What do you get when you combine mandrake root, a ruby, and a suspicious red potion? How about eye of newt, a glowing green gemstone, and a foul yellow liquid? To be honest, I can’t really remember, but whatever it is, you’re sure to be delightfully surprised the with new powers you gain in Waltz of the Wizard, a new experience out on Steam that promises to make you feel like you’ve stepped into a Hogwarts potion class.
A street date for the long-awaited VR-enabled Obduction, created by Cyan, a development studio set up by some of the team behind classic PC adventure Myst, has finally been announced.
Edge of Nowhere developer Insomniac Games has released a new launch trailer teasing the arctic adventures that await Oculus Rift users.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has poured scepticism on the hype surrounding VR post launch by voicing concerns about the cost and space requirement of current systems, mostly (by the sounds of it) the HTC Vive.
Valve have released the Unity based renderer for its superb VR experience collection The Lab in an effort to encourage adoption of what it sees as optimal rendering techniques for VR experiences.
Early-adopters of VR headsets turned to Live For Speed and Project CARS for their VR-enabled sim racing fix, which both have solid support for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but we’re finally seeing movement elsewhere. Assetto Corsa’s pre-alpha support for the Rift in the recent 1.6 update was very well received (with Vive users also finding some success using the Revive injector), and VR sim racers will soon have another title to enjoy; iRacing begins its Rift support next week.
Rob Jagnow is a senior software engineer who was a part of Google’s Daydream Lab team that produced over 60 VR prototypes in 30 weeks.
This week uSens announced a $20 million Series A funding round led by Fosun Kinzon Capital. Usens is one of the early developers of hand and head tracking tech; according to the announcement from the company this investment will help launch new and improved non-controller hand and head tracking tools. The company’s technology is being demonstrated this week at the Augmented World Expo (AWE).
Samsung is relaunching its free GearVR offer, when you buy any of its new Galaxy S7 line and this time, you’ll also receive an additional Oculus Content Experience.
Video games have induced many emotions inside me over the years but, I don’t think any of them felt as real as the shame I felt when the AI computer, on easy, sunk his final ball against me. As he stood there faceless and motionless with no distinguishing features but his blue and pink striped party hat, I couldn’t help but feel a little like he was mocking me. I had the last laugh however, because before restarted the game I spawned 20 bottles and began hurling them and chairs in his general direction before making my dignified exit.
Official Site
Developer: Cherry Pop Games
Publisher: Perilous Orbit
Available On: Steam (HTC Vive)
Reviewed On: Steam (HTC Vive)
Release Date: June 1st, 2016
These are the kind of experiences you can expect to have while playing Pool Nation VR, a billiards simulation developed by Cherry Pop Games launching today on Steam for the HTC Vive. This VR game places you in the middle of an upscale but casual pool hall surrounded by music, drinks and NPCs. You can play darts, billiards, or even juggle chairs with your friends in this multiplayer pool arena.
In Pool Nation VR, the Vive’s controllers give you the ability to do several things. Players can pick up objects by simply pulling the trigger when holding their controller near things like beer bottles, chairs and darts. You can also teleport to a location by pressing down on the top of the trackpad and pointing your controller in the area you would like to move, then release the the track pad to appear there. This same mechanic also works for the edges of the pool table; if you think you have a better shot on the other side of the table, you can simply use the teleport button and point to the edge that you want to shoot from, and you’ll be teleported to that location facing into the table. This makes moving around the table a breeze, and keeps each round of pool moving along quickly. The controller also has a ‘Clear Table’ button which removes any debris from the table that may have been thrown around by you or your opponent.
These controls all work well in allowing you to move fairly easily around the pool table to line up and make your shots. Getting the cue ball lined up perfectly with another ball and sinking it in a pocket has the satisfaction of the real thing. More advanced billiards players can even shoot lower or higher on the ball to control the spin. You can also control your power by how quickly or slowly you move your cue towards the cue ball, following through with the shot just like you would on a real pool table. The only minor critique I have with the gameplay is that I wish there were slightly more objects to throw around and interact with since I had so much fun throwing chairs and bottles around.
When it comes to actually playing billiards, rather than making a mess of broken bottles, I never felt cheated out of a potted ball due to poor physics, which is exactly what you need in a billiards simulation. This accuracy only adds to the game’s immersion and makes it that much more satisfying when you start hitting your groove and nailing shots.
I never got any motion sickness or experienced any discomfort. I felt at home walking around the pool table and lining up my shots to sink balls. It’s a simple game but it does exactly what I want it to—and that is to feel exactly like pool.
I usually play VR games with the Vive’s ‘Chaperone’ system set to developer mode, which pushes the safe-zone visualization all the way to the floor (rather than showing a blatant grid), but I couldn’t with this game. I continuously tried to walk around the table, completely focused on my shot, and would run right into a wall. This speaks to the level of immersion in Pool Nation VR. The only detractor to immersion that I found was not having a real table to lean against when shooting. However, the developer deals with this by letting the player lock their stick in place by holding the trigger of the hand that would be resting on the table. Once it is locked in place the player can focus on how much force to put on the ball. It feels fairly natural and is a pretty good substitution for resting on the table.
A big draw to this game is the multiplayer. You can challenge and interact with your friends in the virtual pool hall or join a random player with the matchmaking system. Each player has a level next to their name so you will be able to tell how experienced the other player is before the game starts. You can customize your avatar by changing the hat and pool cue to your liking to represent yourself when going up against others.
With a minimal player population prior to release, I unfortunately was not able to play against another human player, but luckily the developers included a single player mode where you play against an AI opponent. If the post-launch online experience differs in any important way from the experience of playing against an AI, we’ll be sure to update this review.
Pool Nation VR doesn’t want to be an all encompassing metaverse; it’s a place with a purpose: meet up with a friend, chat, and simply play pool. Inside this scope, it does it’s job impressively well, making it a welcome addition to the nascent social/multiplayer VR content space.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Betty Mohler is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, and she had some keen insights on the nature of the uncanny valley being connected to expectations in my previous interview with her. I caught up with her again at the 2016 IEEE VR academic conference where she was talking about a recent paper about Appealing female avatars from 3D body scans: Perceptual effects of stylization in which the authors used an automated way to stylize a 3D scan across a variety of different animated art styles, and found that most women preferred to have at least some stylization in their avatar. I talk to Betty about these findings, some of the associated ethical issues, and how this 3D avatar research could be applied to help treat people with eating disorders and body dimorphic disorder.
Computex 2016 is under way and HTC are out on the show floor in full force with a collection of titles showing off their Vive VR system. One of the titles developed by the company, playable for the first time, is a new title developed closely with HTC, a WWII gallery shooter called Front Defense. Here it is in action.
If you’re the sort of person that played the forerunners of the real-time strategy genre, like the ’90s PC classic Command & Conquer (1995), you’ll be pleasantly surprised with Tactera, a fast-paced mobile RTS game today released for Gear VR. Although it’s missing the flash and vast number of unit/base options of its spiritual predecessors, don’t let the apparent simplicity fool you. The game is a real study in balance.
At Computex 2016 today, AMD took to the stage to reveal their latest GPU, the RX 480. Priced at starting at $199, the company says they designed the card to help make the first 100 million PCs ready for VR.
Virtual reality filmmaking is in its infancy but one Brendan McCourt reports from the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto where virtual reality as a documentary filmmaker platform was on trial. Can VR really become the “empathy machine” some are claiming? Or might its immersive properties become the enemy of transparency?
