7 Best VR Games We Played At GDC 2018
Beat Saber
Beat Saber feels like the next-generation rhythm game. Developer Hyperbolic Magnetism released a teaser trailer back in January that went viral on YouTube, which is a rare accomplishment for a VR game. As the name implies, the game combines lightsabers with music.
In Beat Saber, you wield a blue lightsaber with your right hand and a red lightsaber with your left. Blocks fly towards you that have blue or red triangles, which dictates which color lightsaber you should use and the direction you'll need to slash through them.
Beat Saber has high energy electronic audio tracks that were composed just for the game. Hyperbolic Magnetism asserts that its tailored music allows it to fine tune the beats to the rhythmic gameplay it wants to achieve.
The game will offer four different difficulty levels. The easiest mode should be a cakewalk for most, but at the higher difficulties, Beat Saber can feel pretty overwhelming. In addition to hitting beats, the game also has sound blocks with Xs on them that you need to avoid. There are also large red laser-like columns that fly towards you, which you need to physically step away from to avoid. Beat Saber shows a lot of promise and could be VR's DDR.
In Death
Many have described In Death as the Dark Souls of VR. Both games have similar art styles and feature challenging roguelike gameplay.
The premise behind the game is that you're dead and have to fight your way through purgatory. You'll face undead knights, ghouls, and archers within procedurally generated levels.
Combat is primarily focused on archery, which works well in VR. One controller acts as the bow, and the other hand allows you to pull back on the string to shoot. You'll be able to pick up different types of arrows that offer unique abilities. Fire arrows, for instance, can inflict more damage. You can pull out a shield from your back to defend yourself against knights or ghouls when they get too close. You can also use it to bash them to create some distance. The game is currently in early access, and developer Sólfar Studios tells us it's experimenting with incorporating melee mechanics as well.
In Death supports artificial locomotion, so you can move about the world via a joystick or trackpad, but the game also supports a unique teleportation mode that allows you to throw a lightning bolt on the ground to teleport through the world.
Budget Cuts
Budget Cuts is one of the most anticipated VR games in development. It's a stealth action game that requires you to sneak your way through a deadly robot-infested office. The robots can use their blasters to instantly vaporize you. Luckily, you can throw scissors and knives to kill them. You can also pick up and throw random office trinkets away from your trajectory as a distraction so you can make your escape.
The game relies on teleporting mechanics, but rather than using it as a crutch, teleporting is a key element of the game's design. With your teleporting gun, players can project an orb to a nearby location. The orb will serve as a preview window for the surrounding landscape before players decide to commit to the teleportation. Using this mechanic, you can survey the landscape for deadly robots before you make your next move.
Whether or not you own a VR headset, Budget Cuts is one to watch out for if you're a fan of stealth-action games.
Museum of Other Realities
From the studio that developed Fantastic Contraptions comes Museum of Other Realities. Like the name suggests, it's more of a VR museum than a game.
When you first enter the Museum of Other Realities, its layout looks very similar to other museums. Many of the 3D pieces of artwork within, however, were created with VR apps like Tilt Brush, Medium, and tools from Unity and Epic's Unreal Engine. Many of them feature subtle animations or project sounds and music depending on how you interact with them.
One of the coolest set pieces is being able to crawl into a tree to enter a massive Stranger Things 2 landscape with the kids from the show looking at a humongous Mind Flayer monster shrouded in darkness. It's very ominous and awesome.
Some of the artworks within The Museum of Other Realities feel like you're hopping into a portal to a different dimension. One exhibit lets you escape the museum to hop into outer space to explore a floating spaceship surrounded by little asteroids that you'll need to hop on to traverse the terrain.
Users will also be able to customize their own floating polygonal avatars. The developers intend the Museum of Other Realities to be a place where users can meet up, chat, and hang out.
Vacation Simulator
Vacation Simulator comes from Owlchemy Labs, the developers who made Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality and Job Simulator. It's a sequel of sorts to Job Simulator, because according to the developers, "after you job, you vacation."
The demo we played took place at a beach and featured similar gameplay and cartoonish humor to its predecessor. Floating cartoon robots talked to us and gave us different little mini-games to play. One game had us shooting balls at a net against a robot goalie. Another game presented three 2D images of the same sand castle from different angles and tasked us to recreate it using different 3D blocks.
Electronauts
Electronauts is more of a music creation tool that lets you be a VR DJ than a game. Your motion tracked controllers act as digital drumsticks that you can use to interact with the unique UI. Electronauts starts out by allowing you to hit virtual tonal drums to create a base melody, which then forms a loop in 4/4 time. From there, you can layer additional beats on top. The game also has sequencers and tools that allow you to change tempo, alter pitch, add sound effects, and more.
The way the game digitizes its music makes it difficult to create a song that sounds bad. If you're at all interested in being a electronic music producer, Electronauts is a game worth keeping your ears on.
Creed: Rise To Glory
From the developers of Raw Data and Sprint Vector, Creed: Rise To Glory is a boxing game inspired by the Ryan Coogler-directed film.
The game attempts to be part-simulator and part-arcadey boxer. One interesting VR problem the game tries to solve is melee combat occlusion. Typically, if you were to punch an opponent in VR, your hand would clip through them. Developer Survios, however, has implemented what it calls Active Ghosting Technology. It detaches your in-game arm from your real arm when you punch through an opponent so you don't see a boxing glove clip through them. Once your retract your arm, your virtual limb syncs back into place. It's an interesting mechanic that prevents players from simply flailing their arms to inflict damage. Survios also says that its system takes into account how much force you put behind your punches. So if you're playing Creed: Rise To Glory, you certainly don't want to pull your punches.
from GameSpot https://ift.tt/2GXxeLE