Who doesn't love a good Nintendo game? If you're looking for great first-party titles for your Nintendo Switch, take a look at our list of the very best exclusives available right now.
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Creative companies are exploring new innovative ways of combining virtual reality (VR) with real-world effects, such as Jeff Wayne’s The Musical Version of ‘The War of The Worlds’: The Immersive Experience which is set to open in London, UK next year. If you happen to live in Los Angeles however, then you may want to head down to MWM Immersive’s (Gnomes & Goblins) new experience, Chained: A Victorian Nightmare, which opens today.
Using both VR and real-world elements, Chained: A Victorian Nightmare a spine-tingling version of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, where guests find themselves at the centre of the story.
Presented inside a fully detailed Victorian-era set, the single-guest experience has one audience member at a time enter and fitted with a VR headset by a professional actor. They’ll interact the entire time with live actors (utilizing motion capture) and other tactile objects, confronting their own past, present, and future through a harrowing journey.
Chained: A Victorian Nightmare is the brainchild of Justin Denton creator of the immersive Legion experience at San Diego Comic Con 2017. To help bring the project to life it was executive produced by MWM Immersive’s Ethan Stearns, producer of the Academy Award-winning VR project, Carne y Arena, and co-produced by Here Be Dragons.
“By combining the best of VR and immersive theater, Chained surpasses the limitations of each medium and lets the audience see, converse with, and even touch the impossible,” said Denton in a statement. “I grew up with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but in my mind’s eye I always imagined the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future as much darker and more intense than most adaptations. Audiences will walk away from Chained as though they have just awoken from a dark and beautiful fever dream full of self-discovery, fascination, fear, and wonder.”
“Chained embodies the creative drive and spirit of everyone at MWM Immersive,” MWM Immersive’s Executive Producer Ethan Stearns said. “It’s an experience that uses technology in the service of telling and experiencing a compelling story, not as a gimmick. At MWM Immersive we empower directors and writers to use whatever mediums are necessary to create the narrative experience they want to create and leave audiences delighted and awed.”
The experience is being held at experiential studio GreatCo (1655 Beverly Blvd), beginning today and running through to 6th January 2019. Tickets and further information can be found on the official Eventbrite page. For further events utilising VR, keep reading VRFocus.
War Dust is only in Early Access on Steam and is quite rough around the edges, but it’s certainly nailed the thrill of large-scale combat already. Pitting two teams of 32 players against one another, this is the largest scale VR shooter we’ve seen yet, channeling vibes from Battlefield with jets, helicopters, tanks, and more across various objective-based maps. Just yesterday the developers have introduced another brand new map.
We’ll be playing War Dust on Rift using a two Touch controllers. We’re starting around 1:30 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for around two hours. We’ll be livestreaming to the UploadVR Twitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves. Streaming is something we’re going to double down on doing more often very soon so you should get in on the ground floor of our Twitch community early! After today’s stream we’ll qualify for Twitch Affiliate status, which will introduce more perks for viewers (like a custom emote coming soon!) and more ways to interact during streams.
You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:
Watch live video from UploadVR on www.twitch.tv
You can see our most recent past archived streams over on our YouTube channel right here or in the Twitch video archives here. There’s lots of good stuff there!
Let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next and don’t forget to follow the Twitch channel and sign up for notifications.
Tagged with: livestream, War Dust
The post War Dust VR Livestream: Watch Us Play A Battlefield-Style VR FPS On Twitch appeared first on UploadVR.
Indie studio Trebuchet launched its jail-based crafting and trading title Prison Boss VR in August 2017 via Steam for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Today, the developer has announced support will be coming to PlayStation VR in December.
So you’ve gone and done something that the law doesn’t like and got yourself locked up. You can either just lay in the uncomfortable bed and try to sleep the hours away or use that time to be productive, and possibly get the respect of your fellow inmates.
As the name suggests, Prison Boss VR is all about becoming master of your own jail cell, crafting and trading to get what you want, when you want. With a single-player story mode set in four different prisons, there are 80 challenges to complete earning you reputation and cash, with which you can customise your cell and gain access to new equipment, thus taking on new jobs.
However, this is a prison after all and as an inmate you don’t have free rein to do whatever you so choose. You’ll need to keep an eye out for patrolling guards, hiding your carefully crafted things in furniture so they don’t take them away. If they do spot anything that’ll put an end to your activities.
In addition to the story mode players will also be able to unlock an Arcade Mode which challenges you with taking on task-after-task without being caught.
Prison Boss VR will be released for PlayStation VR next Tuesday 4th December. Check out Trebuchet’s new gameplay trailer below, and for any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Trinus VR, an app which uses video streaming your WiFi to let mobile and standalone VR headsets act as if they were PC VR headsets, launches in early access today for Daydream. Daydream is Google’s VR platform which runs on compatible smartphones and the Lenovo Mirge Solo standalone headset.
That means that if you have a Daydream compatible smartphone and a gaming PC, you can grab a cheap DayDream View headset for $50 on Amazon and jump into any SteamVR content that doesn’t rely on 6DoF headset or tracked controllers.
If you’re running Trinus with the Mirage Solo, things go to the next level. The software fully supports the headset’s 6DoF positional tracking, passing it through to SteamVR. You can duck, lean and walk around the experience (provided you disable the Solo’s built in 1×1 metre boundary system). It will also have the VR game on your PC render at the correct 75Hz refresh rate of the Mirage Solo.
Trinus also supports PSVR and Google Cardboard. For Oculus Go and Gear VR users, the open source project ALVR already provides the same functionality as Trinus for those headsets. Trinus tell us they plan to add support for Go and Gear VR in Q1 2019.
Trinus recommends using a direct connection to the PC
To keep perceived latency low and compensate for dropped frames in the transmission, Trinus incorporates its own asynchronous reprojection on the headset itself. While this increases battery life, it’s generally effective at smoothening out the experience and bringing it much close to a real PC VR headset.
Of course, the problem with Trinus and all apps like it is that image quality and latency still don’t match using a real PC VR headset. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t caused by the wireless transmission itself (in fact, Trinus even supports wired over USB)- it’s actually the compression. Neither WiFi nor USB have sufficient bandwidth to transfer the raw image to a VR headset, so compression is used. This introduces artefacts to the image, but it also adds latency because it takes the PC time to encode each frame (encoding is more computationally expensive than decoding if at an acceptable quality level).
The main thing that prevents Trinus from being a true PC VR solution is Daydream’s controller, however. While it has a touchpad, it lacks even a basic trigger, and is rotation-only 3DoF, not 6DoF positional. You can pair two controllers at once and Trinus supports this, but most of SteamVR’s content really needs positional tracked input to be playable. Trinus really only works well as a solution for playing gamepad games.
Imperfections aside, Trinus delivers on the goal of providing you with a basic gamepad-input PC VR experience for a fraction of the cost of a PC VR headset. With it now supporting Daydream, your Mirage Solo can take on a new role entirely. We expect for many it will be a “gateway drug” to buying a dedicated PC VR headset for Christmas.
The post Trinus VR Comes To Daydream, So Now The Mirage Solo Can Act As A PC VR Headset Too appeared first on UploadVR.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’ve always been enthralled by video games, and I spent the better part of my childhood in arcades lining up quarters on the glass screens of shooters like Space Invaders, Galaga and Phoenix to mark my place in line. Some 30 years later, wave shooters are one of the most prevalent VR game genres. Now one of the earliest and most recognized – Space Pirate Trainer (SPT) – has just made its debut as a full-release game after being in early access for well over a year.
At its heart, SPT is very similar to the aforementioned arcade games: fast, frantic and frenetic. The swarm-like, increasingly difficult waves of enemies remind me of a virtual reality Geometry Wars, but with distinct levels and populated with droids and drones instead of shapes.
The concept is simple: grab a gun (or shield, but more on that later) in each hand and blast as many droids as you can out of the air as fast as possible. Your pistols have a variety of fire modes – single-shot, pulse, beam, scattershot, rail, grenades and so on – that can be switched on the fly. Reach over your shoulder and you can swap out your gun for the most interesting – and in my opinion the most challenging yet also most fulfilling – weapons in Space Pirate Trainer: the volton, an energized baton that can transform into a shield, a melee weapon, a lasso and a mobile battery.
In shield mode, the volton will deflect incoming projectiles, and if you get lucky you might just strike a few drones on the return trip. You only get hit if a laser tags you directly where the sensors detect your HMD (although that didn’t stop me from spinning and worming my arms around incoming fire), and while you can just hold the shield up over your face in the early stages making it an easy-yet-blurry cakewalk, the powered buckler is relatively small, so you have to keep an eye out in later levels as projectiles will be coming in quickly and often from 180-degrees and sometimes from above. You can emit a larger force field which will float in front of you and divert approaching lasers , but it’s a quick burst and takes a while to replenish, so you’ll have to be efficient when you use it.
Not only can you pull in droids with the energy lasso and slam them to the ground or bash them with your shield, you can also use the volton to power various environmental weapon placements like a tesla coil and large laser turret that is absolutely devastating to large groups of enemies. Like I said, it’s one of the most interesting, creative and unique weapons in a game that otherwise features pretty standard sci-fi shooter variants.
There are also various power-ups you can activate through rapid combo kills such as hexagonal shield walls, quickfire super lasers and even your own helper drone that will float over you and take out incoming droids. There are also a variety of cosmetic weapon and environment skins you can unlock over time, but they don’t change the look that much, and you still feel like you’re in the same space port where you began.
When a shot comes close to hitting you, slow motion kicks in. Space Pirate Trainer features one of the best representations of Matrix or Max Payne-style bullet time I’ve experienced in VR, and I found myself staring right at an incoming laser pulse just before contorting my spine to gracefully spin out of the way of impending disaster. It all feels very fluid, and it made me feel like a superhero dancing my way through deadly raindrops.
Enemy droids range from tiny swarmers, darting laser hurlers, beam-shooting snipers and heavy rocket-firing menaces. Like any good arcade shooter, there are a few mini-bosses and even a huge motherbot thrown in for good measure. Overall though, the designs aren’t that varied, different or overly interesting. The real focus here is on the action, not the diversity.
Given the chaotic visuals in SPT with vast numbers of swarming, undulating drones on some levels, I appreciated the audible cues the droids made when they were about to fire. Once I got accustom to it, I quickly spun my head around to catch a glimpse of incoming fire. And the upbeat EDM soundtrack is a perfect complement to the futuristic, frantic action.
Overall, Space Pirate Trainer is a lot of fun and addictive, and features great mechanics, but it’s also a bit vanilla and predictable. It’s done well, but with myriad VR wave shooters to choose from now, it doesn’t stand out as novel or overly exciting. What it is, though, is a solid, energetic VR wave shooter that continued to challenge me and made me come back to try and get my initials emblazoned on the various leaderboards. Just like my old arcade days, I found myself saying “Let me try just one more time to get my initials on the board.”
Space Pirate Trainer finally released on PSVR in late November, 2018 after hitting PC VR headsets for the first time over two years ago. In terms of content the PSVR version appears to be identical and the developers did a great job of porting over the entire experience. Since the PSVR uses just one single front-facing camera, the ideal gameplay experience is to always face forward, which fits Space Pirate Trainer very well. The PS Move controllers work great for a simple game like this and I never noticed any controller tracking issues. Since I have a background of playing the game on Rift and Vive, I wanted to side step and duck and move around a lot more than the PSVR tracking allowed. The camera can only see a cone in front of itself and if I ducked too low to dodge or sidestepped too far it couldn’t see me anymore. Once I got used to that limitation, it wasn’t much of an issue. The end result is a game that feels true to its PC VR roots in spite of the limiting tracking space afforded on Sony’s headset. Still highly recommended, but at this stage of the industry it’s a hard sell over other more robust and fully-featured shooters. (PSVR verdict written by Games Editor David Jagneaux.)
Space Pirate Trainer 1.0 is now available on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR. Check out our review guidelines to find out more about our process.
Tagged with: space pirate trainer
The post Space Pirate Trainer Review: Time To Pull Out Those Blasters And Scream V-Arrrrrrrrr! (Update) appeared first on UploadVR.
The weekly vendor in Destiny 2: Forsaken always brings Exotic weapons and armor, some of the toughest loot to find in the game. Here's everything you need to know to track down Xur: Where he is, when he shows up, and what he's stocking.
The post ‘Destiny 2’: Where to find Xur for the weekend of November 30 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Bethesda has announced that their upcoming mobile game The Elder Scrolls: Blades will not release until “Early 2019”. The previously stated release window was Autumn 2018. Blades is a new installation in The Elder Scrolls series made for mobile devices and is planned to eventually release on PC, consoles, and even VR headsets.
The game was first announced at E3 2018. On stage, Bethesda’s director & executive producer Todd Howard stated that the game would be available for all levels of VR, from mobile VR to high end PC VR.
The announcement today only mentions that iOS and Android are coming in early 2019. While this could technically also include Android based VR platforms like Oculus Go and Google Daydream, it seems unlikely. The more likely situation here is that the VR version will come later in 2019 (at the earliest) as a lower priority.
It’s not clear what has caused the delay for Blades. In an interview with Geoff Keighley at the time of the announcement, Todd Howard said that his ideal scenario was to release it right after E3. Perhaps the recent issues and controversy with Fallout 76 have caused the company to reprioritize their developers, although it could be unrelated.
We also still don’t know exactly which VR platforms the game will land on. With Oculus Quest releasing in 2019 too however, Blades could be that headset’s biggest hit, or greatest missed opportunity. We’ll keep you updated on any further news about Blades from Bethesda.
Tagged with: Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, VR gaming
The post The Elder Scrolls: Blades Mobile Version Delayed To 2019 appeared first on UploadVR.
The Xbox One has evolved over the years, but so have its problems. Thankfully, we have solutions for some of the console's most enduring problems, whether you're experiencing issues with connectivity or your discs.
The post The most common Xbox One problems, and how to fix them appeared first on Digital Trends.
After more than two years, Niantic's Pokémon Go is finally going to get trainer battles. The developer teased the news on Twitter with a series of cryptic images and videos before making it official.
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Battlefield V developer Dice has detailed the first Tides of War update coming to the game December 4. It will include a new campaign mission and multiplayer map, as well as other quality of life changes.
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BioWare announced an upcoming action role-playing game called 'Anthem' at EA Play 2017. Here's everything we know about the game so far, including gameplay, DLC, and when you'll be able to play it.
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In September web browser developer Mozilla launched its dedicated virtual reality (VR) browser to facilitate seamless movement between the 2D web and the immersive web, Firefox Reality. Today, the company has announced the first major update to the app, adding new features whilst improving others.
With the release of Firefox Reality 1.1 new features included are 360 video support with a new dedicated theatre viewing mode, additional language support in the form of Chinese (Mandarin – simplified and traditional), French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean, plus expanded voice search support to the new localised languages.
Local bookmarks have also been added (cross-device syncing is coming soon) alongside automatic search and domain suggestions in URL bar. The 2D UI performance has been improved as well.
In an expansion to the Firefox Reality content feed, Mozilla has added cult director/designer Keiichi Matsuda’s video series, including his latest creation, Merger.
“Keiichi’s work explores how emerging technology will impact our future lives,” a press statement explains. “His earlier video HYPER-REALITY presents a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media. His new film Merger is about the future of work. Set against the backdrop of AI-run corporations, a woman finds herself caught between virtual and physical reality, human and machine. As she fights for her economic survival, she finds herself immersed in the cult of productivity, in search of the ultimate interface. This short film documents her last 4 minutes on earth.”
Firefox Reality 1.1 is now available for download in the Viveport, Oculus, and Daydream app stores, supporting Vive Wave devices, Oculus Go and Google Daydream View respectively. You’ll find the full release notes on Github, and for further updates keep reading VRFocus.
Almost a year ago to the day it opened, IMAX is closing down its only European VR center.
The UK-based center in Manchester’s Trafford Odeon cinema has now closed up shop, Variety reports. This is the latest in a long line of closures for the VR initiative, which kicked off in early 2017 with the hopes of becoming one of the definitive location-based VR experiences around the world. Adding in recent closures for centers in New York and elsewhere, IMAX is left with less than half of the locations it opened last year.
Just three centers remain open in Bangkok, Los Angeles and Toronto. IMAX previously confirmed that it has no plans to open up any new locations in 2019.
These centers were billed as ‘pilot runs’ that mainly featured VR experiences you could have at home, like timed demos of Superhot VR and Star Wars: Trials on Tattooine. The company had planned on eventually creating unique experiences that would complement current theatrical releases. Following the closure of New York and Shangai centers in mid-2018 IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond said: “The consumer reaction was extremely positive, but the numbers just weren’t there.”
But trouble has been afoot for IMAX and VR for some time. Earlier this year the company also put the breaks on its work on a premium 360-degree camera being developed with Google. It also planned to partner with Acer and Starbreeze’s StarVR to launch its centers, but most of the locations ended up using an HTC Vive and now there are reports that StarVR could be on the way out too.
Tagged with: IMAX VR
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Need to learn how to live stream on YouTube with OBS? You'll need to set up the software and have a YouTube channel ready to go, but if you've done all that, linking them together is quick and easy.
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Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and the Pillars of Eternity series, teased its new RPG though advertisements involving a space gun and a skin cream. The RPG will be unveiled at The Game Awards 2018.
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For the most part, Gear VR and Oculus Go share almost the exact same content library, but there’s one glaring omission on Go’s side: Minecraft. Mojang’s smash hit game hasn’t shown up on Oculus’ standalone headset since the hardware launched earlier this year, and we’ve long wondered if it would ever arrive.
Well, Mojang says you need to let them know.
A verified Minecraft developer going by the name of CornerHard on Reddit has been encouraging VR fans to tell Mojang it wants the game on Go via a feedback channel on the official website. “I can’t talk about details at this time, but upvoting that feedback link is the best way to tell the people calling the shots that you are interested in Minecraft on Oculus Go,” the developer said.
This adds fuel to a fire initially started by John Carmack, who earlier this month said that there was ‘some progress’ on getting one of two of the most request Go apps onto the platform. The other app was YouTube which launched this month, meaning it’s likely the remaining one is Minecraft.
Right now the feedback channel only has 106 upvotes, so Oculus Go users will need to gather in force if they really want this to become a reality. Given Gear and Go are, in Oculus’ words, ‘binary compatible’, it shouldn’t be too much effort to get the game working on Go in theory. Go does support Bluetooth gamepads, which is all you can use to play the mobile VR version, but we’d love to see the game get full motion controller support too.
Tagged with: Minecraft
The post Minecraft Dev Encourages Fans To Tell Mojang They Want Game On Go appeared first on UploadVR.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) are well known for putting together interesting deals and bundles for virtual reality (VR) headset PlayStation VR. A lot tend to be North American-based like the recent Borderlands 2 VR and Beat Saber Bundle, but now European customers will be getting their own specialised offer. SIE has announced the PlayStation VR Mega Pack bundle which will feature five top titles.
The new bundle will include the headset, PlayStation Camera, and voucher codes to digitally download the following five titles: Astro Bot Rescue Mission, WipEout Omega Collection, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, and PlayStation VR Worlds.
That’s quite the variety of gameplay types, with the excellent Astro Bot Rescue Mission probably the most sought after of the bunch since it launched in October with rave reviews. VRFocus gave it a solid four stars in our review saying: “it is a great old-school platformer for the VR era, bringing some of the best features of both 2D and 3D platformers of old and incorporating VR in a way that doesn’t feel awkward. This is a fun, lighthearted way to spend some time in VR, and worth checking out.”
WipEout Omega Collection naturally offers a much more intense experience thanks to its blisteringly fast racing speeds, so it’s well worth playing after you’ve got used to VR somewhat.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR is where a lot of gamers will likely spend their time as it offers the most gameplay time, with its heavy role-playing game (RPG) mechanics there’s plenty to see and do in this massive VR experience.
Or for those after a bit more visceral, gun-toting videogame then Doom VFR has all that you need. Gaining a full five stars in VRFocus’ review, we said: “Ultimately DOOM VFR stands as a fine example of just what can be achieved with the FPS genre in VR as of today, lining-up against Robo Recall as an action-heavy experience that throws the rulebook out of the window.”
Lastly there’s original launch title PlayStation VR Worlds, which features a selection of smaller games and is a great way of introducing people to the VR experience.
The PlayStation VR Mega Pack bundle is due to launch in the UK on Monday 3rd December and 4th December in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. No official price has yet been given although some retailers have it listed for €329.00 EUR/ £290 GBP (most likely a place holder). When the official price is announced VRFocus will let you know.
After creating virtual reality (VR) pop-up experience Somnai, London-based creative agency dotdotdot has announced its next project, Jeff Wayne’s The Musical Version of ‘The War of The Worlds’: The Immersive Experience, which is coming to London, UK in May 2019.
Composer Jeff Wayne has partnered with the company to re-imagine his musical work, combining immersive theatre, VR, holograms and other next-generation technology. Set inside The Old London Metal Exchange; a 22,000-square foot multi-level site in Central London, the multisensory experience will give audiences the chance to live through the Martian invasion of 1898.
With a 90 minute runtime live and virtual actors will guide small groups as they walk, crawl and slide through different scenes, being able to smell the grass and feel the chill of the story’s famous Horsell Common, physically feel the ground shake as the first cylinder lands and witness an enormous Martian Fighting Machine rise above them in VR.
Describing his involvement in the immersive experience, Jeff Wayne, composer/producer of The Musical Version of ‘The War of The Worlds’ said in a statement: “It’s incredible to work with dotdotdot. Taking my Musical Version of ‘The War of The Worlds’ and turning it into a virtual reality experience is groundbreaking, and I can’t wait to ‘live’ it myself.”
Andrew McGuinness, founder and CEO of dotdotdot further explains what the experience will be like: “By using technology in a way never been seen before, we are able to allow people to step within and feel part of the story rather than simply observing from the outside. The scale of the production, the music, next-generation tech and theatre will work together to immerse the audience in the production in a way that will shock, surprise and delight. Guests will also experience the same emotions they would feel if they were actually living within the story, from joy to genuine fear.”
Jeff Wayne’s The Musical Version of ‘The War of The Worlds’: The Immersive Experience opens at the Old Metal Exchange in London on 31st May 2019. Tickets are available from today, starting at £39.50 GBP for the advance Standard junior pass (age 12 – 15), with the advance Standard adult pass (age 16+) ticket retailing for £49.50. For further updates keep reading VRFocus.
The original Pokémon Red and Blue games starred a trainer named Red, and he can actually be located and battled in Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee! for Nintendo Switch.
The post ‘Pokémon: Let’s Go’: How to find Red, Blue, and Green appeared first on Digital Trends.
It is finally here. This week marks the final week of challenges for season 6 with the Fortnite week 10 challenges. Of the challenges, the big one looks to be the Fortnite vehicle timed trials challenge. We have the locations and how-to for it right here so you can complete this challenge easily.
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4K display tech is here, but there's more to running stuff at such a high display resolution than just handing over the dough for a 4K-equipped display. Here's what you need to run 4K.
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The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are the two big names in the virtual reality arena, but most people can only afford one. Our comparison tells you which is best when you pit the Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive.
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Ever had problems with your sat nav where you’ve missed a turning because the directions weren’t clear, whether via the audio or confusing screen image? Well, augmented reality (AR) startup Phiar (pronounced ‘Fire’), is developing its own smartphone navigation system to combat just those problems, recently securing $3 million USD in funding to aid development.
The idea behind the Phiar system is to make using satellite navigation easier and safer, so drivers don’t have to work out what the map is telling them whilst driving.
“The idea came after taking too many wrong turns on the streets of Boston,” explains Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Chen-Ping Yu in a statement. “Trying to interpret directions from a two-dimensional map, especially at high speeds, is as difficult as it is dangerous. Navigation should be convenient and straightforward, and what we’re building is going to help people get to their destination faster and safer.”
Drivers will be able to download the app onto their smartphone then secure the device to their dashboard or windscreen for easy viewing. The app then augments the actual world in front of them for straightforward navigation.
“We want our users to keep their eyes on the road, looking at the real world rather than a 2D rendering of it,” says Ivy Li, Phiar Co-founder and CTO. “What makes the experience so unique is the live AR path overlays, made possible by our super-efficient computer vision and deep learning AI that runs on your smartphone. This augments your surroundings rather than distracting you from them.”
Phiar formed during a Y Combinator in early 2018 to solve directional and safety issues experienced by users of traditional two-dimensional navigation systems. The recent seed round was co-led by the Venture Reality Fund and Norwest Venture Partners, with additional participation from Anorak Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Zeno Ventures, Cross Culture Ventures, GFR Fund, Y Combinator, Innolinks Ventures and Half Court Ventures.
The company expect to launch the software onto mobile app stores in mid-2019. For further updates from Phiar, keep reading VRFocus.
Sony is launching a new PSVR bundle in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland next week. The ‘Mega Pack’ includes the headset, camera bar, Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, Astro Bot, and WipEout: Omega Collection. It also includes the PlayStation Worlds VR demo reel which gives you a taste of what’s possible in VR.
What the pack doesn’t include is Playstation Move controllers. If you want your hands in VR, you’ll need to buy those separately. They aren’t useful for Astro Bot or WipEout, but for Skyrim VR, Doom VFR and PlayStation VR Worlds they really take the VR experience to the next level, so we highly recommend buying them too if you’re going for this bundle.
The company hasn’t announced the price yet, but given the pricing of the other similar PSVR bundles we’d expect it to come in at around £200. This is a box that will be under many European Christmas trees this year.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR is the whole game brought into virutal reality – DLC and all. This is no “experience” or experiment, this is the whole >100 hour game and all of its gameplay mechanics. We were highly impressed when we reviewed the game, stating:
For a game that wasn’t originally designed for VR at all and has been ported first to the least powerful of the big three VR platforms in the PSVR, Skyrim VR is nothing short of impressive. This really is the Skyrim that you know and love, but now you can enjoy it like never before with the immersive presence of a VR headset. With a large variety of control schemes to choose from and hundreds of hours of content, this is a game that all RPG fans should play as long as you can look past the sometimes glaring issues. And if you don’t own a PSVR yet, luckily there’s a new Skyrim VR bundle with your name on it.
DOOM VFR is not a port, it’s an entry in the popular gore shooter franchise made specifically for VR. While it provides some great VR action, there are some problems on the PSVR version. As we stated in our review:
While Skyrim VR made a great case for the VR port, Doom VFR brings us back to the drawing board. On PSVR, the game has its moments, largely thanks to the foundations it was built upon with the 2016 original. In the end, though, the real fight is with its awkward control setups that eventually led me back to play with just a standard gamepad. Though the foundations of a hugely enjoyable shooter are intact, VFR’s struggle with the platform’s limitations makes it feel like the VR support is holding it back more than anything.
Astro bot is one of those games that proves that 3rd person platformers can work just as well as 1st person games in VR. We really enjoyed reviewing this game, concluding:
Astro Bot is not here to reinvent the wheel or claim the throne as VR’s killer app; there are enough games trying to do that already. Instead, it fuzes the thrill of seeing a virtual world come to life with the dependably engaging gameplay of one of gaming’s most beloved genres and explores what that can mean with fascinating results. It’s a refreshing reminder of just how astonishing VR can be when there’s nothing in your way, and it’s an absolutely essential experience for any PSVR owner.
WipEout: Omega Collection is the Wipeout you dreamed of back in 1995. As we stated in our review:
Wipeout VR is an eccentric mix of new and old; a series delivering on the same kind of regular reliability it has for over two decades but from an entirely fresh perspective. Everything you love about Wipeout is here but with a new lease of life, from the violent crunch of combat to the twitch-like reactions needed to navigate the many courses from the seat of your vehicle. It’s both Wipeout as you love it and as you’ve never seen it before, and one of the very best games you can get on PSVR yet.
Tagged with: Astro Bot, Doom VFR, playstation vr worlds, PSVR, Skyrim VR, Wipeout VR
The post New PSVR ‘Mega Pack’ Europe Bundle Includes Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, Astro Bot, and WipEout: Omega Collection appeared first on UploadVR.
We’re diving back into Beat Saber for today’s livestream and focusing on our massive catalog of great custom tracks the community has produced. I’ve got 40 different custom tracks installed, plus the game’s original 10, so we should have plenty of content to peruse on today’s stream. Since we’re focusing on custom songs today, that means the stream will be on the PC version of Beat Saber since the new PSVR version cannot play custom tracks.
We’ll be playing Beat Saber on Rift using a two Touch controllers. We’re starting right around 12:30 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for about an hour and a half or more. We’ll be livestreaming to the UploadVR Twitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves. Streaming is something we’re going to double down on doing more often very soon so you should get in on the ground floor of our Twitch community early! You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:
Watch live video from UploadVR on www.twitch.tv
You can see our most recent past archived streams over on the UploadVR YouTube channel right here. There’s lots of good stuff there!
Let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next and don’t forget to follow the Twitch channel and sign up for notifications.
Tagged with: Beat Saber, livestream
The post Beat Saber Custom Songs Livestream – Outkast, Michael Jackson, Avicii, And More! appeared first on UploadVR.
The Oculus Rift brought back virtual reality and put a modern twist to it. Grab your Touch Controllers, put on your VR headset, and jump into the fun with some of the best Oculus Rift games available now.
The post The best Oculus Rift games available today appeared first on Digital Trends.
A big-screen adaptation of the Gears of War game franchise has been in development since 2016, but Universal Pictures just brought on a new screenwriter to tackle the story for the film.
The post ‘Gears of War’ movie brings in ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ screenwriter appeared first on Digital Trends.
Earlier this week virtual world Somnium Space launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise $10,000 USD over a couple of months by selling virtual land. With three days gone, the campaign has easily achieved its target with plenty more land up for grabs.
Somnium Space is an open, cross-platform virtual world that is currently in Early Access, where users can buy or rent land, creating their own little slice of virtual heaven. With plans for its own economy and in-game currency, the title currently has several multiplayer mini-games, a cinema and other locales, plus a couple of event being hosted every week.
But for the world to work people need to be encouraged to use it and invite others along helping create a dynamic space. Which is why the IndieGoGo campaign is focused around Somnium Space’s main saleable asset, land. The main funding tiers can be split down into two groups, size of the land and additional depth and height.
Firstly there’s the size of the land you want to buy:
These can be purchased individually, for example, the Small Land Parcel retails for $55, while the Large Land Parcel is $250. Or if you so choose there are bundle deals where you can get four Small Land Parcels for $190.
And just for extra flexibility, users can also by additional height and depth addons. So an extra 10 meters will cost you $25, or how about 50 meters for $150 if you really want to build big.
That’s not all, as you can take the hard work out of creating your own model by employing Somnium Space’s 3D modellers to build your dream location – or just use the platform’s own tool ‘The Builder’ to make your own.
The Somnium Space beta can be downloaded directly from its website or Steam for free, compatible with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
If you’re a fan of swords and sorcery like me then you’re likely quite pleased to see such a diversity of choices when it comes to scratching that good ol’ fantasy RPG itch in the immersive realm of VR. From lengthy single player adventures like Skyrim VR and The Mage’s Tale, to bespoke VR encounters like Vanishing Realms and Karnage Chronicles, to epic combat simulators such as Blade and Sorcery or Deus Vult, there are lots of options.
Shadow Legend from Vitruvius, the same studio behind the charming indie VR platformer that beat both Astro Bot and Moss to market, Mervils, aims to deliver yet another fantasy-soaked VR RPG experience due out on Steam and Oculus Home for Rift and Vive in February 2019.
Visually, I get heavy gothic vibes that seem similar in style and tone to SoulKeeper VR, one of the most visually impressive indie VR projects I’ve seen to date. Shadow Legend is certainly less polished than that one, but the stylings are still there.
We haven’t tried Shadow Legend for ourselves or even seen the game in action yet other than the above trailer, but it certainly sounds and looks promising. According to the press release, you’ll be able to use your own voice via recognition software to talk with characters and barter with merchants. Recently we’ve seen mods introduce similar functionality to Skyrim VR and it’s also been used well in games like Star Trek: Bridge Crew, The Inpatient, and Starship Commander.
The story in Shadow Legend revolves around the medieval time period and its ensuing crusades. In the game you’ll play as the Grand Master of the Knights Templar in this 5-6 hour long journey. Vitruvius has been working on the game for over two years.
After having experienced the visceral quality of melee combat in Blade and Sorcery, I can say with confidence that Shadow Legend very likely won’t live up to that bar in terms of its physics — and that’s okay. Blade and Sorcery is a physics/combat sandbox with little else going on, but Shadow Legend appears to be aiming to actually contain a relatively full game with a story, combat, inventory management, vast environments, and more.
We can’t wait to see more from Shadow Legend — VR needs more fleshed out narrative-driven games that feature melee combat as a focus. Shadow Legend is expected to have a beta period available sometime next week with its full release slated for February 2019 on Rift and Vive.
As of the time of this writing the Steam page isn’t up yet, but Shadow Legends should have its own “Coming Soon” page on Steam at this link by the time you’re reading this. Check that for more details!
Tagged with: Shadow Legend, vitruvius
The post Shadow Legend Is A Story-Driven VR RPG About The Medieval Crusades appeared first on UploadVR.
Having enjoyed Baobab Studio’s first two movies, Asteroids! and Invasion!, I’ve been looking forward to seeing how the studio has advanced with its latest offering Crow: The Legend. Animation projects (I feel) tend to be one of the best ways of showcasing how virtual reality (VR) works, laying out beautiful worlds that aren’t intrusive or intense, letting the viewer really soak in the world around them. And so with Baobab’s third film the team have once again created a rich experience, that this time adds a hint of user interaction.
The actual story is based on a Native American tale involving titular character Crow, who just so happens to be a beautiful bird, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and with a voice akin to a glamorous songbird. In his forest, he’s popular and admired by all the creatures, who come to listen to him sing. However, this idyllic life changes forever when the creatures experience their first winter. Cold and shivering they need to hatch a plan to survive, asking Crow to fly up to the heavens and request for summer to be returned. The only problem is that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Straight away it’s easy to tell that Baobab Studio design and feel from its other movies. There’s a lovely richness to the animation style and colour palette that invites the viewer to look around and really get a grounding for where they are in the scene. The characters almost seem to be right in front of you, close enough to pick up and sit on your lap.
All the animals themselves do come to life thanks to a well-chosen cast of actors, with the soulful John Legend taking the role of Crow (he was also executive producer on the production), with Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) as Skunk, and even Oprah Winfrey as ‘The One Who Creates Everything By Thinking’.
There are two things I especially enjoy about Crow: The Legend when it comes to VR movies. The first is simply duration. Coming in at around 20 minutes in length, Crow: The Legend is one of the longer immersive movies available, clocking in at around the same time as a cartoon on TV – minus the adverts of course. As such it doesn’t come across as some sort of taster to a bigger experience, it rightfully stands on its own two feet.
The second is interactivity. Just as I found with Spheres, adding that light touch of interaction can do the world of good connecting you to the material. It’s something I’m coming to expect from all this type of content, creators don’t just make use of VR’s 360 capabilities, use the controllers as well to properly showcase why it was made for VR. The interaction itself is only mild, helping move the story along at key points, but it’s enough that younger viewers should be enthralled.
Quite frankly if you haven’t seen Crow: The Legend already – I was a little late in watching it – then download it now. Because what’s better than a fun 20-minute animation is one that’s completely free. There’s nothing to dislike about Crow: The Legend and it’s another good VR showcase for showing to those new to the technology.
Microsoft's Xbox app can't do it all, but it does allow you to access your profile information and launch media content directly from your mobile device. Check out our quick guide on how to connect your smartphone to an Xbox One.
The post How to connect your phone to an Xbox One appeared first on Digital Trends.
Some parents concerned with the amount of time their children are spending with Fortnite have sent them to special camps where they can "detox" from electronic devices and video games.
The post ‘Fortnite’ addiction spurs parents to send their kids to video game rehab appeared first on Digital Trends.
A new product from computer vision startup Occipital could be a big help for companies and creators building new kinds of depth-sensing devices, like robots or mixed reality headsets that blur the line between VR and AR.
The $400 self-contained Structure Core is slated to ship in March — though the gadget is available earlier in limited supply for a higher price. The device is an evolution of an earlier pre-production unit offered as a developer kit. The new Structure Core is “a fully enclosed and self-contained sensor” with “a machined, anodized aluminum case; a bandpass-filtering glass front; and built-in attachment points for easy integration.”
Structure Core is available with one of two kinds of cameras integrated into it depending on the use case, either “a built-in ultra-wide visible camera with a 160° diagonal FOV for robust tracking or an 85° FOV RGB camera for color imagery or registered RGBD (color+depth) images.” Software for the new unit has also been updated to support a wider variety of use cases, including robot mapping and navigation.
In 2013, Occipital crowdfunded the Structure Sensor on Kickstarter, adding depth-sensing capabilities to the iPad long before Apple released ARKit. Even though ARKit does a pretty good job of understanding the world around an iPhone or iPad, the Structure Sensor is still available “for those who need a ready-to-use, high-quality depth sensor primarily for iOS devices.” In contrast, the new Structure Core “will be focused for those who need high-performance depth sensing designed for rapid integration into other types of products and on other platforms such as Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows.”
Tagged with: occipital
The post Occipital’s $399 Structure Core Senses Depth For New Device Categories appeared first on UploadVR.
VR’s about to get festive, but not in the way you might expect.
MWM Immersive today announced Chained: A Victorian Nightmare, a new location-based VR experience based on Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas story, A Christmas Carol. The piece is set to run at the GreatCo studio in LA from tomorrow until January 6th.
Chained won’t just be a standard VR experience though; it’ll also include elements of live theater. A single guest at a time is fitted with a VR headset in which they’ll go on a journey spanning their past, present and future. Actors using motion capture suits will appear inside VR, allowing the audience to interact with them in real-time. Outside of VR, though, there’s a fully Victorian-era set to explore.
The piece is directed by Justin Denton, best known for his work on the Legion VR experience shown at last year’s San Diego Comic Con. “I grew up with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but in my mind’s eye I always imagined the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future as much darker and more intense than most adaptations,” Denton said in a prepared statement. “Audiences will walk away from Chained as though they have just awoken from a dark and beautiful fever dream full of self discovery, fascination, fear, and wonder.”
Experiential VR studio Here Be Dragons also worked on the piece and Bruce Straley, Game Director on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, consulted on the story.
You can grab tickets to Chained from this Eventbrite page. They start at around $44.
Tagged with: Chained: A Victorian Nightmare
The post Chained: A Victorian Nightmare Is VR’s Take On A Christmas Carol appeared first on UploadVR.
It’s nearly time to swing into action with the full release of Levity Play’s Skyfront.
The airborne multiplayer shooter, which releases in Early Access late last year, will be launching its full version on December 20th, the developer confirmed today. The news was accompanied by the reveal of a launch trailer for the game which you can see below.
Skyfront arms players with jetpacks and sets them loose in levitating arenas to do battle in solo and team-based gameplay modes. A hook shot equipped to the player’s arm allows them to quickly navigate the terrain and get the jump on unsuspecting foes.
The full version of the game will feature four maps with three modes as well as a character progression system. You’ll be able to wield a range of weapons and abilities.
Look for Skyfront on Steam, Oculus Home and Viveport at the end of the month, with support for Rift and Vive.
Tagged with: Skyfront VR
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