaign is done and all the AI foes have been slain, you need to know when you finally hit that ‘multiplayer’ button that can play with actual human beings. Here we take a look at multiplayers games that will let you play together—be it on PC VR headsets through Steam or Oculus, or on PlayStation VR.

VR’s overall playerbase—even across the major headsets—is still a pretty small community in contrast to console/PC gaming. So while the multiplayer lobbies won’t be busting at the seams like you’re used to in flatscreen games, you’re still bound to find a group of casuals, die-hards, and try-hards populating the servers.

Here’s what we think are the best cross-compatible games for Rift, Vive, Index, or Windows MR players on PC, and for console players on PSVR. You’ll find a longer explanation below our top 5 list detailing more about PSVR cross-play (spoiler: there’s only a few).

5 – Sparc

CCP’s 1v1 sports game Sparc was their last virtual reality title before shuttering their VR studios late last year. While CCP has basically called it quits on VR for now, there’s still plenty of reasons to pick up Sparc if you’re looking to connect up with a buddy.

Sparc is by all measures a great game, but it’s even greater that you can play mano-a-mano against any one of your VR headset owning goons you call friends. Sparc suffers from the same issue as many cross-platform VR games though, i.e. no support for friends lists outside of the platform you’re on, but you can always host a game and hope for matchmaking serendipity—the silver lining to a smaller user base means you’ll probably be able to match up with your friend easily.

Oculus Store – Steam – PlayStation Store

4 – Catan VR

Catan VR (2018) brings the best-selling board game Settlers of Catan to pretty much every VR headset out there, with dedicated community of players on PC VR headsets, PSVR, Oculus Go and Gear VR. You’re certain to meet Catan-lovers from all over the world, so who knows how your game will improve or what friends you’ll make along the way.

Although online play is the main focus of Catan VR, there’s also a single-player mode with ‘Catan AI Personalities’, which were designed with guidance from Catan creator Klaus Teuber.

Oculus Store – Steam – PlayStation Store

3 – Space Junkies

Space Junkies (2019) is a team shooter from Ubisoft’s Montpellier studio that puts you into zero-g for some pretty familiar Unreal Tournament-style action. Although Ubisoft pulled the plug on development only a few months after the sci-fi arcade-style shooter was released, there’s still a sizable chunk of meat on the bones here, making it one of VR’s most finely-polished and fun team shooters out there.

Full cross-play adds some disparity in input; PSVR players could technically have a leg up on the competition due to DualShock 4 allowing for quicker target acquisition, although you may just find dual-wielding with motion controllers way easier and ultimately more satisfying.

Oculus Store – Steam – PlayStation Store

2 – Star Trek: Bridge Crew

You don’t have to be a Trekkie (or Trekker) to see why sitting at the bridge of a star ship, cooperatively taking down hostile aliens is a really engrossing way to lose an entire afternoon/evening. With its 4-player multiplayer, you can go through the game’s half-dozen campaign missions, or alternatively experience an infinite number of procedurally-generated missions in the company of other PC VR and PSVR-owners.

Created by Ubisoft’s Red Storm Entertainment, Star Trek: Bridge Crew is worth it if only to say you’ve been where no man’s gone before.

Oculus Store – Steam – PlayStation Store

1 – Rec Room

Social apps are a fun way to talk and interact with people in VR, but if you don’t have something fun to do while you’re actually there, the novelty ultimately wears off. Anti Gravity’s Rec Room is a great way to experience fun activities like paintball or dodge ball, but the real meat of the game likes in their co-op ‘Quests’ and PvP battle royale game Rec Royale. Of course all of this is served up in a lovable cartoony environment while you have a chat with people from all over the world, or just your best buddies if you so choose. Did we mention it was free. Yeah, we can’t believe it either.

Rec Room isn’t only a great game, but it allows all players regardless of platforms to meet up, create friends and sally forth to take on all activities without the issues we mentioned above.

Oculus Store – Steam – PlayStation Store

Healthy Playerbases, Cross-compatibility Issues

Let’s face it: there aren’t many other cross-play multiplayer titles that currently work on all three major headsets. It’s a fact we’ve been living with since the headsets launched in 2016, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better due to two very real roadblocks outside of the friends list issue a large portion of cross-platform games suffer from. While platform exclusives wall out a large percentage of would-be users, the ugly truth is studios simply aren’t going head-first into VR multiplayer games like they once were. Time after time, VR games that primarily feature multiplayer support have fallen to the wayside because of low hourly active user numbers, and perfectly fun games like Werewolves Within and Eagle Flight stand as testament to this.

If you buy a game and the servers aren’t populated with players, you probably won’t wait around too long for a match; it creates a vicious cycle that tends to spell the death of a game if a hardcore playerbase isn’t built-in due to things like active Discord servers or subreddits to keep people engaged outside of the matchmaking screen.

Thankfully for SteamVR headsets owners, Steam is a great resource for guaranteed cross-play on multiplayer titles; many games available through Steam offer VR support for Rift, Vive, Valve Index, and Windows VR pretty much on a de facto basis. Conversely, with a SteamVR headset and ReVive at your disposal, many Oculus Rift multiplayer titles are technically cross-play capable if you’re looking to hack your way in. It’s a pretty strange way of vaulting over the friends list roadblock, but entirely feasible if you’re motivated.

Update (January, 20th 2020): We’ve done a long-due overhaul of the list reflecting the latest developments in the games, and their cross-play abilities. We’ll be periodically updating this list as new games come out.

The post The 5 Best Cross-Play Multiplayer Games for PC VR & PlayStation VR appeared first on Road to VR.

July 9, 2017November 19, 2019

The 10 Best Games for Oculus Rift

So, you’ve either got your hands on an Oculus Rift or an Oculus Quest with the help of Link, and now you want to know what to download first (besides the free stuff). Here’s our breakdown of the top 10 Rift platform games that you should definitely play. Like right now.

Before we start, don’t forget that your Rift (and Quest with Link) also works with compatible games purchased through Steam. Thanks to Valve’s open SteamVR platform and OpenVR APIs, Steam supports HTC Vive, Windows VR, Valve Index, and Oculus Rift equally, so you can shop around for even more titles that aren’t published on the Oculus Store provided the developer enabled support.

HTC Vive owners can play all of these too with the help of Revive, a software hack that hooks Vive into Oculus Store exclusives. Without further ado, these are our top 10 Rift games in no particular order.

The 10 Best Oculus Rift Games

Stormland

From Insomniac Games comes the open-world adventure Stormland, a real study in good shooting mechanics, excellent locomotion schemes, and not to mention a two-player co-op mode so you and a Rift/Quest-owning buddy can battle all the evil robots the cloud-filled world has to offer. Half of the fun is picking your combat tactics; are you a silent killer, ripping out an unsuspecting enemy’s heath pack and skitter away to safety, or are you the ‘jump from a 200-foot tower like Deadpool’ kind of person with reckless abandon? It’s up to you!

‘Stormland’ on Rift

Check out why we gave Stormland a [9/10] in our review.

Asgard’s Wrath

I don’t know about you, but being a Viking god was always on my list of things to do before leaving this world for Valhalla. It just so happens that Sanzaru Games has produced one of the best VR games to date, as this melee combat adventure has so much story, combat, dungeon crawling, and looting that you’ll easily invest 20 hours on the low side, but come back for at least 40 to get everything out of what has turned out to be one of the funnest and most well-realized VR titles to date

‘Asgard’s Wrath’ on Rift

Read our review of Asgard’s Wrath to find out why we gave it an [8.8/10].

Lone Echo & Echo VR

Here we have two halves of the same zero-G coin: first-person action-adventure game Lone Echo (2017) and it’s multiplayer counterpart Echo Arena (2017). As impressive feats of engineering in their own rights, both games feature an undoubtedly comfortable zero-G locomotion system that lets you fly through the air without the slightest hint of motion sickness.

Lone Echo is the sort of cinematic sci-fi narrative that engages the player with its excellent voice acting, impressive visuals, and a deep and memorable story. Combined with its innovative locomotion system, it’s truly a gem of a game worth playing—if only to say you’ve been to the edge of the Universe and back. Check out why we gave Lone Echo a solid [9/10] in our review.

‘Lone Echo’ on Rift ‘Echo VR’ on Rift

Where Lone Echo is plodding and tactful in its storytelling, Echo VR amps up the speed, throwing you in an online team sport that’s a fun mix of soccer and ultimate Frisbee… in space. The best part? It’s free to own permanently. Echo Combat, the first-person shooter expansion to Echo VR, isn’t here yet, but it’s also shown that the high-flying, zero-G locomotion mechanic is definitely suited to other game genres.

Vader Immortal: A Star Wars Series

This three-part Star Wars cinematic experience arrives from ILMxLabs, Lucas Films’ skunkworks which is known for having churned out some of the highest-quality immersive content to date.

‘Vader Immortal’ Series on Rift

Vader Immortal is more of a VR ‘experience’ than it is a outright game, presenting the user with a 45-minute adventure for each episode, however each comes with its own game area that lets you practice all of your Jedi skills in what’s called the ‘Lightsaber Dojo’. In other, less capable hands, this would be a hokey add-on, but here it actually works and makes sense. All in all, it definitely deserves to be on the list however you slice it.

Beat Saber

Created by Prague-based indie team Beat Studio, Beat Saber (2018) is a funky and incredibly stylish rhythm game that will have you slicing blocks to the beat of high-BPM dance music. While the idea is simple, the execution is magnificent. Beat Saber gives you a mess of songs to play, each with four difficulty levels to master, the highest being expert which will have you feeling like a 21st century techno-Jedi.

‘Beat Saber’ on Rift

Check out our review of Beat Saber on PSVR to find out why we gave it a [8.9/10].

SUPERHOT VR

If you haven’t played the PC or console version of SUPERHOT (2016) before, get ready for a new take on the FPS genre with its strategy-based shooting missions. Designed from the ground-up for VR headsets, SUPERHOT VR (2016) is an entirely separate game in the same vein as its flatscreen counterpart. The iconic red baddies (and their bullets) move only when you do, so you can line up your shot, punch a guy in the face, dodge a bullet, and toss a bottle across the room, shattering their red-glass heads in what feels intensely immersive and satisfying—because you’re doing it all with your own two hands. That and you’ll feel like a badass no matter whose basement you live in.

‘Superhot VR’ on Rift

Find out why we gave Superhot VR [9.1/10] in our review.

Robo Recall

People used to think that fast-paced, high-action games would be too disorienting for new virtual reality users, but in Epic Games’ Robo Recall (2017), you can teleport around at full speed as you blast away at the game’s evil (and hilarious) robot army. If being able to tear your enemies literally limb from limb and beat a robot over the head with their own dismembered arm isn’t astounding enough, the level of detail and polish put into this game will make you reassess what’s possible in VR.

‘Robo Recall’ on Rift

Find out why we gave Robo Recall [8.5/10] in our review.

Trover Saves the Universe

From the co-creator of Rick and Morty comes the 3D platformer Trover Saves the Universe. Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. You’re partnered with Trover, a little purple eye-hole monster who isn’t a huge fan of working or being put in the position of having to save the universe.

‘Trover Saves the Universe’ on Rift

We haven’t had a chance to review Trover Saves the Universe, although it’s currently sitting at a very respectable [4.76/5] on the Oculus Store.

I Expect You to Die

Schell Games has only just pushed out the last DLC installment of the hit spy-themed puzzler I Expect You to Die (2016). It’s on basically every platform now, and for good reason: it’s incredibly clever, well-built, and easy enough to pick up while being hard enough not to want to put down.

‘I Expect You to Die’ on Rift

I Expect You to Die is currently sitting at a good [4.66/5] on the Oculus Store.

Moss

Once a PSVR exclusive, Moss (2017) has now made its way to PC VR headsets, letting you control your cute little mouse buddy, Quill, on your adventures through a large and dangerous world. Stylistically, Moss hits a home run with its impressive diorama-style visuals and interactive elements that lets you, the player (aka ‘The Reader’) move puzzle pieces around and also take over the minds of enemies as Quill slashes through the world to recover her lost uncle. Puzzles may not be the most difficult, but Moss has effectively set up a universe begging for more sequels to further flesh out the enticing world Polyarc Games has created.

‘Moss’ on Rift

See why we gave it a [7.9/10] in our review on PSVR.

Honorable Mentions

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR: While not an Oculus Store game, Bethesda’s Steam version of Skyrim VR fully supports Oculus Rift, letting you engage in multiple tens of hours of exploring the beautifully realized open world environment. What else is there to say? It’s Skyrim in VR.
No Man’s Sky: Unlike Skyrim VR, this is a free update to the game, which you can grab on Steam. It’s a bit flawed, but it’s an infinite galaxy of opportunities, so it always has that going for it.
Job Simulator: Tongue in cheek madness as you enter a far off future where robots rule the world, and consequently also have no idea how the past actually was. Smash stuff. Silly Robots. Hilarity ensues.
Vacation Simulator: Owlchemy Labs’s followup to Job Simulator. More story, a more open environment to traverse (albeit node teleportation) and a ton of vacation-style activities to explore and play. Arguably better than the first.
Arizona Sunshine: Offering you a chance to explore, collect real-world guns and indiscriminately shoot them at every moving thing (in this case zombies), Arizona Sunshine fills a very special place in many people’s hearts. The story mode does offer some thrills, but isn’t really groundbreaking as such.
Onward – A fan favorite with a hardcore playerbase, the OD green of mil-sim shooters Onward gives you that VR battle you’ve always wanted, including tactical team-based gameplay and plenty of guns.
The Mage’s Tale: Touch – Crafting elemental magic, exploring foreboding dungeons, battling giants and stealing their treasure. There’s all of this and more in The Mage’s Tale. Although story-wise the game comes too close to campy and played out for its own good, it’s still a solid investment for the enterprising young wizard among you.
DiRT Rally: Gamepad/steering wheel – Driving through the forest with a beer in your hand isn’t ok…in reality. But in DiRT Rally you’ll need all the soothing ethanol you can get as you stomach the twists and turns of an exciting car simulator, that while rated ‘intense’ on the Oculus Store, is ultimately a fun and exciting way to burn some time perfecting your Initial D drifting skills. Ok. Better leave out the alcohol anyway.
Edge of Nowhere (2016) Gamepad – A third-person VR survival horror game created by Insomniac Games that strands you in the icy wasteland of Antarctica, Edge of Nowhere leaves you with only a pick-axe, a shotgun, and some rocks to defend yourself against a bloodthirsty ancient species that lurk inside the snowy caverns.
Chronos (2016): Gamepad – A third-person adventure by Gunfire Games, Chronos will have you slashing at enemies with the long-trained penchant for beat-em-ups will get you exactly nowhere in this Zelda-inspired, Dark Souls-ish-level of difficulty game where dying in the game physically ages your character.

If the list doesn’t have the game you’ve been eyeing for months, definitely check out our reviews for some more gaming greats on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR.

Update (November 19th, 2019): We’ve done a long-due overhaul of the list, expanding it from five to 10 games. We’ve also done away with the ranking system. If you’re looking for a more quantified list by user review rankings, check out The Top 20 Best & Most Rated Rift Games & Apps.

The post The 10 Best Games for Oculus Rift appeared first on Road to VR.

June 22, 2017

Dungeons and Dragons arrives in virtual reality, but not like you would expect

Wizards of the Coast published Dungeon Chess for the Oculus Rift and Gear VR, a multiplayer chess game based on Dungeons and Dragons. It features characters and locations pulled out of the Forgotten Realms, such as Yawning Portal.

The post Dungeons and Dragons arrives in virtual reality, but not like you would expect appeared first on Digital Trends.

February 16, 2017May 19, 2020

Latest Figures Suggest ‘Resident Evil 7’ Has Exceeded 1.25 Million PSVR Players

Capcom has announced that Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) has shipped 7.5 million units. This new figure, when combined with official in-game player stats, suggests that the game has achieved an impressive milestone of reaching more than 1.25 million PSVR players, making it perhaps the most successful VR title on any single platform.

Update (May 19th, 2020): The latest official figure from Capcom puts the sales of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard at 7.5 million units, showing continued growth since 6.8 million units at the time of our last check in 2019. The share of PSVR players according to official stats has also risen from 15.96% to 17.09%, continuing a steady upward trend which suggests that the game’s long tail is increasingly comprised of VR players on PS4.

The article below has been updated with new analysis on the latest figures, revealing that the game’s PSVR player base could be as large as some 1,280,000 players.

The success of the game’s VR mode, which is only available on PlayStation, makes it surprising that we still haven’t seen the release of the VR mode for the PC version of the game.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is not a VR-only game. Available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch, the game was built primarily for traditional displays, but, on PlayStation only, the game has a VR mode which allows it to be played from start to finish on Sony’s PSVR headset. That VR mode has received surprising praise for a game not built specifically for VR, and has seemingly propelled the game to be among the most successful titles on any single VR platform (whether ‘made-for-VR’ or just ‘VR-capable’).

Have You Found These 11 Easter Eggs in Valve’s ‘The Lab’?

Valve’s collection of VR-minigames, The Lab, is one of the highest rated SteamVR titles and it’s free. With support for Index, Vive, Rift, and Windows VR, there’s no reason not to try it if you own a PC VR headset. Beyond some very polished mini-games, Valve has included quite a few easter eggs to uncover.

Update (August 29th, 2019): In honor of the update Valve released for The Lab today, we’ve added two new easter eggs to this list (note: the video above only includes the nine easter eggs we originally highlighted).

Original Article (February 7, 2017), Updated: Released all the way back in April 2016, the company has proven their game development talent once again with The Lab, a free collection of Valve-developed VR mini games set in Portal’s ‘Aperture’ universe. Inside the lab you can stick your head into a wide range of short VR experiences from photogrammetry to archery. But once you’re done inside the ‘Pocket Universes’, there’s lots of fun still left to be found in Pocket Universe Lab 08. Here’s a list of our favorite secrets in The Lab:

Mini-mini Game

Inside The Lab is a very fun mini-game called ‘Xortex’, which tasks you with using your VR controller to fly a little ship around in a 3D ‘Bullet Hell’ game. Before you step into the game however, you’ll notice a pink Xortex 28XX arcade machine. Step up close, press the credit button, and grab the joystick to play a mini-mini-game, which also serves as a list of Valve credits. If you’re patient, you’ll get a mini-mini-boss fight at the end who you’ll recognize from elsewhere in The Lab.

Sacrifice Your Humanity for Convenient Carrying

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could pack up that adorable robo-pup for easy transportation? Well, if you can bear to shoot your lovable sidekick with an arrow, you’ll find that it occasionally turtles into a portable pill shape. Now you can pick it up and take it with you. And no, you can’t put it in the slingshot (you monster).

Little Bendy

‘Bendy’, the stick figure you’re undoubtedly familiar with by now (who could forget how they stormed your keep in ‘Longbow’?) apparently comes in all shapes and sizes. Hidden behind ‘Longbow’ is a little Bendy in a jar. If you bring the Rhythm Core over from the table in the middle of the lab, you can get him to bust a move.

Bendy Behind the Locked Door

Head near the ‘Postcards’ experience and you’ll find a door with a window. The door is locked, but attempting to open it will trigger a series of different Bendy vignettes, including a headless Bendy zombie.

Valve Demo Room 1

Head back to the ‘Postcards’ experience and unplug the cable running into the jacks under the photos. Normally you can move this plug from one postcard to another to load a different photogrammetry experience. If you plug it into the valve on the left, however, you’ll get treated to a visit inside Valve’s headquarters and a little VR history.

Ping Pong with Turrets

Inside the Valve Demo Room 1 experience, you can break the glass and activate the fire alarm which will enable little turrets the spring forth from the markers on the walls. They’ll lazily fire balls at you which you can bat back with the ping pong paddle sitting on the desk. On the floor you’ll see the balls satisfyingly roll down a little drain back to their home.

Valve Demo Room 2

There’s another hidden VR demo room that you can visit inside of Valve’s headquarters, but you’ll need to go another layer deeper. Inside the Valve Demo Room 1, pick up the headset from the floor and put it on. Inside you’ll see the second Valve VR demo room with a model of Atlas, the robot from Portal 2. Look up high and you’ll see the prototype Lighthouse base stations employed during the time the scene was captured. Peek off to the right of the computer for a further glimpse into Valve’s offices.

Pop Balloons with Pins and Lasers

Inside the Valve Demo Room 2 experience, you’ll find yet another fire alarm. Smash the glass and activate it to have balloons begin cascading down from the ceiling. Use the triggers on your controllers to activate pins and pop the balloons, or use the highly effective lasers which you can activate with your grip buttons.

Rainbow Marka

Hiding behind the ‘Xortex’ cabinet is a rainbow ‘Marka’ which acts just like the other dry erase markers but gives you a nice multicolored stroke. Now who will find the best artistic use for it?

Knuckles EV3 Dev Kit Boxes

Commemorating the development of the Index controllers (AKA ‘Knuckles), Valve has hidden some virtual dev kit boxes to The Lab. If you want a challenge, see if you can use the drone (unlocked after playing ‘Xortex’) to push the box off the beam overhead.

The real Knuckles EV3 dev kit box and controllers | Image courtesy TECHNO SPORTS

If you want an easier way to look at the boxes up close, position your playspace through the wall near the closed door with the window and then walk through the door to find a pile of EV3 dev kit boxes in the corner.

More Pocket Universes?

Signage inside Pocket Universe Lab 08 urges players to keep their cores powered or risk the consequences. If you keep your eye on the Bendy workers along the conveyor belt, you may spot one who trips while moving a box, spilling what appear to be unpowered Pocket Universe cores. If you use the bow to kill the worker before he can clear up his mess, three cores remain on the ground. If only we could find a way to power them….

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