First revealed over three years ago, Human Interact’s Starship Commander: Arcade offered an enticing prospect, a cinematic virtual reality (VR) experience which only required your voice to operate. Initially released for VR arcades in 2018, the studio will be bringing the title to PC VR headsets in a couple of weeks.
Starship Commander: Arcade is based around a choose-your-own-adventure narrative, where you talk to machine-learning-based AI characters who respond to your every statement. Featuring Human Interact’s COO and co-founder Sophie Wright as Sergeant Sarah Pearson, you’re sent on a mission to destroy a secret alien facility.
As mentioned, the main hook of Starship Commander: Arcade is its voice interaction. Using Microsoft’s Cognitive Services you’ll be able to talk with Pearson and command your fighter, the XR-71, asking the sergeant about your ship or telling it to blast off and into battle.
With this natural conversation method, there are no dialogue wheels or traditional gameplay controls, making Starship Commander: Arcade more of an interactive movie rather than a videogame. Therefore the title is geared to be as comfortable as possible for most players, its also completely seated.
Having previously previewed Starship Commander: Arcade, when discussing the integral voice feature VRFocus said: “What impressed, to begin with, was the fact that not only did it recognise my voice without any issue, the system was able to respond with some sort of answer almost instantaneously.”
Starship Commander: Arcade is scheduled to launch via Steam on 10th September 2020, retailing for £5.79 GBP/$7.99 USD. Supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets, the title also features a non-VR mode as well, requiring a mouse and microphone. Also, there’s a free 52 minute documentary about the making of Starship Commander: Arcade called Passion at All Costs.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of the title, reporting back with any further updates.
via Mint VR