The best Fallout 76 mods
Fallout 76 wasn't the game fans wanted at launch. Even after multiple updates and expansions, there are still things that require the best mods to accomplish.
The Light Brigade 'Shadow Hunter' Update Adds New Playable Class & World
Roguelike shooter The Light Brigade introduces the Hunter class, a new world and more in today's free update.
Available on all platforms, The Light Brigade's 'Shadow Hunter' update introduces the new archery-focused 'Hunter' class. Developer Funktronic Labs describes them as "a master of stealth" who wields a recurve bow and throwing knives. Unlocking them requires a level 5 rifleman or any other class to have reached level 20. Here's the new trailer.
Elsewhere, Shadow Hunter also introduces a new procedurally generated world, Sunless Keep. New tarot cards are also available that provide "significant boosts" to your character's abilities during runs. Finally, Funktronic Labs states that this update also includes "tons of new game balances and fixes."
Shadow Hunter marks the latest major post-launch update since last February's launch. Following a patch that implemented native 90Hz support on PSVR 2, August's 'Memories of War' update added two playable classes - The Engineer and The Breacher, alongside new hand-crafted levels and a shooting range mini-game.
The Light Brigade - Shadow Hunter update is available now on the Meta Quest platform, PSVR 2 and PC VR.
YouTube Now Supports 8K 360° & 180° 3D Videos On Quest 3
The YouTube app on Quest 3 now supports 8K videos, including immersive 360° & 180°.
At 8K, 2D 360° videos have enough pixels to almost match the Quest 3's display angular resolution, and 2D 180° videos will far exceed it. For 3D content, 8K 180° videos almost match Quest 3's display but 360° videos would still be far below.
Around 16K would be required for 3D 360° videos that match Quest 3's display, and around 48K for 3D 360° videos that match the human eye (assuming a capable headset such as Varjo XR-4).
The app on Quest 3 also now supports regular rectangular 8K videos, though this seems a tad pointless as the headset doesn't have sufficient resolution to do this justice at any reasonable size.
Strangely, I found when testing the update on my Quest 3 that most 360° videos labeled as 8K in the search results max out at 4K in the quality selector. It's unclear why exactly this is, and it wasn't a problem with any 180° videos I tried.
And even on the immersive YouTube videos that do play at 8K on Quest 3, the bitrate seems to be far below what Apple offers with its Apple Immersive Video, which is 8K 180° 3D. The compression artifacts resulting from low bitrate are much more apparent in an immersive video inside a headset than on a traditional screen, and Apple Immersive Video's high bitrate was a key feature I praised in my Vision Pro review. Apple Vision Pro doesn't have a YouTube app though. You can access it in the Safari web browser, or through the third-party app Juno, but neither option allows playing 360° or 180° content.
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Jet Cars, Dark Alleys, and Holograms: Flying High in Metacity Patrol
Some of the coolest experiences I've had in my years covering VR have been the ones that are set in futuristic and sprawling cities filled with towering skyscrapers, neon lights, and flying cars.
Ever since getting my first taste of these early techno-dystopian worlds in VR titles like Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab or TECHNOLUST and Aircar on the Oculus DK2 and Rift CV1, I've wanted to experience more games like this in VR. Well, flash forward a few years and now we have even more great titles that look to bring us back to that gritty cyberpunk aesthetic.
Recently we have seen some great releases like the Luke Ross Mod that allows the flatscreen PC game Cyberpunk 2077 as well as others to be playable in VR, and then there is the upcoming LOW-FI, the next game in the pipeline from Blair Renaud, developer of the VR cyberpunk classic, TECHNOLUST. These recent releases require a powerful PC to play though, so what about standalone VR headsets? Well, there is indeed an intriguing Blade Runner-esque title for Quest on App Lab that might be just what you're looking for, and that's Metacity Patrol from Norainu.
Gameplay and Features
Players will pick up a badge and gun and take on the role of a futuristic law enforcement officer patrolling the streets and skies of Metacity.
The gameplay is centered around exploration and interaction where players navigate the city using their flying patrol vehicle. Receiving missions from HQ via the in-car radio, they will embark on a series of tasks which include courier missions as well as engaging in combat with criminals and rogue synthetics. The city is vast with several waypoints to explore, each with its own look and central attraction. One that stood out for me was the TECHBLEU Bar, where the crowds on the dance floor looked mesmerizing in the pulsating lights and wading through them across the dance floor with the music pumping louder as I approached the DJ booth blew my mind. This section in particular transported me to this world with a surprising degree of presence.
Recently, the game had a big update and one of the things that came with that was enhanced graphics for Quest 3, and it shows. The overall look and feel of Metacity Patrol is fantastic with all of the boxes ticked that we might hope for in a cyberpunk fantasy such as this. For a title that runs on a stand alone VR headset, Metacity Patrol looks great and delivers the atmosphere one would expect from a futuristic mega city. Now, good visuals are one thing but without great sound games like this would fall flat and I have to say, the audio design is equally impressive in this game. Walking the streets of Metacity listening to the nice ambient sounds and music filling the games backtrack just blends with the visuals nicely to present a dreary yet believable world.
Comfort
Since a majority of the game's missions involve navigating around a vast city in a flying car, we will caution that this one might not be for those who don't yet have strong VR legs. While its true that the car will auto orient itself if the player loses control, this can still be a pretty intense experience for those not used to flying games in VR. As for the street level sequences, the game switches to fairly standard first-person VR control scheme with the option of either smooth or snap turning. Having snap turning is great help for some folks who suffer from VR motion sickness but unfortunately as of the time of this writing, the game only has the option of smooth forward locomotion with no choice of teleportation, so the first-person walking sequences might also be a bit rough for some players.
Comparison with Similar Games
Metacity Patrol shares many similarities with other VR games that came before it, such as Aircar and especially LOW-FI. Some might even say Metacity Patrol borders on being an imitation of LOW-FI, and it's easy to see where some folks might think this after seeing both games side by side. After playing it however, I have to say Metacity Patrol does set itself apart in a few areas.
Aircar - Metacity Patrol
Aircar
Like Metacity Patrol, Aircar is a VR game set in a sprawling futuristic city. However, in Aircar the game focuses more on the singular experience of flying a hover car through the cityscape, putting less emphasis on interaction and combat. In contrast, Metacity Patrol offers a variety of activities and challenges outside of the flying sequences.
LOW-FI - Metacity Patrol
LOW-FI
LOW-FI from Blair Renaud is a game that shares a very similar aesthetic to Metacity Patrol. Both games feature cyberpunk-inspired cities steeped in atmosphere and filled with neon lights clinging to towering skyscrapers, and both games have you in the role of a future cop patrolling your city in a flying car, so there is no doubt that Metacity Patrol is similar to LOW-FI in many ways. From the design of the city with large holograms on some of the rooftops right down to the gameplay mechanics, there are numerous parallels between the two games, which of course both bring to mind Blade Runner. To my eyes, the source of inspiration here doesn’t matter so much as the fact that Metacity Patrol seems to stand on its own merits.
I will say, seeing these two games side by side really made me appreciate running LOW-FI on my high end gaming PC, especially due to how detailed and atmospheric the graphics are in the game. It's clear that Renaud has put a lot of work into polishing the look of his game right down to the smallest details.
However, considering it's graphics, scale of the city and everything else that Metacity Patrol has going on under the hood, the fact that it runs on well on a Quest 3 as a standalone offering is a testament to it's technical prowess.
Conclusion
Overall, Metacity Patrol is a compelling early access VR game that already offers an immersive and engaging experience and, to be fair, that’s true of LOW-FI on PC VR too. With a vast explorable city and a decent variety of missions all coupled with first person combat sequences and interactive elements, the overall experience in Metacity Patrol just comes together nicely. The game is currently in early access and the developers seem to be active with updates and community engagement so we look forward to seeing what Norainu adds to the game as it makes it way toward a final launch.
You can check it out on Quest App Lab.
Delta Emulator Brings Nintendo's Game Boy, DS, NES, SNES And 64 To Apple Vision Pro
A wave of emulators are starting to roll out across Apple platforms, Vision Pro included, as Joy-Cons and other official gamepads prove useful input accessories.
Before Apple even publicly signaled changes to its App Store policies inviting this type of software onto its storefront, a limited-run TestFlight started filling up on Vision Pro for a Game Boy Advance emulator. Today, the widely used Delta project launched across all current Apple devices with emulation for a wide range of Nintendo's decades-old gaming systems, Game Boy, DS, NES, SNES, and 64.
"Wherever possible, Nintendo and its licensees attempt to find ways to bring legitimate classics to current systems (via Virtual Console titles, for example)," Nintendo notes on its website FAQ.
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Nintendo doesn't offer a path to that Virtual Console on any non-Nintendo hardware today. There's Xbox streaming, Steam streaming, and PlayStation streaming available in various incarnations on Apple, Meta, and Google app stores. Last year, Apple shared its Apple Vision Pro launch event with Disney as its premiere content partner. This year, Apple presents its next major debut of features and information in June at its WWDC event. Might Apple pme dau surprise everyone and renew its partnership with Nintendo for a new age, including Vision Pro?
Aging gamers and retro fans have built an ever-growing suite of open source repositories and hardware tools to keep 20th-century's best video games alive. In some cases, fans also restore or extend original functionality. For example, despite the potential for piracy and misuse, rescuing Pokemon from a dying battery in a 30-year-old Game Boy cartridge enclosure is basically the same preservation process as backing up the game files themselves.
And when it comes to virtual reality, headsets like PSVR 2 or Vision Pro can use the high frame rates and true blacks of their OLED displays as a more flexible canvas upon which to represent the overall texture of classic gaming. In the case of Vision Pro specifically, the multitasking capabilities of the visionOS operating system may even start to feel like an actual analogy of classic gaming. What's to keep one of these new emulator apps from connecting to the Vision Pro Television app because the latter has a filter that really captures the feel of a 1990s cathode ray tube? And how is that any different to the user from running an RGB cable through your VCR to the TV in the 1990s?
One major difference is that players like myself are much older now while Nintendo and Apple have grown into massive multi-national organizations which employ governmental liaisons and vast legal apparatuses to protect their interests on a global scale. Nintendo's official site poses the question for us: "But can’t I make a backup copy if I own the video game?"
Nintendo's lawyers also answer it:
"You may be thinking of the backup/archival exception under the U.S. Copyright Act. There is some misinformation on the Internet regarding this backup/archival exception. This is a very narrow limitation that extends to computer software. Video games are comprised of numerous types of copyrighted works and should not be categorized as software only. Therefore, provisions that pertain to backup copies would not apply to copyrighted video game works and specifically ROM downloads, that are typically unauthorized and infringing."
Emulation’s Final Frontier?
That’s chilling language to suggest of people contributing to open source repositories so they can preserve for themselves, and the future, the very texture of their childhood.
There are multiple generations of people worldwide raised on Nintendo games who’ve encoded the timing of required button presses into their core memories. Meanwhile, Google demonstrated recently how to use AI trained on videos to make games from them. It is easy to see why Nintendo wants to protect its property to employ developers and make more games in this new age. But with emulation growing on headsets like Quest with CitraVR and Delta on visionOS, brands like Atari, Sega, and, yes, Nintendo, are going to have to keep pace with the children of the millennium they helped raise.
LAN parties recreated across phones and headsets? Split-screen multiplayer separated across VR and TV? Nostalgia-fueled officially licensed romps like Atari’s partnership with Pixel Ripped 1978?
Players are ready. Is Nintendo?