It’s one of those titles we’ve been waiting on for a little while but Wilson’s Heart by developers Twisted Pixel in collaboration with Oculus Studios is finally here following it’s initial announcement back at last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
Placing players in the role of hospital patient Robert Wilson, who wakes up to discover his heart has for some reason been replaced. VRFocus reviewed the game earlier today, and you can find out our progress here. However reviewer Peter Graham also recorded footage of himself trying the game out. You can join him below.
What other VR games would you like to see the team take on or even do a full let’s play of? Let us know in the comments.
One of virtual reality’s (VR) many strengths is its ability to truly immerse players in fantastical worlds, making them feel part of a studio’s fervent imagination. And this is what you get with Twisted Pixel Games’ Wilson’s Heart, a dramatic film-noir style thriller/horror experience made in conjunction with Oculus Studios.
The first thing that’s immediately obvious is the entire videogame is black and white. This lends Wilson’s Heart an air of drama and intrigue that you don’t normally see in many titles, especially VR, and serves it well throughout the single-player campaign. Dark corridors and dimly lit rooms are unnerving from the word go, lights flicker, and that sense of foreboding never relinquishes even as you progress and become accustomed to the surroundings.
All of this is equally matched by the audio quality Twisted Pixel has achieved in the title. The spatial sound not only compliments the visual design it surpasses it at points, finely picking out little flutters of noise that keeps you on your toes. You’ll be examining a table or object underneath a lamp to then suddenly hear a clatter or scutter from behind you, and this happens constantly without ever feeling overused. In terms of immersive atmosphere Wilson’s Heart has it in droves, but it’s the storyline that’ll keep you engrossed.
As the title suggests, Wilson’s Heart puts you in the role of Wilson who wakes up in a mental hospital to find he’s missing a rather important part of his anatomy, his heart. In it’s place is a weird orb-like artifact that has several uses throughout the story. While you spend a good portion of the videogame wandering around on your own you do eventually meet up with several others – some are friendly, some not so – that help to fill in the gaps. The characters and voice acting do make the whole story come alive, you become attached to them as you band together to escape the horrors lurking around the corner.
But this isn’t a jump scare kind of experience. Yes there are moments that’ll spook you – a face suddenly appears out of the darkness or from behind you – if you’re not paying attention, for the most part though Wilson’s Heart errs of the side of psychological thriller. The drama continually intensifies, aiming to keep you on edge for as long as possible, mainly because there’s one thing you can’t do, that is run away.
If there’s one main criticism to leverage towards the title it’s the movement. It uses a teleportation mechanic that uses silhouettes of your character at fixed locations. While perfectly taking you through the storyline in a fairly linear manner, the system massively limits the amount of exploration you can actually achieve. Each teleportation spot means there’s usually between one to three items to interact with before moving on. In certain set pieces these silhouettes won’t appear until the correct time, literally leaving you in one spot until the required time.
This can then mean Wilson’s Heart starts to become a somewhat horror by numbers approach. If you investigate each area thoroughly – and then unless the story requires you to – there’s no need to venture back, which is a shame as the entire environment looks that good you’d want to explore every nook and cranny.
Wilson’s Heart is good, even very good at points. Expertly mixing its story, sound and visual aesthetics into a solid experience that’ll draw you in and keep you engrossed for hours. But there are some niggles with the constrained gameplay mechanics that hamper its ability to be a great title.
Wilson’s Heart, the latest exclusive on the Oculus Rift and Touch, has launched to much fanfare, including a funny take on the game (and VR in general) by Conan O’Brien.
Conan O’Brien is the long time late-night talkshow host of Conan which includes a segment called ‘Clueless Gamer’ where Conan tries his hand at playing anticipated titles, despite not being a gamer himself. In the latest segment he tries Wilson’s Heart, a story-driven VR title that puts players a black and white world that takes on the feel of a ’40s horror film. See the video heading this article.
The talk show host provided his musings on VR while trying out the Oculus Rift on his show.
For a few years now, late night host and aspiring Neutrogena model Conan O’Brien has hosted a segment on his late-night talk show titled Clueless Gamer. In these segments, O’Brien tries his hand at a new video game (typically one that is about to be released), and usually spends the majority of his time ripping said game to shreds.
O’Brien has played Super Smash Bros for Wii U, Rise of The Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XV, Fallout 4 and several others. This week, however, he stepped inside of a virtual reality headset to try out Wilson’s Heart for the Oculus Rift with Touch.
Before even getting to the game, O’Brien was quick to share his thoughts on the future of virtual reality.
“My theory, and I’ve said this before, is that all VR is going to take us one place: virtual reality sex. That’s the point of VR. So I assume I’ll be having sex today,” Conan said before getting into the game.
Wilson’s Heart is a black and white psychological thriller in which you take on the role of an elderly man attempting to escape from a mental institution. It’s not exactly sexy, much to O’Brien’s dismay.
He spent the bulk of his time in the headset tossing things on the ground, screaming at jump-scares and trying to get the grip to work just right on his Touch controllers. Hey, maybe he is a VR gamer after all.
“If you want to know what it’s like to be confused, infirm, weak and wandering around not knowing what’s happening, play this game,” O’Brien surmised at the end of his demo.
We recently reviewed Wilson’s Heart as well and found it a bit more satisfying than O’Brien. Although we have to respect his Sigmund Freud impression. Spot on.
Life as a chestbursting alien, a world record, Oculus launches a contest to find the best wizard, Palmer Luckey returns from the social media wilderness and Nokia getting set to take you to a galaxy far, far away are just some of the virtual reality (VR) related technology, experiences and stories that have come out all within the last week.
As usual, Nina is here to guide you through all the stories of the last seven days with VRTV. What stories really caught your eye this week? Let us know in the comments.
This week’s stories, click here for more information on each:
Die Virtual Reality ist für viele hochinteressant, jedoch ist die notwendige Hardware teilweise noch etwas zu teuer. Um mehr Personen dazu zu begeistern in diese innovative und immersive Technologie einzutauchen, bieten Unternehmen des Öfteren diverse Angebote an. So auch NVIDIA, denn sie veröffentlichten am 25.04.17 ein interessantes Paket für alle VR-Begeisterte. Dieses beinhaltet beim Kauf ausgewählter PC Hardware gleich drei Virtual Reality Spiele.
Erhaltet beim Kauf von NVIDIA-Hardware drei kostenlose VR-Spiele
Das Angebot bezieht sich auf die Grafikkarten aus dem Hause NVIDIA sowie auf PCs bzw. Laptops, die mit solch einer GPU ausgerüstet sind. Denn beim Kauf einer GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1080, GTX 1070 oder GTX 1060 Grafikkarte bzw. bei Computersystemen mit einer dieser integrierten Karten und einer Oculus Rift mit Touch Set erhaltet ihr zusätzlich drei kostenlose VR-Spiele.
In The Unspoken taucht ihr in die Rolle eines Magiers, der im Duell gegen andere Zauberer antritt. Das Spiel überzeugt mit beeindruckenden Effekten und Multiplayerduellen. Neben verschiedenen Klassen könnt ihr diverse Zaubersprüche und Artefakte nutzen, um die gegnerischen Zauberkünstler auf die Bretter zu schicken.
Im Spiel SUPERHOT VR werden dagegen Science-Fiction-Träume wahr, denn der Shooter lässt euch in Matrixatmosphäre Kugeln ausweichen und zwischen verschiedenen Waffen zur Bekämpfung der Gegner wählen. Oculus Touch wird empfohlen!
Der letzte Titel Wilson’s Heart ist ein Psycho-Thriller-Adventure in Graustufen. Das Spiel folgt einer großartig erzählten Geschichte mit einigen Schockmomenten, die das Eintauchen in die Narration unumgänglich macht.
Die drei Titel sind also nicht nur beigelegte Spiele, welche nach einer Stunde Spielzeit in Vergessenheit geraten. Im Gegenteil: Die VR-Spiele sind mit unter das Beste, was aktuell für die Oculus Rift verfügbar ist. Zudem wurden die Titel durchgängig positiv bewertet.
Aktuell mit diesem Angebot ist also eine großartige Zeit, um sich ein VR-fähiges System zuzulegen. Dieses Paket von NVIDIA ist ein durchaus gutes Angebot und ist nur für eine limitierte Zeit verfügbar.
Following on from Nvidia and Oculus’ announcement earlier today regarding free software when purchasing GTX graphic cards and Oculus Rift, Nvidia has now rolled out several game ready drivers optimised for specific virtual reality (VR) titles.
Today’s update see’s the recently launched Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, and the as yet unreleasedWilson’s Heart and Batman Arkham VR both getting support.
The release of game ready drivers has become a common occurrence with Nvidia, as the company aims to deliver the best possible experience by optimizing performance and latency. Due to the qualities of VR, the technology much more susceptible issues and bugs that can make an videogame either uncomfortable or very difficult to play.
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality launched last week for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, receiving widespread acclaim. VRFocusreviewed the title, giving it a maximum five stars, saying: “Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality is a madcap, fun filled adventure from start to finish, perfectly suiting VR’s qualities, it should not be missed.” Players find themselves cast as a clone of Morty and if they’re familiar with the cartoon series will know that all sorts of strange and weird things are just around the corner.
Wilson’s Heart is a first-person psychological thriller from Twisted Pixel Games. Due for release today, the title is set in a grim 1940’s hospital. Cast as Robert Wilson who wakes up to find his heart is missing, instead replaced by some mysterious device, players need to uncover the truth in a place where not all is what it seems.
While Batman Arkham VR really needs no introduction. Originally released for PlayStation VR last year, the title is due to launch on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive today, allowing players to step into the shoes of the world’s greatest detective.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Nvidia, reporting back with the latest announcements.
WARNING: This is a review for Wilson’s Heart. We’ve done our best to keep things spoiler-free but some very light story elements and a few gameplay surprises will be revealed.
Do you know that feeling you get when you’re standing at the end of a long, dark hallway by yourself? That constant buzz that tickles the primal parts of your brain and makes you wonder if anything is waiting at the other end?
In the back of your mind you know it’s silly to think anything might come around that corner. But for Robert Wilson those fears aren’t silly. They’re real. And they are coming straight for him.
Wilson’s Heart is the debut virtual reality game from Twisted Pixel. The studio describes the title as a “psychological thriller,” but don’t let that fool you. Wilson’s Heart is scary. And bloody. And sometimes gross.
But what it is most, is wickedly enjoyable.
In the game you take on the role of Robert Wilson, an elderly man who wakes up one stormy night inside what appears to be an abandoned insane asylum. However, as you begin to explore your surroundings you’ll quickly learn that the hospital is full of inhabitants. And most of them want you dead.
Visually, Wilson’s Heart is an absolute treasure. The black and white aesthetic was used by Twisted Pixel to evoke the familiar feelings of an old time monster movie and it creates an unforgettable atmosphere that pulls you into Robert’s horrifying world in an instant. Technically, the absence of color also allowed the studio to use larger texture sizes which makes the carefully crafted characters and environments look more striking than most fully-colored VR experiences. Everywhere your eyes go there’s something new to drink in. Just be careful, some things might be watching you back.
The only method of locomotion possible for Wilson’s Heart is node-based teleportation. Silhouettes of Robert will let you know where you can travel to and provide a hint as to what to do when you arrive. In most VR games, this would be an annoyance but in this one it feels like a smart decision.
This game is all about experiencing a specific story. Being able to walk into each and every corner of the asylum might feel more freeing, but it really wouldn’t add much to an experience built around storytelling and would have actually disrupted the constant flow of intrigue that kept us so steadily entertained as we played.
Limited locomotion doesn’t mean that there’s no exploration here, however. There’s plenty of little Easter eggs and environmental storytelling devices scattered around across the map. You may find a telephone to pick up, a newspaper to consult or a radio to switch on. All of these moments provide non-essential, but delightful moments of supplementary storytelling so be sure to check your surroundings carefully.
Your primary goal as Robert Wilson is to figure out what you’re doing in this hospital, how to escape and (perhaps most importantly) what happened to your heart? You learn fairly early in the story that you’re human heart has been replaced by a surrogate that is equal parts mystical and mechanical. This false organ will become accessible to you at key points in the game when it can be used to solve puzzles or fight enemies with a variety of different powers.
The puzzles you encounter are mostly based around progressing deeper into the bowels of the asylum. None of the puzzles are too challenging but they will require you to think and remember what resources in your environment you may need to move forward. One thing these challenges have in common is some sort of supernatural twist that get steadily more insane as the game wears on. We won’t spoil anything hear but you’re going to see and do some seriously messed up stuff if you manage to make it through to the end.
Many of these messed up things want to attack you, but thankfully Robert still packs a punch in his old age. That’s right, this game has combat and you’ll often find yourself slugging away at fiendish ghouls, blowing them away with environmental weapons or zapping them with a specific heart power.
Combat is one of Wilson’s Hearts rare weak moments. The enemies all look terrifying at first, but defeating them can feel repetitive. There’s a definite “rinse and repeat” feel to fighting in this game, which is disappointing for a title that’s so magnificently engaging in just about every other area.
One such area is the game’s audio. The sound design, music and voice acting are without question the best we’ve ever seen in a VR game. All star performances from bona-fide stars like Peter Weller, Rosario Dawson and Alfred Molina take the cinematic nature of Wilson’s Heart to a whole new level. The score is unnerving without being overbearing, and the sound effects are perfectly placed to make you check over your shoulder at just the right moments.
In the end, what makes Wilson’s Heart truly unforgettable is simply how amazing it is to experience. There’s a real story being told here and it’s being told with more technical skill and narrative charm than any other VR game to date. You’ll be thinking about this adventure long after the credits roll and the headset comes off.
Final Score: 9/10 – Amazing
Despite the occasionally repetitive moment of combat, Wilson’s Heart is a must-play game that elevates narrative, visuals, sound, and gameplay for VR experiences to an entirely new level. Your time as Robert may have been a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare you’ll be eager to revisit again, and again, and again.
Wilson’s Heart is available starting today for the Oculus Rift with Touch. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Wilson’s Heart (2017) is a psychological thriller that takes you on a wild first-person adventure through the mind of a hospital patient recovering from a curious surgery, one that has replaced his live-beating heart with a strange machine. Ripping it from your chest, you find it gives you a growing number of abilities to help you not only fight against your personal demons, but also some very real ones that have passed into the world thanks to experiments done by the brilliant, but clearly insane Dr. Harcourt.
Robert Wilson is a hard-boiled WW1 veteran who’s clearly seen some shit in the 67 years he’s walked the Earth. Voiced by actor Peter Weller (Robocop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,Star Trek Into Darkness), his gravelly, steady voice is strangely assuring as you stalk down the corridors and mind-bending rooms of the abandoned hospital complex—all of which would scare the living daylights out of anyone in their right mind. But that’s the thing; you don’t really ever know if Wilson’s in his right mind, or if the whole world around him is gone topsy-turvy. And his whirring, mechanical heart is to blame.
pulling electrodes from your head, image captured by Road to VR
Either way, he’s just that sort of classic tough guy you’d find in a dime novel detective story or comic book. In fact, the game is brimming with these sorts of ’40s tropes and archetypes, not to mention your standard selection of vampires, werewolves, lagoon monsters, and mad scientists ripped straight from the silver screen. Being rendered in black-and-white and featuring classic movies monsters might sound too campy at first blush, but the reality is Wilson’s Heart is a dirty, bloody mindfuck in all the best ways, so don’t be surprised when reality crumbles around you.
And the world of Wilson’s Heart isn’t just weird, it’s brutal too. Moving realistic-looking dead bodies to get to clues is a normal occurrence, and doing it in VR only multiplies the emotional effect. That said, jump scares happen, but they’re few and far between, leaving more room for the monsters, the bump-in-the-night atmosphere, and the supporting cast to do the scaring. Suspicious behavior from the group of survivors you meet will keep you guessing as to who’s on your side.
image captured by Road to VR
Because the adventure genre is usually heavy on narrative and scripted action, but tends to deemphasize combat, the fight sequences were a welcome bonus at first, adding more danger to an already skin-crawling universe. And while Wilson’s Heart is one of the most visually impressive VR games to date—and I can’t emphasize enough just how truly good it looks—the world’s monsters offer lack-luster combat which can become very predictable after the first encounter. Over the course of the game, the sense of danger I felt in the beginning slowly degraded into apathy as monsters follow the same attack patterns over and over throughout. Then again, you may not be in it for the combat aspect at all, which is just fine.
You may be in it for the story. I finished the game in a little over 5 hours, and that was with plenty of deaths and faffing around with some of the world’s literature, however if you read every comic book, newspaper, and rustle through every drawer for clues, you could take longer. These can be informative, silly, and downright creepy as the comics slowly enter the weirdness factor that is your constantly changing reality. While playing off its patented brand of 1940s camp, dialogue is well-scripted and its phenomenal voice acting help to keep it on the modern-side of storytelling.
You may also be in it for the puzzles. Because you straddle the line between figuring out if the world is crazy or if it’s all in your demon-addled brain, puzzles become more and more surreal as you go. From turning on lights to scare away demons, to the gravity-defying act of flipping an entire room to get to a stubborn door that keeps disappearing, puzzles are usually interesting. I did however find them oddly placed, bordering on completely arbitrary. Oftentimes I would walk into a random room, find a puzzle, solve it, and leave not knowing why I had entered in the first place.
Immersion
It’s clear from the start that the developers paid lots of attention to getting characters to emote naturally and look alive—something that is more important in VR than on traditional monitors because you’re actually face-to-face with a person, and can naturally tell when something’s off. Characters in Wilson’s Heart make eye contact and seemingly talk directly to you, grounding you further in the narrative. Character design is still cartoonish though, keeping it safely out of the uncanny valley.
This leads me to my least favorite part of the game: the lack of agency. As a player, you’re constricted to node-based teleportation, meaning you only have a few choices on where to go. Walking into a room, you immediately see the hot spots for clue locations and all important drawers are highlighted, which takes away some of the joy of exploration personally.
image captured by Road to VR
Inconsistent object interaction also adds a layer of frustration on top of this, as one moment your mechanical heart can fly out of your hand and directly hit a demon, and the next it literally avoids an important target because the game has a better idea of what you’re supposed to do. In this regard, I kept butting my head against the game. A monster has to die in one way and one way only, because the game demands very specific interactions. And that wouldn’t be a problem if the game’s demands were consistent. Hand-to-hand combat with one enemy can differ wildly across similarly-sized enemies for seemingly no reason at all. One moment you can block a punch from a demon, and only a short while later the blocking mechanic is no longer effective. You’re then punished with death until you can find that one item in your periphery that you necessarily must use to continue on with the sequence.
And the heart. Your mechanical heart, although gifted with several abilities, will also activate in only a few ways deemed useful during a fight. Using the abilities when you’re prompted oftentimes culminates in the most cinematic death possible, but leaves zero room for player creativity.
learning your new ability, image captured by Road to VR
Comfort
Because the game features node-based teleportation, and no other artificial locomotion scheme, Wilson’s Heart proves to be an exceedingly comfortable experience.
As a standing experience, the two-sensor Rift set-up is enough to get you by, as nodes tend to put you either facing the action or the object of interest, so nearly always a forward-facing experience. That said, a 3-or-more sensor set-up can certainly give you more mileage in terms of facilitating smoother object interaction and greater room-scale immersion.
Lastly, the inventory system is a simple, ‘on-rails’ experience, as important items are stuck away into the ether and later retrieved automatically when needed, so there’s no fumbling through submenus to find what you need. In fact, there are no menus, health gauges, or HUDs to distract you on your quest to retrieve your heart and escape the hospital.
