E3 2014: Naughty Dog Co-Founder Joins Oculus VR, New Titles At Oculus Booth Confirmed

By
Paul James
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0

jason-rubinDespite what must be a hectic time for the Oculus crew with E3 about to hit the ‘go’ button on the show floor, they found time to release some news snippets via their blog.

Jason Rubin, Co-Founder of Naughty Dog, Joins Oculus

First up is yet another high profile hire for Oculus, Jason Rubin one of the founders of the enormously successful Naughty Dog development studios has joined the company as Worldwide Head of Studios. Naughty Dog are behind such huge franchises as Jak and Daxtor and the Uncharted series of games for Playstation platforms. As we’ve continually emphasised, Oculus are dead serious about content – they know that not only will good, compelling content sell the dream of VR and help adoption rates, but that once the hardware puzzles are ‘solved’, the revenue stream will be software. It’s another huge win for the company that has hit it’s stride since Facebook acquired them for $2bn back in March.

There have only been a handful of times in my life where I saw something that I knew would change everything. The awe-inspiring tech Oculus is building is a portal into an incredible world that my daughter will one day consider to be normal. The moment I put it on, I wanted to help define that future.

New Titles on Show at E3 Confirmed – Alien: Isolation is One of Them

And as it’s becoming very clear that Oculus VR’s focus at E3 is, quite logically, content – it’s fitting the remainder of the update is games, games, games. The confirmed list of titles ready to play on the Oculus VR booth at E3 this year are as follows:

SuperHot:

superhot-animSUPERHOT is a unique first-person shooter game where time moves only when you move, making each level a deadlypuzzle fueled by fluid time mechanics and relentless foes. It’s one of the most fun experiences we’ve seen on the Rift.

The project started out during last year’s 7 Day First Person Shooter game jam, where we decided to make something that really stood out in the genre – a title that felt satisfying, while not requiring superhuman reflexes. Something like a game of real-time chess, except that all the pawns are out there to murder you. – SUPERHOT Team

Lucky’s Tale:

luckystaleLucky’s Tale is a new made-for-VR adventure by the team atPlayful. Introduced in last week’s blog, Lucky’s Tale is a “delightful platforming adventure game” designed exclusively for the Rift that reimagines the genre from the ground up.  Lucky’s Tale is premiering for the first time here at E3 2014, so be sure to swing by the booth and check it out on the Rift!  

Alien: Isolation:

alien-isolationCreative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation™ is a new survival horror game set in the Alien™ universe. A terrifying experience, particularly in virtual reality, Isolation is all about survival.

In the E3 Rift demo, you’ll use every tool at your disposal to escape from a ruthless Alien in the wreckage of your spaceship. Underpowered and underprepared, you’ll scavenge resources and improvise solutions; not just to succeed, but to survive.

EVE Valkyrie:

eve valkyrie gameplay video fanfest 2014EVE: Valkyrie is the highly anticipated multiplayer, space-dogfighting shooter being developed by CCP and co-published by Oculus. Valkyrie, running on the Rift HD Prototype, was a contender for Game of Show at last year’s E3. It returns, but with an all new style, running on the graphical horsepower of Unreal Engine 4.  

We’ll bring you our thoughts on the new titles once our team of crack reported have had a chance to try them out on the show floor.

E3 2014: No Man’s Sky Dazzles With Beautiful, Procedurally Generated Worlds – PC Version May Get Oculus Rift Support

By
Paul James
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1

One of the highlights of a very positive Sony press conference last night was a stunning trailer by a small, UK based development team called Hello Games. It’s called No Man’s Sky and it’s a stunning, procedurally generated space / world exploration title coming to the PS4 and PC.

Last nights’s trailer was preceded by an introduction by founder of Hello Games, Sean Murray. He described the team’s desire to create a boundless universe where players can join each other in procedurally generated universes and where every player will receive their own, completely unique home planet. The trailer is majestic, beginning as a wander through a planet’s surface admiring vegetation and wildlife before whisking the viewer into the heavens to explore the galaxy. Impressive stuff.

Although last night was all about the PS4, No Man’s Sky started life as a PC game and a few months ago, the team tweeted themselves receiving and playing with an Oculus Rift HD Development Kit. The team had previously stated they’re interest at the possibility of support for the VR Headset but as of yet have yet to officially confirm that it’s in development.



We’ll try to find out more on the game and likelihood of Oculus Rift support at E3 this week. In the mean time, cop a look at these screenshots and the 2014 E3 trailer above.

News Bits: Control VR Kickstarter 95% Complete, Community Impressions Emerge

By
Paul James
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0

controlvr-gloves1

We reported recently that an extremely promising new motion control system based on the IGS Glove, known as Control VR, hit Kickstarter. Well, the upper body motion capture system which includes the impressive finger tracking data gloves has rocketed to 95% of it’s $250k goal in just 5 days. Now, the company is openly welcoming members of the VR community to one of their offices for an open demonstration of the new system.

In a reddit post on subreddit /r/oculus, BrandonJa one of Control VR’s developers, invited anyone in the downtown LA area over to their offices for beer, pizza and come hands-on time with Control VR. Shortly afterwards, impressions from those who took Brandon up on his offer began to appear and the feedback is resoundingly positive.

Reddit user ggodin was one of the first to post some of his thoughts:

The first demo with the gloves that I got to try was a moon exploration demo that they created. Your avatar is wearing a full astronaut suit with some weird interface at the bottom of your helmet that I didn’t really get (I think they should remove those). Once Spencer told me that I could look at my hands I was amazed! I could rotate them, squeeze them, do weird finger movements and they were all tracked fluidly. The latency was barely noticeable honestly. I would guesstimate it to around 50-75 ms between moving a finger and seeing it move in the HMD. They also had a TV behind showing what I was seeing. Later on I could notice the TV had a much higher latency than what you actually see in the HMD.

It’s interesting to note that, with proper calibration, the gloves in particular seem to be extremely accurate and the latency low:

I tried several things to push the gloves limits. I tried holding my hands together; the palms were touching in the game but the fingers were bending backwards a little bit. This was due to calibration they said and in fact later on, after re-calibrating, my fingers were closer when doing the same pose. The arm models moved very closely to my actual arms, this was quite impressive. The shoulders of the skeletal model were probably a little wider than mine so some arm/elbow movements were a little off. Also when putting a hand on top of my head, the hand appeared a n inch in front of my forehead in game. Again I think the little glitches come from the initial calibration. It’s important to note that none of the demos had any noticeable drift. In fact, the rift yaw (DK1) seemed to drift while my arms and fingers stayed in place.

All very promising indeed then. And we have to say that the way Control VR has chosen to ‘do business’ on their Kickstarter campaign shows an impressive understanding of the growing VR community. It also shows an inordinate amount of confidence when they’re willing to invite anyone into their offices to try their prototype hardware.

We’re hoping to get some hands-on time with Control VR during the E3 show this week. We’ll of course update soon with our impressions once we have them. And Control VR’s Kickstarter page can be found here.

E3 2014: New Oculus VR Published Lucky’s Tale Gameplay Video Online

By
Paul James
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1

 

Just a quick addition our previous story covering Oculus VR’s new co-published title Lucky’s Tale. Gametrailers has upped the reveal and demonstration as a separate video, so we thought you might like to see it, assuming you didn’t manage to catch the live stream last night. The title is shown running on an Oculus Rift DK2 and leverages the new unit’s positional tracking capabilities.

We hope to get some hands-on time with this title soon. Once we have, we’ll bring you our impressions.

E3 2014: Alien: Isolation with Oculus Rift Support Confirmed, Demos on E3 Show Floor with DK2s

By
Paul James
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3
Image courtesy Creative Aseembly

This is pretty incredible news if, like me, you’re a huge fan of the Alien franchise. A tweet from the Alien: Isolation team shows an image of a player wearing a DK2, apparently demonstrating the title’s Oculus Rift support.

Alien: Isolation is a Sega published, multi-platform title that drops you into Ellen Ripley’s (played by Sigourney Weaver in the movies) daughter Amanda’s shoes as she searches for the truth behind her mother’s disappearance. The title seems to be leaning towards the original Alien movie in tone, i.e. tension and suspense as opposed to balls-out action as with it’s sequel Aliens. It’s not known how far developed the Oculus Rift support is, but the game itself ships on October 7th for all major consoles and PC.

Frankly, the idea of being thrown into a believable, virtual world with an Alien on the loose is both a terrifying and a exciting prospect. Let’s just hope the game doesn’t turn out to be the turkey that Aliens: Colonial Marines did.

Apparently the Oculus Rift version will make an appearance for demo on the Oculus VR stand. We’ll be heading there as soon as we can to find out more and get some hands-on time with the game. We’ll leave you with some screenshots to whet your appetite in the mean time.

E3 2014: First Look ‒  GameFace Labs Mark 5 Prototype, VR Never Looked So Good

By
Ben Lang
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1

gameface-labs-mark-5

I just got my head out of 2.5k VR and it was beautiful.

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E3 2014: Paul Bettner Introduces Brand New Oculus Title Lucky’s Tale

By
Paul James
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2

dk2-lf2

As Oculus VR announced recently, they continue to push their drive for virtual reality specific content by co-publishing their 2nd title (the first being EVE Valkyrie) and it’s a 3D platformer called Lucky’s Tale. Tonight on Gametrailers’ ‘All Access at E3’ show, Paul introduced the game which looks like a polished mash up of Mario 64, Conker and a dash of Yoshi’s Islans – and was demonstrated using an Oculus Rift DK2 – by a gentleman looking very much like Oculus VR’s Aaron Davies, Director of Developer Relations.

Whilst 3rd person games of any type are relatively thin on the ground right now, there have been some enormously successful examples of platform games utilising the immersive qualities of the Oculus Rift to great effect. And when you place the DK2’s positional tracking into the mix of qualities VR can bring to a game, it makes even more sense. Now, instead of merley rotating the camera to hunt for secret passages or objects you can lean in and peer round entirely naturally. Also, perfect stereocopy probably makes judging depth in the 3D world much easier, making the platforming itself more natural. Bettner claims that his company Playful have been working with Oculus for over a year to refine what eventually became Lucky’s Tale.

I have to say that the title looks like a breath of fresh air to the Oculus Rift catalogue, and I’m fairly sure that’s one of the many reasons Oculus VR decided to back the game and take it to market.

We hope you get our hands on Lucky’s Tale this week as the Road to VR team roam the E3 show floor looking for the latest E3 VR news.

E3 2014: Sony Press Conference – Official Live Stream @ 6:00pm PDT / 2:00am BST

By
Paul James
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1

sony-logoSony became console land’s great white VR hope at GDC earlier this year when they announced the existence of Project Morpheus, a dedicated VR Headset for the Playstation 4. Along with a re-animation of the dorment Playstation Move controllers, Sony demo’d the system heavily throughout the show and it’s fair to say made a very good impression on us. And, although Sony has been very careful to emphasise the development / prototypical nature of Morpheus, it hasn’t escaped people’s attention that it looks an awful lot like a finished product. Combine that with their declaration they’d been working on the project for years and you start to wonder if Sony isn’t poised for a release of their VR entrant very soon, perhaps even this year.

We’re hoping to hear from Sony when Morpheus may go on sale and perhaps even a look at what they plan to release to consumer. In addition, look out for games made exclusively for Project Morpheus at the show and perhaps the appearance of standard games with VR functionality announced during the conference. None of the former of course is confirmed, but we’d be surprised Sony would make such a huge splash at GDC without following up on it at E3. We shall see.

Video should appear below.

E3 2014: Palmer Luckey Introduces Super Hot For the Oculus Rift Then Flips Out

By
Paul James
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1

palmer luckey oculus rift price facebook
Palmer Luckey, Founder of Oculus VR

Ever since Gametrailers revealed their schedule and keen eyed Oculus Rift fans spotted Palmer Luckey’s name in the line up speculation became rife that the founder of Oculus would be revealing something brand new for the VR Headset. In fact, he introduced the admittedly awesome, but hardly brand new, Super Hot – the off-the-wall action shooter that fiddles with causality that recently hit Kickstarter for funding.

But, in true Palmer style, the incorrigible VR geek flipped out for the camera in what can only be politely called a physical mini explosion. Of course, gif monkeys everywhere sprang into action and the residents of subreddit /r/oculus were treated to another mesmerising looping clip of the event. Enjoy the full force below and check out the SuperHot Kickstarter here. We’re hoping to speak to Oculus at E3 tomorrow and will report what else they have to say thereafter.

palmer-flipping-out

Atajrubah is an Arabian Inspired Open World Surivival Game for the Oculus Rift – Developer Update

By
Paul James
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0

There is a chance you may not have seen Atajrubah before, but it’s one of the earlier titles to be launched pledging to be built from the ground up for the Oculus Rift. The development team describe the game as a ‘Arabian inspired Survival Game for the Oculus Rift and traditional input devices’, an intriguing and refreshingly little explored concept, especially in the VR gaming space.

The game is set in a fantasy desert environment bearing a striking resemblance to the middle-east during the 30s and 40s. You’ll be able to explore the world along with others online, seeking out treasures and secrets as you go. To summarise the gameplay style, I’l borrow a neat sentence from the team’s IndieGogo Campaign: “Think Minecraft meets DayZ meets the Middle East, but with Ghuls and Djinn instead of Zombies or Creepers.”

So, how’s development going? We asked Alan Robinson, Lead Developer at Nexy Media to give us an update and share some images of the game in action. Over to Alan:

The past couple months since Comicon Dubai have seen Atajrubah get a total overhaul. We’ve switched to Unreal Engine 4,welcomed new team members on board, got Atajrubah running on different platforms and much more. Its been such an exciting experience watching the game grow and working with Unreal Engine 4 has been a great experience thus far.

[Coding and Technical]

Steamworks was integrated fairly easily early on. In addition to that we’ve got Atajrubah running on Mac and plan on approaching a Linux build in the coming weeks.Over the past week or so I’ve been tackling some technical work in Unreal Engine4 by setting up foliage meshes,Level Of Detail and a flexible terrain material setup.This will help myself and the environment artist more easily decorate a vast yet varied and performance efficient world for players to explore.

[New Team Members]

As with any development team and especially so with an independent one , team members tend to move on when bigger opportunities arise. Irsyad Ishak our concept artist and Joe Dodd our character artist, were both fortunate enough to get hired full time at studios in Singapore and Houston respectively.

Fortunately we have found some amazingly talented artists to fill their roles, I’ve provided some information about the new team members below.

Team Member: Tien Chi
Role: Concept Artist
Portfolio: http://www.artoftienchi.com/portfolio.html

Tien has been hard at work creating all kinds of model sheets and concept pieces to guide and inspire myself and the other team members.

Team Member: Dan Hitchen
Role: Character Artist
Portfolio: http://www.danhitchen3d.co.uk

Dan has taken on the task of overhauling the character assets for Atajrubah, at present he’s in the process of finishing the texturing process for the sculpt below.

[Atajrubah Male Player Character]
[Atajrubah Male Player Character]
And how about those in-game screenshots? Glad you asked:

Many thanks to Alan for the update, we’ll keep you posted on the game’s progress. In the mean time, check out the title’s Steam Greenlight page here.

E3 2014: Electronic Arts Press Conference Official Live Stream @ 12:00pm PDT / 8:00pm BST

By
Paul James
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0

Big, bad Electronics Arts, one of the biggest publisher of games throughout the globe are large enough to warrant their own press EA-Logoconference alongside the platform manufacturers. Expect a slew of sports franchises and sequels then. So, why include them in this list? Well, quite some time back DICE, developers of Battlefield and the Frostbite engine said they were looking into supporting the Oculus Rift although nothing public ever came of that. Furthermore, long time VR wish-list participant Mirror’s Edge 2 has had concept art leaked recently, suggesting we’re likely to see more of this game at the show. Mirrors Edge 2 is thought to use Frostbite 2, EA’s engine of choice so it’s possible we may have an incredible VR announcement waiting for us. However, to temper this wild speculation (as that’s what it is), EA have already been clear theOculus Rift would have to have sold significant numbers before it threw it’s hat in the VR ring.

So, perhaps skip this unless you already have an interest in what they’re likely to to show. We’ll of course let you know if these speculations become reality.

Video should appear below.

Watch live video from Twitch on www.twitch.tv

E3 2014: Microsoft Press Conference Official LiveStream @ (9:30am PDT / 5:30pm BST)

By
Paul James
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2

ms_logoMicrosoft and their new Xbox One console have played catchup to it’s primary competitor, Sony’s Playstation 4 in both PR and Gamer Kudos since before it’s launch late last year. Sony’s lead was compounded earlier this year at GDC when their worst kept secret in gaming was finally unveiled, a VR Headset named Project Morpheus. Ever since, people have speculated if and when Microsoft would respond with a virtual reality headset of their own. E3 2014 would be the perfect time to announce and although the chances are slim MS will announce anything VR related, we’re hopeful regardless.

Update: Looks like Twitch are having some serious load issues. For an alternative stream, head over to Spike TV here.

Video should appear embedded below:

Watch live video from Twitch on www.twitch.tv

E3 2014 Day Zero Breakdown – Press Conference Times, Video Streams and What We Might (or Might not) See

By
Paul James
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1

The gaming calendar’s biggest event is now upon us and as usual the hype train is stoked and ready to steam! Although the E3 show floor proper doesn’t open its doors until tomorrow, as has become customary, the big players in the industry are getting in early with their dedicated press events.

We know navigating this explosion of news and event can be a nightmare for readers, so we’ve cobbled together a summary of times and location on the web you can get your VR gaming news fix. These will all have a VR slant as is to be expected. And, as is customary around this time, we’ve also thrown in some thoughts on what we’re likely to see and a healthy dose of wild speculation for good measure. Please note, the breakdown only includes events where we think there’s a chance of some virtual reality related new occurring.

E3 Press Conference Timetable – Including Major Timezones For Easy Lookup

First up, the excellent fellows over at the NeoGaf gaming forum (many thanks to forum user Rösti and DeMatador) have put together a brilliant at-a-glance guide for gamers around the world including all major press conferences in all major timezones. Use this as your go to guide for Day Zero of the conference.

e3times2014

Press Conference Schedule and Where to Watch the Live Streams

Finally with E3 2014, we have a central respository for event video streaming as Twitch.TV has been nominated the official streaming partner of E3 2014. All the major players are using the service to broadcast their events live although much more will also be covered by Twitch over the coming days. We’ll be posting stories for each of the events with embedded streams for convenience on Road to VR a little later on.

Below we’ve broken down each event and what highlights might be expected, rumoured or what wild speculation we can concoct just for fun.

—

Microsoft [9:30am PDT / 5:30pm BST] – 90 Minutes

ms_logoMicrosoft and their new Xbox One console have played catchup to it’s primary competitor, Sony’s Playstation 4 in both PR and Gamer Kudos since before it’s launch late last year. Sony’s lead was compounded earlier this year at GDC when their worst kept secret in gaming was finally unveiled, a VR Headset named Project Morpheus. Ever since, people have speculated if and when Microsoft would respond with a virtual reality headset of their own. E3 2014 would be the perfect time to announce and although the chances are slim MS will announce anything VR related, we’re hopeful regardless.

You can watch the Twitch stream here and via the official Microsoft hub page here.

Electronic Arts (EA) [12:00pm PDT / 8:00pm BST] – 60 Minutes

Big, bad Electronics Arts, one of the biggest publisher of games throughout the globe are large enough to warrant their own press EA-Logoconference alongside the platform manufacturers. Expect a slew of sports franchises and sequels then. So, why include them in this list? Well, quite some time back DICE, developers of Battlefield and the Frostbite engine said they were looking into supporting the Oculus Rift although nothing public ever came of that. Furthermore, long time VR wish-list participant Mirror’s Edge 2 has had concept art leaked recently, suggesting we’re likely to see more of this game at the show. Mirrors Edge 2 is thought to use Frostbite 2, EA’s engine of choice so it’s possible we may have an incredible VR announcement waiting for us. However, to temper this wild speculation (as that’s what it is), EA have already been clear the Oculus Rift would have to have sold significant numbers before it threw it’s hat in the VR ring.

So, perhaps skip this unless you already have an interest in what they’re likely to to show. We’ll of course let you know if these speculations become reality.

You can find the Twitch stream here and the official EA Hub page here.

Palmer Luckey Premieres New Oculus Rift Game [Immediately Following EA – approx. 1pm PDT / 9pm BST]

palmer luckey oculus rift price facebook
Palmer Luckey, Founder of Oculus VR

Gametrailers, the video streaming gaming news channel, are also providing interviews and commentary during the E3 2014 show. Of particular interest to virtual reality fans though is an appearance by none other than Palmer Luckey, who it’s reported will unveil a brand new title for the Oculus Rift – up to now unseen by the public. The game is likely to be the recently announced Oculus VR’s Co-Published Luckys Tale hopefully with a live demo of the game in action. Fingers crossed for even more gaming news from Luckey during the appearance.

Catch the Gametrailers / Spike TV stream here.

Sony [6:00pm PDT / 2:00am BST] – Up to 120 Mins

sony-logoSony became console land’s great white VR hope at GDC earlier this year when they announced the existence of Project Morpheus, a dedicated VR Headset for the Playstation 4. Along with a re-animation of the dorment Playstation Move controllers, Sony demo’d the system heavily throughout the show and it’s fair to say made a very good impression on us. And, although Sony has been very careful to emphasise the development / prototypical nature of Morpheus, it hasn’t escaped people’s attention that it looks an awful lot like a finished product. Combine that with their declaration they’d been working on the project for years and you start to wonder if Sony isn’t poised for a release of their VR entrant very soon, perhaps even this year.

We’re hoping to hear from Sony when Morpheus may go on sale and perhaps even a look at what they plan to release to consumer. In addition, look out for games made exclusively for Project Morpheus at the show and perhaps the appearance of standard games with VR functionality announced during the conference. None of the former of course is confirmed, but we’d be surprised Sony would make such a huge splash at GDC without following up on it at E3. We shall see.

Catch the Twitch feed here and Gametrailers’ coverage here

—–

And that’s your lot for Day Zero of E3 2014. We’ll of course be bringing you the stories as they break with as much detail as possible. Ben Lang and Reverend Kyle are both on the ground throughout the show to help bring you the latest VR news as we find it. Stay Tuned!

Kevin Williams – A Wider FOV

By
Ben Lang
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4

This marks the first in a semi-regular feature in what I hope will be covering the wider aspects of the re-emergence of virtual reality into the commercial and consumer sector. My consultancy, KWP, and our news service The Stinger Report are beginning to be invited to a number of events where VR, and those VR headsets hoping to break into the market, are being demonstrated—many of these events would be totally off the radar of most of the VR community. With this series I hope to give a brief snapshot of the action, to give our readers a wider field of view on the immersive entertainment space.

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