Tag: PSVR

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Firewall Zero Hour Gets New Contractor And F.O.B. Sandstorm Map

Firewall Zero Hour Gets New Contractor And F.O.B. Sandstorm Map

Firewall Zero Hour is almost a year old and its still getting new content on a regular basis. Following the release of Operation Nightfall the PSVR-exclusive team-based tactical VR shooter suffered from a slew of connection issues and bugs that rendered it basically unplayable for weeks. Luckily, that’s all been resolved and First Contact Entertainment have it back up and running.

Yesterday, the developers revealed the mid-season update that includes a brand new map located in Afghanistan (free for all players) and a brand new Contractor named Lynx that can revive himself as a special perk. You can see more details on both in the trailer below:

What makes the new map, dubbed F.O.B. (Forward Operation Base) is that it features a persistent sandstorm as a weather hazard that limits visibility and introduces some really interesting dynamics by being both a relatively large map that is difficult to use long-ranged weapons on. This update also includes improved AI for the single player training missions, which has been sorely needed for quite some time.

With its one-year anniversary fast-approaching, Firewall Zero Hour is top of mind still for lots of PSVR players. It just came off a free weekend promoted on PS4, which included double XP for all players, and the previous release of its Hangar map.

During our E3 VR Showcase, First Contact Entertainment also announced their next game dubbed Solaris: Offworld Combat, which is coming to both Oculus Quest and Rift later this year.

For more on Firewall Zero Hour, read our review, check out our full guide to all weapons and equipment, and scan the new player intel we’ve published previously to get up to speed.

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Medusa and Her Lover Puts a Unique Spin on Cooperative VR

Medusa and Her Lover Puts a Unique Spin on Cooperative VR

The adventure game Medusa and Her Lover is now available on PlayStation VR, and it features one of the most unique versions of cooperative play we’ve seen in a VR title to date.

Playing both as the titular mythological creature and her lover Gaios, you are on a journey to discover a cure for Medusa’s infamous condition: the ability to turn anyone to stone with a mere gaze. As Medusa, you can freeze enemies, but doing so over a long period of time will require her to close her eyes and rest. It’s up to Gaios to keep her safe as she’s recovering from the effects.

What’s most interesting about Medusa and Her Lover is not this gameplay mechanic, but rather the different ways you can experience it. You can play the game as a single-player adventure, using both sides of the DualShock 4 controller to control the two characters.

But if you choose to play it cooperatively, however, one player can control Medusa through the PlayStation VR headset while the other controls Gaios on the television. This is an easier way to play the game, which should make it more welcoming to newcomers than the single-player mode. There are multiple difficulty settings, as well, if you find it to be too challenging.

Medusa and Her Lover is comprised of six stages, and its gorgeous art style is comparable to games like Rime or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. With its unique approach to controlling characters, though, it is certainly its own beast.

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Disaster Report 4 Is Finally Coming West With PSVR Support

Disaster Report 4 Is Finally Coming West With PSVR Support

It was nearly three years ago now that we reported Disaster Report 4 would include a PSVR mode. The survival series has a bit of a niche audience and, though it released in Japan soon after, we’ve been waiting to hear about a western release ever since.

Well, today we can finally confirm it’s happening.

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories (I still love that name) is coming to PS4, Switch and PC in early 2020. NIS American is publishing the game in the US, though it’s not officially confirmed for the EU or other regions yet. It also appears that the VR support will be exclusive to the PS4 version of the game, despite releasing on PC too.

Disaster Report games are all about surviving natural disasters in urban areas. From what we can tell, the PSVR support isn’t the main game but instead a side experience played in first-person. You make your way through a crumbling city as an earthquake brings it down around you. We’d expect this to be more of an experiential piece than a full ‘game’ as such, but it could be fun all the same. Remember this is a translation of a 2016-era game and VR designed has come some way since then.

This might not be won to rush out and buy, then, but we’ll be eager to give the full thing a look.  It looks like it players to the platform’s strengths; big things shaking and falling and making you scream. What more could you ask for?

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Dark Souls Dev: PSVR Was ‘More Limiting Than Expected’, No More VR Plans For Now

Deracine Logo

It doesn’t sound like Dark Souls developer From Software will be making another PSVR game. At least on the current headset, that is.

Speaking to Destructoid at E3, producer Masanori Takeuchi said From Software has no plans for another VR game. Last year the team released Deracine, a PSVR exclusive that was very different to its other titles. We were quite fond of it, but Takeuchi said the team actually found working with the headset “more limiting than expected.”

PSVR Problems

“It’s because when we did Déraciné, the hardware was actually a little more limiting than we expected,” Takeuchi explained. “We couldn’t quite render and depict the things we wanted to using PSVR – just the hardware and the know-how we had at the time.

It’s true that the PS4’s limited horsepower has been a strain for some VR developers. The console just isn’t as powerful as the PCs that run Rift and Vive headsets. Other developers like Gran Turismo’s Polyphony Digital have also spoken out to similar effect. But From is hopeful the upcoming PS4 successor fixes that.

“So perhaps we’ll wait a little bit and see what happens with the PS5 or the next-gen hardware, and then see what sort of performance we can get from that, what we can render on that hardware, and then make a decision,” Takeuchi said. He added that From does have ideas for new VR games, but they’re essentially best saved for future hardware.

While it’s a shame to hear that From won’t be making another PSVR title in the immediate future, we might not have too long to wait for the next headset. Sony is already talking about PS5, which will support the original PSVR. But there’s also several hints that the company is working on a new headset too. We’re hoping that might release in the next two or three years. Maybe Dark Souls VR could still happen.

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Mini-Mech Mayhem Review: Fiendish Tabletop Tactics Reward Dedication

Mini-Mech Mayhem Review

Having conquered a single-player match against the game’s toughest AI, I ventured into Mini-Mech Mayhem’s multiplayer mode relatively assured. Several hours of practice paired with earlier multiplayer matches for previews had me confident. My first opponent? A kid that couldn’t have been any older than 13. Fine by me – easy victory, right?

He ran circles around me. In fact, sometimes he had me running circles around him.

You lose a game of Mini-Mech Mayhem the moment you think you’ve won it. FuturLab’s latest is a deceptively strategic affair, one that’s at first simple to grasp. You control a tiny robo-buddy on a square grid, issuing orders to move and shoot. The aim is to grab points either by holding the relevant tile at the end of a round or by destroying your opponent’s mechs.

But the proceedings are unnervingly erratic and unpredictable; not only do you not know the order in which moves will play out (nor do you know what your opponent has ordered until it has transpired) but you can also play intercept cards, often unwelcome surprises that, when played at the right time, can do anything from nudge your mech off by a tile or call in an air strike. In your hands, they’re a powerful weapon. In your enemy’s, they’re a terrifying prospect.

A potent recipe for chaos, then, and certainly not something that can be enjoyed without a certain level of dedication. Then again, what FuturLab game doesn’t fit this mold? Quite how the studio managed to preserve both the tension and attention of its twitch-based arcade games inside a turn-based boardgame is beyond me, but it’s alive and kicking.

It’s in the moments when a perfectly thought-out plan is foiled by your enemy’s cunning that Mini-Mech Mayhem shines most. Even more so when it’s saved at the last minute. So much of Mini-Mech Mayhem is spent laughing in either elation or despair, enough to overlook just how unwieldy the sheer number of possibilities are. You can risk gunning straight for the point in the hopes that other players might fight each other off, or perhaps shoot an enemy’s leg to get them to change their movement direction towards a trapdoor.

When things go your way, you cheer. When they don’t? Well, you’re kind of tempted to cheer then, too. It’s a game of prediction and preparation and the celebration of how right and wrong those things can go, even if it more often feels like it’s heading in the latter direction.

Make no mistake; this is a multiplayer game at its core. Single-player matches can help you acclimatize but won’t show you the joy of human error. To that point, it’s something best enjoyed with friends. Unless you intend to get serious about the high-level play that will no doubt flourish online you’ll want to find people you’re comfortable both laughing with and at. It’s a shame, then, that there’s no option for local multiplayer using PSVR’s social screen. Sadder still that it’s a PSVR exclusive; it’s begging for cross-play support to bring in as many players as possible.

There’s a missed chance for some Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes-level laughs, though online matches do a good job of capturing the same-room camaraderie in VR. I found myself being more expressive here than I have in past multiplayer VR games; applauding winning moves and shaking my head in dismay at lost points. It’s a nicely little justification for the game being in VR, even if it didn’t necessarily need one. It can be played with either just the DualShock 4 or two PS Move controllers, but the Move controllers are a much smoother and more intuitive experience.

This is the rare sort of game where I actually want to unlock as many bits and bobs as possible just to forge my own identity.

Final Score: 8/10 – Great

Mini-Mech Mayhem is likely destined for the same kind of obscurity as FuturLab’s Tiny Trax before it, but there’s endless joy to be found from its frantic mash-up of tabletop gaming and VR. This is an untamable, often hilarious bit of strategy that’s to be enjoyed just as much when you’re throwing your hands up in defeat as it is in victory. I just wish I had more people to play it with.

Mini-Mech Mayhem is available now on PSVR for $19.99. Check out these official review guidelines to find out more about our process. 

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VR Awards 2019 Finalists Include Quest, Astro Bot, Vader Immortal

VR Awards 2019 Finalists Include Quest, Astro Bot, Vader Immortal

The VR Awards 2019 are gearing up to take place in November. That’s a little ways off, but the group is ready to announce finalists this week.

Some 12 categories feature in this year’s show. They include Hardware of the Year, which features contenders like Oculus Quest, HTC’s Vive Pro Eye, and HP’s Reverb. Meanwhile, Film of the Year recognizes the likes of Baobab’s Crow: The Legend and Breaking Fourth’s Lucid among others. Experience of the Year, meanwhile, includes the first episode of Vader Immortal and StartVR’s Awake.

As for VR Game of the Year? It’s a lengthy list stretching the entire year. There’s Ninja Theory’s Hellblade VR, Astro Bot, Firewall and Transpose from last year. But there are also more recent releases like Vacation Simulator, Blood & Truth and A Fisherman’s Tale.

We’ve got the full list of categories below. The awards take place on November 11 in London. We’ll be sure to bring you the winners.

VR Hardware of the Year:

Oculus – Quest

VRgineers – XTAL 5K HMD

Oculus – Rift S

HTC – Vive Pro Eye

VR Electronics – Teslasuit

HP – Reverb VR Headset

VR Game of the Year:

SIEE & ASOBI Team – ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission

Ninja Theory – Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice VR Edition

Coatsink – Shadow Point

Sony London Studio – Blood & Truth

Owlchemy Labs – Vacation Simulator

Outerloop Games – Falcon Age

Secret Location – Transpose

First Contact Entertainment – Firewall Zero Hour

Survios – CREED: Rise to Glory

Archiact – FREEDIVER: Triton Down

Resolution Games – Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs

Innerspace VR & ARTE France – A Fisherman’s Tale

SignSine – PROZE: Enlightenment

VR Experience of the Year:

ILMxLAB & Oculus Studios – Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series – Episode I

NBC Universal & Digital Domain – Eleven Eleven

StartVR – Awake

REWIND & SkyVR – Curfew: Join The Race

Lucas Rizzotto – Where Thoughts Go

Cinétévé Experience & Backlight Studio – The Scream VR

VR Film of the Year:

Fable Studio, Third Rail Projects & Oculus Story Studio – Wolves in the Walls: It’s All Over

Grammatik Agency – the bOnd

Baobab Studios – Crow: The Legend

Walt Disney Animation Studios – Cycles

Secret Location & Electric Shepherd Productions – The Great C

Breaking Fourth Limited – Lucid

Felix & Paul Studios – Traveling While Black

Simpals Studio – Aripi

Parable, Channel 4 & 59 Productions – Grenfell: Our Home

VR Marketing of the Year:

Backlight, Orangina Suntory & Marcel – Oasis Pocket Adventure: The Infrunite Slide

UDG Ludwigsburg, Nerdindustries & Porsche – Porsche “Hall of Legends” VR Experience

Qualcomm Technologies – Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2018 Invitations

NUMENA & BMW – S 1000 RR VR

Proektmarketing +1 & Ledvizor – Ledvizor VR-presentation space

LR Studio & Cartier – VR experience for Santos de Cartier launch

Ready At Dawn – Lone Echo II: Trailer Experience

Happy Finish, H+K Strategies & Ford – Ford ‘WheelSwap’ VR

Rising VR Company of the Year:

KageNova

Immotion

HOLOGATE

Maze Theory

Fable Studio

PeriscapeVR

Lume

Enduvo

AtlasV

Innovative VR Company of the Year:

Make Real

Fundamental Surgery

Amaze VR

BackLight

Spinview UK

Emblematic group

Ballast Technologies

Avantis Systems

VR Education & Training of the Year:

Filament Games – Breaking Boundaries in Science

Vodafone & Make Real – Working at Height

Isbank – IsReality (Isbank)

Orka Informatics – Virtual Training Ship Simulation (VTS)

Nanopixel & Eandis – Training: Replace low voltage fuses without life-threatening risks

Somewhere Else – BODYSWAPS®

Avantis Systems – ClassVR

Immerse & DHL – DHL: Gamification of the Cargo Loading VR Training Process

Engine House VFX – Exoplanet Explorers 2

MOYOSA Media – Mighty Masters

VR Healthcare of the Year:

Immerse – GE Healthcare: Increasing training opportunities for radiographers through VR

Oxford Medical Simulation – Oxford Medical Simulation

Fundamental Surgery – Fundamental Surgery (FS)

Precision OS Technology – Augmented Baseplate Shoulder Simulation & Patient Specific Planning

Oxford VR – Fear of Heights (clinical acrophobia).

Virtualware & King’s College London – VR for Psychosis Research and Treatment

Out of Home VR Entertainment of the Year:

ILMxLAB & The VOID – Ralph Breaks VR

Ballast Technologies & Wiegand.Maelzer – VRSlide

DIVR – Golem VR

MWMi – Chained: A Victorian Nightmare

Dreamscape Immersive – Curse of the Lost Pearl: A Magic Projector Experience

Holocafe – FaBIOS Fantastic Fun Factory

Zero Latency – Sol Raiders

Vertigo Games & Jaywalkers Interactive – Arizona Sunshine LBVR

Ymagis & Backlight Studio – TOYLAND : CRAZY MONKEY

Ubisoft Blue Byte – Beyond Medusa’s Gate

EXIT Adventures – HUXLEY 2 – THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Flight School Studio – War Remains

VR Social Impact Award:

BBDO DUBLIN – RSA CONSEQUENCES

Vulcan Productions – X-Ray Fashion

Force Field Entertainment – Anne Frank House VR

Galactig – Dementia Yn Fy Nwylo I / First Hand

VILD Studio – CHILDREN DO NOT PLAY WAR

Springbok Entertainment – The 100% – Maggie’s Story

Vulcan Productions – Ghost Fleet VR

East City Films – Common Ground

Artie – Mercy

Visualise, Don’t Panic & ICRC – The Right Choice – ICRC

VR Enterprise Solution of the Year:

Make Real & Lloyds Banking Group – Lloyds Resilience & Vitality

VBlueprint Reality – MixCast VR Marketing System

Autodesk – Autodesk VRED – VR Collaboration

Goodpatch – Athena

Virtualware – VIROO: Virtualware Immersive Room

Elara Systems – VR Command Center

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Vacation Simulator, Mini-Mech Mayhem Headline Crammed Week For PSVR

Vacation Simulator, Mini-Mech Mayhem Headline Crammed Week For PSVR

Hopefully you enjoyed a look at some of the upcoming PSVR games in our E3 VR Showcase last week. More importantly, though, you can start playing some of them as early as this week.

A whopping six PSVR titles are due for launch over the next five days. It’s one of the headset’s biggest weeks in a while. Leading the pack is the long-awaited PSVR version of Vacation Simulator. Owlchemy Labs’ excellent interactive playgrounds usually take a bit longer to hit PSVR but are always worth the wait. Look for it to arrive on June 18th (tomorrow!).

Also dropping tomorrow is Mini-Mech Mayhem, which featured in the E3 VR Showcase. This is made by Futurlab, the team behind the excellent Velocity games and Tiny Trax. It’s an adorable and hilarious tabletop VR game in which players try an anticipate their opponent’s moves and then outsmart them using a tiny robot buddy.

But that’s not all. The long-awaited PSVR version of Funomena’s Luna also arrives this week. This is an adorable little puzzle-driven experience. You follow a bird on its journey with stunning visuals to behold. Project Lux, meanwhile, is another long-awaited PC VR port. This one’s essentially a VR anime, you partner up with a girl as you attempt to solve a murder.

Next up is Mars Alive, a PSVR survival game. This one’s from Winking Entertainment, the publisher/developer behind games like Unearthing Mars. You have to survive on the red planet as you uncover ancient secrets. Finally, we have Slum Ball VR. It’s literally just a brick-breaking game in VR. Could be fun, if that’s your thing!

Whew, that’s a lot to get through. What are you planning on picking up this week?

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E3 2019: Pirate Ship Game Battlewake Is On Its Way To Quest and PSVR

Battlewake

Hopefully you enjoyed our look at Survios’ latest game, Battlewake, in our E3 VR Showcase this week. If you were hoping to play the game on other headsets, we have good news; it’s coming to Quest and PSVR too.

The latter version was confirmed on Kinda Funny’s E3 Showcase earlier this week. But a Survios representative also told us the game would be sailing its way onto Oculus Quest too. In fact, if you head to the official website to sign up for the upcoming beta, you can now choose PSVR and Quest versions. It doesn’t get any more official than that. The game’s also coming to Oculus Rift and SteamVR (so Vive and Index).

Battlewake offers first-person pirate ship combat in VR. Players become one of four pirate lords and commandeer ships fitted with a range of different weapons. Both single and multiplayer game modes are included.

We quite liked what we played of the game at GDC. “The secret to what makes Battlewake feel so grand despite forcing you to stand in one spot the entire time is the amount of control you’ve got in your hands,” we wrote. “The sides and rear of the ship have totally different weapons that can be modified and upgraded over time and each captain has different special powers (like summoning a kraken or summoning a maelstrom on the water) to really drop some heavy damage.”

For Survios, this is the third title we know the developer is releasing on Quest. The developer’s boxing battler, Creed: Rise to Glory, hit the platform at launch last month. Meanwhile, dance music maker Electronauts arrived just a week ago. No word yet on if other titles like Raw Data and Sprint Vector will appear on the platform.

As for the full game? That’s due later in 2019. Survios is also working on a Walking Dead VR title that’s due out this year too.

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PlayStation Boss: ‘One In 20’ PS4 Buyers Also Bought PSVR

PlayStation Boss: ‘One In 20’ PS4 Buyers Also Bought PSVR

PlayStation VR has found a large on audience on PlayStation 4, selling more than During the interview, Ryan states:

“The current generation of VR has exceeded our expectations. When you step back and look at it — and this is the way I like to look at it — one in 20 of the people who found the money to go out and buy a PlayStation 4, and all the games and peripherals that they enjoyed with that, have also found the money to then go buy the PlayStation VR and all the games and peripherals that go on top of that. And I feel good about that.”

Last August, Sony revealed that more than 21 million games had been sold for PlayStation VR. This was when roughly 3 million headsets had been sold, which means players were buying an average of more than 7 games per headset. More recent VR games, including recent exclusive Blood & Truth, have only helped. The shooter was the first VR game to Because of PlayStation VR’s success, as well as Sony’s plans to make it function with the next-generation PlayStation, it’s unlikely that support will be dropped anytime soon. Unlike the ill-fated PlayStation Vita or PlayStation TV, Sony continues to see an audience for PlayStation VR, but as a supplement for traditional gaming rather than a replacement for it. Whatever the case may be, we’re just looking forward to seeing what VR experiences its roster of studios has in store for us next.

Gabe Gurwin is a journalist who has been covering the video game and VR industries since 2010. He is a graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and has written for sites like IGN, Digital Trends, Lifehacker, and VR Fitness Insider. 

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Angry Birds’ Second Movie Is Getting A PSVR Game, First Look At E3 VR Showcase

Angry Birds Movie 2 VR

Angry Birds is getting a VR game. Okay, actually, a second VR game, not to be mistaken with the recently-released Isle of Pigs or that Magic Leap title.

As the name suggests, The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure instead ties into the new movie. The game is being developed by XR Games in collaboration with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and Rovio Entertainment. Again, it’s not released to the VR game Resolution Games released earlier this year. In fact, it sounds quite different.

Hollywood Reporter reveals that Under Pressure will be coming to PSVR and make specific use of the headset’s social screen function. That’s a feature that allows other players to interact with the VR user via a TV screen. The VR user takes control of Leonard, the green pig that served as the antagonist in the first movie. Non-VR players, meanwhile, will control the birds.

The movie is due for release on August 16, so expect to see the app launch around then. For Sony Pictures, it’s the latest in a growing line of VR tie-ins, which include an upcoming app for Spider-Man: Far From Home and, of all things, a VR sequel to Groundhog Day. Yes, really.

Curious to see this one? Well good news; we’ll have the exclusive first footage of the game at the Upload E3 VR Showcase. Tune in at 9am PT on Monday, June 10 for the first trailer for the game in action and a few more announcements too. We’ll have over 30 games featured, so you definitely won’t want to miss it.

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