Legendary Tales is a VR dungeon crawler heading into Early Access on PC VR headsets, and now developers Urban Wolf Games have opened the call for testers as it moves into closed beta.
Legendary Tales, an ARPG coming to SteamVR headsets, is all about physics-based combat. The co-op dungeon crawler is set to include melee, ranged weapons, and magic spells. Unlike many VR dungeon crawlers, Legendary Tales isn’t set to be a randomly-generated roguelike, but rather focus on bespoke levels where you clear rooms, gain gold, and collect legendary items to aid you on your quest to exit the dungeon.
When it heads into Early Access sometime this year, the studio says it’s hoping to provide
“10+ hours” of gameplay to complete the dungeon. The game includes the option to team up with up to three other players, which may shorten or lengthen overall gameplay time.
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Image courtesy Urban Wolf Games
Image courtesy Urban Wolf Games
Image courtesy Urban Wolf Games
Image courtesy Urban Wolf Games
Legendary Tales is slated to launch on Steam sometime in 2021. A short demo for Legendary Tales was previous seen on SideQuest for Oculus Quest, however now the studio has reprioritized support for PC VR. A Quest version isn’t out of the question, the team sats, however they’re focusing on releasing on PC VR first. A small consolation: the studio has tested the game with both Oculus Link and Air Link, and say it works fine.
Potential beta testers are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and agree not to record and share videos and screenshots. Co-op will however be available for the beta testing period, the studio says. You can sign up for the closed beta here.
Oculus Quest 2 has everything you need in the box to get playing an awesome selection of VR games. Once you’ve owned it for a few weeks though, you’ll probably start to notice the headset’s inherent pain points, which can be solved with a few key aftermarket products. Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best basic accessories you may want to consider as a long-term VR user.
Upgrade Your Headstrap
With onboard computing, sensors, and battery all located inside the Oculus Quest 2, the device is decidedly front-heavy. You may not notice right away, but the more you play, the more those niggling comfort issues will arise. Your neck will thank you in the long run by replacing the stock fabric headstrap with a rigid one.
Facebook’s official headstrap replacements, the Elite Strap or Elite Battery Strap, provide good counterbalance to better center the headset’s bulk closer to the middle of your head. The Elite Battery Strap seems to be the best when it comes to counterbalancing and it also provides around 2 -3 hours of extra playtime thanks to the 4,676 mAh battery integrated in the back.
Elite Battery Strap | Photo by Road to VR
At $50 and $130 respectively (the Elite Battery Strap comes with a travel case) these are pricey, but effective solutions—provided you manage to get one that doesn’t eventually break. Quality has been an issue with these official straps in the past. Although Oculus has seemingly taken care of the issue by pulling affected items from sale, every once in a while support threads still pop up.
For around $30 – $40, you can get a a number of white label straps similar to the regular Elite Strap on Amazon that essentially do the same job. If you’re looking to save a couple bucks, many of them are well-rated by users. You can also get variants with external battery caddies on the back which provide more or less the same functionality as the Elite Battery Strap at a fraction of the price.
VR Cover or Spare Facepad
After playing VR games regularly over the next few months, you may start to notice grime and grease buildup on the face pad (also called ‘facial interface’) of your Quest 2. The stock face pad is basically a sponge, so to make headset sanitization simple, you should really invest in either a VR cover or a replacement pad that is easily cleanable.
Silicone VR Cover | Image courtesy VR Cover
There are thankfully a number of solutions on the market. VR Cover produces an official third-party facial interface replacement set for $30 which takes the place of the original. It comes with anti-fog airflow channels, removable nose guard and two wipeable PU leather-covered memory foam replacement pads.
VR Cover also makes a silicone cover for $14 that goes over the stock face pad. It offers a hand-washable medical-grade silicone construction and nose light guard too, which is handy. If you’re looking for a cheaper solution, for $9 you can buy a similar silicone cover on Amazon, although it’s unclear if the silicone used is the un-oiled variant seen in VR Cover’s version, which could cause skin irritation in users with sensitive skin. Whatever you buy, make sure it fits Quest 2 specifically since the headset has a unique face pad design.
Long USB-C Cables for Wired PC Play
Whether you’re just looking for comfortable charging during gameplay, or you want to connect Quest 2 to your computer via Oculus Link to use it as a PC VR headset, you probably want a cable long enough to get the job done.
Official Oculus Link Cable | Image courtesy Oculus
Oculus has the official 16-foot Link cable for $80; it’s lightweight thanks to its fiber optic design, but that’s still a pretty steep price to pay for a cable. Thankfully, any 3.0 USB-C cable will work, and there are tons on Amazon that will do the job. Just pick one, and you’re off to the virtual races.
Oculus Link is the lowest latency way to play PC VR games with Quest, although it’s not the most comfortable way since you’ll be tethered to your PC. To cut those wires, you may need to modify some things about your wireless network setup that could let you play via Wi-Fi. Remember, to play PC VR games via Link, you’ll need a VR-ready PC.
Wi-Fi Router for Wirelessly PC VR Games
Cables are so 2020. With Oculus Air Link you can stream SteamVR and Rift exclusive games over Wi-Fi and play them wirelessly just like native Quest games.
If you don’t have a dual-band router and are still using that old 2.4GHz box, it might be time to upgrade, because Oculus recommends connecting to Wi-Fi via 5GHz band (AC or AX).
You can find dual-band Wi-Fi routers for as low as $40 on Amazon, however the more you pay, generally the better range you get. Oculus recommends having your PC connected to a router or access point via ethernet cable, and in the same room as the headset or in line of sight. The better the connection, the lower the latency involved.
Make Charging Easier
Ok, so you might have a nice and long charging cable now, but that may not be enough to stop you from forgetting to top up all of your batteries. There’s a few products out there that help you keep your headset and controllers charged at all times.
Anker offers a nifty Quest 2 Charging Dock for $87, which not only acts as a nice place to rest your headset and Touch controllers when not in use, but also makes sure they’re always at 100% battery when you’re ready to play. The only issue is it’s often out of stock, although there’s a few other things you can grab that can still make life a little easier.
Image courtesy Anker Innovations
A quick and easy solution is a ready supply of rechargeable AA batteries and battery charger. You’ll find them everywhere, from your local supermarket, to IKEA, to Amazon. Many long-term VR users go for Panasonic’s name brand Eneloop batteries, which offer a low discharge rate when not in user and high rechargeability, but here’s an insider tip: the AmazonBasics and IKEA 2450 mAh Lada batteries are very similar for a much cheaper per-battery price. You’ll want plenty—at least four to make sure you always have a spare ready for when Quest throws you the dreaded low battery warning. Oculus suggests 1.5 V batteries, but your regular 1.2 V AAs work just fine.
On the topic of batteries, there are also USB-rechargable batteries from Survival Frog that have a USB connector integrated into the battery’s design. A four pack will cost you $15, and come at a lower 1450 mAh rating, but it certainly gets major points for reducing clutter.
Image courtesy Survival Frog
Headset charging can also be made simple too without buying Anker’s special dock. A set of USB-C magnetic cables on Amazon for as little as $13 will do the trick, although you can’t use it for Link gameplay, only charging.
Carrying Cases
Maybe you haven’t really needed to leave your house, but eventually you’ll want to take your Quest over to show off some of your favorite games and experiences to friends and family. Quest 2 is pretty rough and tumble, but you’ll still probably want to protect your investment from dings and scratches.
Photo by Road to VR
Oculus has a stylish, albeit fairly cheap-feeling Quest 2 carrying case for $50 which will get the job done. It can fit everything you need, including Touch controllers and Elite Straps. It’s nearly as thin as the headset itself, which makes it good for slipping into a backpack or carry-on.
That said, Oculus Quest 2 isn’t super unique in its form-factor, so you have plenty of cases to choose from to get the job done. Watch out though, if you bought a third-party head strap, you’ll need to double check there’s enough room in there to fit it, since the white label straps tend to be a bit bulkier than the official Elite Straps.
Image courtesy Esimen, Amazon
For $39, the Esimen Quest 2 case is a rigid case made from a high-density material that can fit everything. That includes the company’s bulkier third-party headstrap and many similar-looking white label straps.
Protect Your Glasses (and Lenses too)
Glasses wearers already have the plastic off-set included in the box, which puts a bit more room between the Quest 2’s lenses and your precision specs. This may work for a majority of users, but if you’re looking for some special kit, you’ve come to the right place.
Many long-term VR users and developers have opted for a separate pair of low-profile glasses entirely, so you can play in any VR headset, past, present or future. For as low as $30 (depending on your prescription), you can get a cheapish pair of glasses to suit your needs from Zenni Optical, prescription lenses included.
Frames Direct offers an official third-party solution for $80 for prescription inserts which include an anti-reflective coating. There are multiple vendors offering more or less the same thing though, with VR Optician offering theirs for $70. Whatever company you go with though, make sure to have a copy of your prescription since you can’t buy corrective lenses online in the United States without it.
Image courtesy Oculus
Still, you may be in for accidental scratches from your cheapy specs, which leads us to the an expensive, but awesome solution for the myopic among us. You can also buy special inserts that come in both prescription and non-prescription versions.
The same basic design can also be purchased without non-prescription inserts too from a number of companies, which not only protect from scratches but also in some cases blue light too. These are much cheaper, with pricing typically around $20 – $30 for a pair.
What is your favorite must-have Quest accessory? Let us know in the comments below!
The release of Population: One’s Team Deathmatch mode is imminent — BigBox VR revealed the game mode will be available from June 3 until June 14, alongside some other juicy details.
According to a post from developers BigBox VR on Reddit, the mode will see 2 teams of 6 players shoot it out — the first team to 30 kills will be the winner. There’s a 5 second respawn countdown, and rounds have a 15-minute maximum time limit in the event neither team reaches 30 kills.
In terms of the map, BigBox says that Team Deathmatch games “are confined to a small portion of the larger POP: ONE map, in areas like The Frontier or The Tower.” You’ll be able to gain Season Points by playing in Team Deathmatch, plus there will also be weekly and daily challenges for the mode as well.
From June 3, the new mode will be available from the ‘Play’ tab in game — just select the option to change modes, and Team Deathmatch should be listed. It will be available from June 3 but won’t be around indefinitely — the mode won’t be available in public lobbies after 12pm on June 14.
However, if you want to keep the deathmatch action going, you’ll be able to do so in custom rooms — the option to play Team Deathmatch will be available in custom room settings from June 14 onward. The Reddit post also says you will be able to ‘play Solos or other team sizes in Custom Rooms’ for Team Deathmatch.
Maloka, a new meditation app for Quest available on App Lab, offers calming, personalized environments and guided meditation sessions with stunning visuals.
There’s a number of experiences available for VR headsets that aim to offer a form of formal or informal meditation. Some of them offer guided audio sessions while others just place you in a zen environment where you can relax and let your thoughts take you where they want to. Maloka, a new App Lab experience on Quest, tries to find some middle-ground between the two and offer something unique for the VR medium.
As someone who practices mindfulness and occasionally dabbles in guided meditation, the thought of doing either with a VR headset strapped to me has never seemed overly appealing, nor relaxing. While I find the Quest 2 to be a comfortable headset across short sessions, I’ve never found a compelling reason to meditate inside VR when I could just do it normally instead. What does a VR meditation experience offer me that a regular guided meditation experience does not?
Maloka attempts to answer that question by bridging the two, and offering something a little different to how I would meditate in real life.
The app is available as both a VR app on App Lab and as a mobile app (currently only available for iOS, as far as I can tell) and you can go through guided meditations on either platform. You can also start your experience in VR or via mobile too — whichever you choose, everything will transfer over to the other with a linking code.
Maloka isn’t just a guided meditation app though — in VR, you open the app into your own personalized island, decorated with items you earn as rewards for completing meditation sessions. The island is also occupied by your spirit, a small anthropomorphic creature that you pick when signing up.
Normally, I wouldn’t be an advocate for gamifying meditation — if you need game-like motivation and rewards to do it, isn’t that kind of defeating the point? But in this case, I think it works. The rewards feel appropriate, not arbitrary, and it’s nice to be able to create your own personalized zen environment to start a meditation from. Over time, you’ll expand the decorations in your space with more items you’ve earned from regular meditation. It’s a nice system that plays into the themes of mindfulness and zen energy that meditation encourages, so it feels appropriate.
When using VR, the guided meditation sessions also offer something different to your standard audio guide. Instead of prompting you to close your eyes, you keep your eyes open and focus on a ever-changing vortex of circular psychedelic patterns that pulse in and out, slowly moving toward you, as pictured above. As you progress through the session, the guide encourages you to align your breathing with the contractions and expansions of the patterns. It’s soothing and a fantastic, entrancing alternative to closing your eyes.
The real boon here is that using the psychedelic patterns, and aligning your breathing to its movements, offers something more than your standard meditation experience outside of VR. Without it, there would be no real reasons to use Maloka over any other audio meditation service. Being able to then also effortlessly switch to the mobile app when you haven’t get your headset around you is also fantastic — if I don’t have time for a headset session, I can use the mobile app and still gain rewards to decorate my island with when I return to VR.
It’s a great free experience on App Lab — if you’re a long-time meditator looking for something different, or want an engaging experience to start you off, check out Maloka.
An Echo Pass launched in March offering seasonal reward tracks with in-game cosmetics for progress in one of VR’s most popular sports. The seasons are expected to last a few months before resetting, with rewards earned throughout the season offering customizations that do not offer an in-game advantage.
The first season, which ended on May 23, added new chassis, boosters, bracers, medals, emotes, emblems, banners, tints, patterns, tags, and titles. For season 2, Ready At Dawn revealed some of the boosters that’ll be unlockable, including a ladybug and bee that look like they’ll be pretty cool to blast around with in zero-g.
Given that there’s some time left until the start of the next season we’d expect Ready At Dawn to tease more of the rewards that’ll be unlockable soon.
Ready at Dawn is a Facebook-owned studio that’s also working on Lone Echo 2, the sequel to the incredible single player game from 2017 that helped pioneer the zero-g mechanics that are so satisfying in the team sport of multiplayer Echo VR. The sequel launches on the Rift store this summer.
The first season for Echo Pass featured a reward track available to all players that could be converted to a Premium pass for additional rewards. The Premium Pass was sold for roughly $10 in U.S. currency, or 1000 in-game Echo Points.
Echo VR is one of the games that supports 120 Hz mode on Oculus Quest 2 and the title is free-to-play as well as one of the best games available in standalone VR, so if you haven’t checked it out already we recommend giving it a try.
Looking for the best VR horror games on Oculus Quest and other VR headsets? Dare yourself to read our list below.
The Oculus Quest is a smashing success in the VR space for lots of reasons, but one of the main contributors is the stellar library of content. And as it turns out, some of the very best VR games out on Quest are also some of the very best VR horror games available. In this list, we’ll go over the best Oculus Quest horror games and also titles for PSVR and PC VR.
Note: This list was originally published in August 2020
Playing VR horror games is a totally different prospect than playing one outside of VR on a normal, flat monitor screen. The growing sense of dread, terror, and tension is palpable as you feel the chills run down your spine while twisting your head all around in search of what’s stalking you.
All of these horror games are excellent at making you terrified to even open your eyes. If you’re after a good fright on Oculus Quest, then look no further. This is our definitive list, as of May 2021, of the best VR horror games on Oculus Quest and other headsets. You can grab these games over on the Oculus Store, Steam or PlayStation Store.
Best VR Horror Games – Oculus Quest
Affected: The Manor (Also On PC VR And PSVR)
While Affected: The Manor has been around for years and years, first releasing way back on the Gear VR, it still earns a spot on this list due in no small part to its sheer adaptability. Despite showing its age a bit now visually, it still manages to kick up a solid scare and is an excellent introductory VR experience for fans of horror. You can complete the whole thing in well under an hour and it nails that sense of atmospheric exploration that so few VR horror games really do.
Additionally, it just got a new update recently that adds a “Gauntlet” mode as a sort of horror-themed speedrun through a series of haunted hallways. It’s fun to try and get through as quickly as possible and rank on the leaderboard as a fun diversion. If you’re the type of person that shows off VR to friends and family often, Affected should be a staple of your Quest library.
Unlike its predecessor, which was a collection of bite-sized vignettes rather than full VR horror games, Face Your Fears II is a proper single-player narratively-driven campaign that’s laced with frights from top to bottom. You’ll explore a dark, haunting world full of classic horror tropes such as giant spiders, creepy old houses, and spooky graveyards.
If you’re the type of gamer that wants something meatier that will take at least a few hours to get through and can’t be beaten in a single go, then this is right up your alley — especially if you’re down for some jump scares. This is one of the scariest VR games out there and one of the best Oculus Quest horror games for sure.
Jurassic World: Aftermath
Jurassic World: Aftermath falls somewhere between two genres – it’s mostly a stealth game, but there’s certainly elements of horror that make it worthy of being on the list. Certain segments, mainly in the middle of the game, take a bigger turn towards horror, but even the stealthy segments can still be pretty frightening.
Fans of the Jurassic Park/World franchise will be pleased and no doubt have fun hiding from the different types of dinosaurs. Overall, it’s a visually stunning game that falls a bit short of being excellent and isn’t complete just yet – the game currently only has part one included, with part two supposedly available sometime later this year as paid DLC.
This is without a doubt one of the scariest VR games to date and the Quest port does a fine job of translating over the experience. Visually it’s a bit paired down, as expected, but you can hardly tell since the PC VR version wasn’t much of a looker anyway. In it you take on the role of an investigator that’s looking for answers following a series of strange happenings that first kickoff in a large chapel. The game spans multiple episodes and culminates in a final set piece moment worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster horror film.
You can finish the whole thing in a few hours, but it’s full of tense moments and chilling scenes. There’s one particular level that utilizes a possessed baby and mannequin dolls to great effect — two of my absolute most triggering things in horror media. Highly recommended, despite the relative brevity, and easily one of the best VR horror games.
This is the most robust Oculus Quest game on the list in terms of single-player story-driven content. The narrative is both rich with details and well-acted complete with a strong campaign full of twists and turns. Visually it features striking cel-shaded art style with comic book panels for narrative moments that really make you feel like you’re living out the pages of a graphic novel. Gameplay is split between using guns like shotguns and revolves and relying on melee weapons to fend off the hordes of monsters.
Lies Beneath may have very well ended up in the top spot on this list were it not for the purely concentrated doses of distilled tension the top spot offers, but make no mistake: Lies Beneath is a deeply immersive and incredibly unsettling adventure all horror fans owe to themselves to try out.
From the developer that made Dreadhalls, the cult-classic grandfather of horror VR games, Cosmodread is a worthy successor and another one of the best Oculus Quest horror games.
Visually, it leaves a bit to be desired and it employs a roguelike design that can sometimes feel a bit repetitive. However, it makes up for those faults completely with its use of VR horror. “Although it doesn’t do a whole lot to push the genre forward in many meaningful ways, it absolutely nails the suffocating terror, incredibly immersive atmosphere, and unnerving tension that makes VR horror so powerful,” we said in our review.
Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife is a new VR entry in the World of Darkness series (that otherwise consists of horror-themed tabletop RPGs) that takes a psychological approach to horror instead of relying on just jump scares. It builds tension through atmosphere and tells a compelling story about a photographer, Ed, who is called to Barclay Mansion where things quickly take a turn for the worse.
It’s a slower-paced horror game that might not be for everyone, but it uses horror in the way that plays to VR’s strengths very well, making it an essential part of the Quest’s horror collection.
Did you even have a doubt in your mind? Five Nights at Freddy’s VR is an excellent example of how to focus in on a core, specific idea and knock it out of the park. The premise here is that you are a caretaker for a chain of pizzerias similar to Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, however, after hours the animatronic characters come to life and hunt you. Staying alive is your goal and it’s much easier said than done.
Five Nights at Freddy’s VR is mostly a series of mini-games, but they’re each paced so well that it’s nearly impossible not to jump, scream, and/or rip the headset off over bouts of unbridled anxiety. If you think you’ve got nerves of steel, I dare you to take more than a few minutes of this one without suffering from the chills.
It might not be an official VR game, but Alien: Isolation’s VR mod is too good not to mention. Isolation is a horror classic and is easily the best game based on the iconic sci-fi horror film franchise to date. In this game you must evade Xenomorphs by any means necessary and the sheer sense of terror it produces as you’re hiding, looking around corners, and trying not to get mauled is a fantastic thrill.
Paranormal Activity is known for cheap popcorn scares that leave your heart racing. The VR experience is no different; it’s an unashamedly jumpy bit of VR fluff and we wouldn’t have it any other way. If you like you VR horror to be a slow burn then this isn’t for you. But if you want your heart racing around every corner? This is an easy pick for the best VR horror games.
Sometimes we wish Resident Evil 7 wasn’t a horror game. Because, scares and screams aside, it’s genuinely one of the most polished, high-budget experiences you can have in VR.
Nearly three years on from launch, we’ve still got our fingers crossed that Capcom brings the VR support to other headsets.
How do you translate the narrative-driven terror of Until Dawn to VR? Why, you turn it into a scream-happy roller coaster ride, of course. Thus, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was born.
This silly spin-off has remained one of PSVR’s most enduring experiences. It’s full of the usual cliches, but VR gives you a fresh pair of eyes to enjoy them with all over again.
Army of the Dead, the new Zack Snyder movie streaming on Netflix, is getting a tie-in location-based VR arcade experience this summer.
Army of the Dead: Viva Las Vengeance will be rolling out to select cities this summer, with tickets going on sale next week. Check out a trailer introduced by Snyder himself below.
The footage shows players hopping into the back of a truck, putting on Valve Index headsets and then using the Striker VR rifle-shaped controllers to gun down hordes of zombies from within the vehicle.
This is one of the first new VR arcade experiences to be rolling out since the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic set in. VR arcades have been closed for much of the past year and companies like The Void haven’t shown any signs of returning. With vaccines rolling out across the globe, many will be hoping to get visitors back into headsets, but it remains to be seen if audiences are ready to return to arcades. Zero Latency is preparing a Far Cry VR experience to relaunch its business, too.
New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Washington DC will be the first cities to get the experience but it’s also coming to Boston, Chicago, London, Paris and many more.
How do you feel about returning to VR arcades? Let us know in the comments below!
A new table is available for Star Wars Pinball VR, themed around Han Solo in the classic Star Wars trilogy.
Even better, the Han Solo table isn’t paid DLC — it’s available as a free update to the game. Set inside the Millennium Falcon, you can check out the new table in the trailer below.
Dedicated to Han and Chewbacca’s adventures in the Classic Trilogy, the table’s playfield takes you inside the famed Millennium Falcon. Smuggle the ball into secret compartments, fix the hyperdrive, and help destroy the Death Star as you shoot for the high score. Star Wars Pinball VR puts Han and Chewie right in the room with you, reacting to your every move, so don’t get cocky, kid.
The trailer shows a sequence where a miniature Chewie, located at the bottom of the table, opens up a compartment and lobs three balls on the table in random directions. It’s charming and a great element of what looks to be a well-themed table. Another sequence shows three balls falling out of a Han Solo carbonite mold from The Empire Strikes Back.
There’s also mini-games enhanced for VR, one of which involves piloting the Millennium Falcon through an asteroid field, which you can see briefly in the trailer.
The new Han Solo table is available for free now in Star Wars VR Pinball. For those who don’t already own the game, it’s available on Quest, PSVR and SteamVR and includes nine different tables based around the classic Star Wars trilogy, Rhe Mandalorian, Star Wars Rebels and more. You can read our review here.
Pokemon Go Fest 2021 will run on July 17 and 18, offering various special events and rewards to celebrate the game’s fifth, and Pokemon’s 25th, anniversary.
Tickets are available in-app now for $4.99 — much less than last year’s price of $14.99 — and will grant you access to both days of the event.
In addition to the main Special Research event, there’s other stuff to take part in over both days. Hourly habitats are returning from last year, available on the Saturday from 10am to 6pm (local time) and will include four habitats (Jungle, Desert Mountain, Ocean, Cave) over one hour rotations, with certain Pokemon appearing more frequently in select habitats.
Raids on Saturday will feature Pokemon such Hitmontop, Cranidos, and Deino, meanwhile Shiny Whismur, Chimecho, Audino, and Tympole will all make their Pokemon Go debut during the event. The Global Challenge Arena also returns this year, available on Saturday.
On the Sunday, the focus is on raids, with the opportunity to catch any Pokemon you may have missed the day before. There’s also extra XP and rewards attached to certain activities on the Sunday — you can read about those here.
The event also features new music tracks produced by Junichi Masuda, a legendary Pokemon music producer.
All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg — for Pokemon Go fans, there’s a plethora of content spread across the two-day event. To see the full schedule and all the details, check out the Pokemon Go blog.
The latest Steam sale includes a bunch of PC VR titles available with decent discounts, including Star Wars: Squadrons, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, No Man’s Sky and more.
The sale is called the Open World Sale and features a bunch of VR and non-VR games that, you guessed it, feature open worlds. It’s live now and runs until 10am Pacific time on May 31.
There’s not a huge amount of prominent VR games in the sale but there’s still a few solid deals to be found.
Here’s some of the best VR deals we caught while browsing the store:
ForeVR Bowl does everything right on paper, but its winning design feels a step ahead of current VR possibilities. More in our ForeVR Bowl review!
Taken on its own merits, ForeVR Bowl is excellent. It’s incredibly polished, uniquely personable and gives you plenty of reasons to keep playing. In fact, in a lot of crucial areas, developer Forevr bowls a perfect game. But there’s a key problem, one that’s intrinsically tied to VR itself.
At their best, VR sports offer near-seamless facsimiles of the real-life game inside a headset. Eleven Table Tennis‘ pitch-perfect physics and feather-light touch make it almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Thrill of the Fight gives you the satisfaction of throwing a haymaker without the risk of getting a black eye yourself. To ensure your brain doesn’t have enough time to separate the virtual from reality, these games are often based on quick reactions and lightweight interactions.
Bowling isn’t either of those things.
ForeVR Bowl Review –The Facts
What is it?: Bowling in VR. Simple as that. Platforms:Quest Release Date: May 27th Price: $19.99
Hit the lanes in real life and you’ll know that weight is crucial. Picking up a ball, judging its heft and calculating how that will affect your swing is what the sport is all about and that’s something you fundamentally can’t do in VR. Every ball feels identical, there’s no tactile feedback to tell you how a twist of your wrist will alter the ball’s trajectory and no momentum in the pendulum swing of your arm as you line up your next shot. Quest’s tracking can struggle with more dramatic underhand motions, too, meaning you’ll sometimes get unintended and unwelcome results from your throws.
There are ways around these issues, of course. You could opt for much more accessible, automated throwing like in Premium Bowling, or the whacky ruleset of Sports Scramble. But those alternatives are cop-outs if you’re looking for an authentic bowling experience which, admirably, is exactly what ForeVR wants to be.
And so, instead, it goes the numbers route; hover your hand over a ball and you’ll get the stats on its weight and speed. Heavier options, the game tells you, will get you a straighter throw, whilst lighter alternatives can better spin and curve to nail awkward angles. It’s as sensible an alternative you could ask for, and the game tries to layer in depth elsewhere by placing an emphasis on aim, technique and options. There are 100 balls to choose from, for example, and you can pick oil patterns for lanes. It even gives you tips on the speed of your throws.
And, after a few hours of play, you might well find yourself settling into a certain playstyle. But, even with all of that considered, it’s hard to find much consistency in your technique when you’re essentially working with thin air. The connective issue that’s so crucial in a lot of VR experiences just isn’t really there.
As a result, it’s better to approach ForeVR Bowl as an iteration on Wii Sport’s motion-controlled minigames than a full embodiment of the genuine article. And, hey, you might be able to make peace with that. The absence of realism doesn’t have to mean the absence of fun, and once you accept its limitations there’s still plenty of that to go around. Crucially, ForeVR Bowl can be enjoyed in up to four-player multiplayer online where, just like the real thing, the mishaps and commiserations really start to come alive. It captures the hilarity of terrible aim and the surprised elation of unexpected strikes.
ForeVR Bowl Review –Comfort
ForeVR is a great experience from a comfort perspective. There are only small areas to navigate and teleportation works perfectly well. It’s an easy reccomendation for first-time VR users.
And it’s got real character, too. The starting bowling alley environment looks great but you can rise through ranks to unlock new levels like a lunar lane. Each carries tons of details that flesh out the environments. Even the licensed soundtrack surprises with appearances from certified alley anthems like Eye Of The Tiger and The Final Countdown. The game’s star feature, though, is easily the ball designs, which take full advantage of VR.
There are 100 designs to unlock in ForeVR Bowl, first by reaching the right level and then by buying them with cash. Each has different stats but they’re all pretty inventive creations, too. Some have skulls embedded in them, others entire galaxies. Some leak liquid as they roll down the lane and others explode on impact. These are all purely cosmetic differences but they’ve clearly had a lot of thought put into them and the possibility of unlocking more options makes each new round that bit more tempting. That said, it does take a lot to both level up and earn cash, making it more of a grind than was probably necessary.
ForeVR Bowl Review – Final Impressions
ForeVR Bowl is ahead of its time and that’s kind of a problem. It’s a genuinely fantastic effort from the team at ForeVR, with plenty of personality and a feature-rich foundation. But VR itself simply doesn’t feel ready for the authentic bowling experience it aspires to be. The lack of weight in your hand and momentum in your swing makes it hard to nail down consistent technique and the game’s stat-driven approach doesn’t feel intuitive enough to really replace it.
If you want a more instantly accessible experience then Premium Bowling offers just that. But accept ForeVR’s limitations, approach it as more of a casual experience and there’s still a lot of fun to be had with friends here. I just suspect ForeVR Bowl won’t find its real worth until VR technology catches up to it.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our ForeVR Bowl review? Let us know in the comments below!
It’s time for our final installment in our Larcenauts Upload Access spotlight, and we’re rounding things out with some fresh gameplay.
Feast your eyes on another seven minutes of gameplay from the team-based hero shooter below. This time around we’re looking at a new map, Blight, and showing off the DroneHack mode. This seems like an interesting map, with a lot of alien flora and fauna as well as Uplink areas that take you inside a facility.
We also see some new class powers at work. At one point you can see a player setting bear traps for others to stumble into, while we also get to spend some time with the Guardian class, Thal, and see his heavy weaponry and defensive capabilities in action.
Make sure to stay tuned at the end where there’s also a first look at the game’s victory screen and match statistics.
And that’s it for Larcenauts on Upload Access! Missed the action? Make sure to scroll back through our content, which includes yet more gameplay, a live interview with the developer and a look back at the making of the PSVR Aim Controller for the team’s first game, Farpoint.
Larcenauts itself is due out this summer on PC VR and Oculus Quest, so stay tuned for more news soon.
Carve Snowboarding has a steep learning curve that’s well worth mastering. Read more in our full Carve Snowboarding Review!
Snowboarding should be hard, right? I mean, I’ve never tried it but I’m pretty sure gluing your feet to a piece of wood and then throwing yourself down a mountain takes some getting used to. Not to mention those tricks. All the twirling and posing – it looks exhausting.
Fitting, then, that Carve Snowboarding is also pretty tough and quite tiring. At least it will be for your first few hours – learning the ropes in Chuhai Labs’ downhill delight is the most challenging part of the experience thanks to an unconventional control scheme that, just like last month’s VR Skater, assigns the movements you’d usually make with your feet to your hands instead. Stick around, though, because the game’s well worth the effort.
It’s a bit of a brain melt at first. You need to stand side-on and keep your arms to either side, just like in the real thing. Each hand basically controls one end of the board, so to steer left you need to point your front hand to the left and then pull your back hand round to the right to line the board up. You might first think you’ve grasped it, but when later levels introduce more twists and turns you’ll probably discover you haven’t. At this point you can turn on a Full Tilt mode which, along with steering, lets you tilt the board with your wrists. It’s an extra step to learn but the added control and intuition really helps in the long run.
Carve Snowboarding Review –The Facts
What is it?: A VR take on the extreme sport that has you racing down mountains and pulling off stunts Platforms:Quest Release Date: May 27th Price: $19.99
Thankfully jumping is much easier – you just need to throw your hands up and you’ll spring into the air. Tricks, meanwhile, take a bit of getting used to. Touch’s grip buttons let you grab the board in one of several positions depending on where they are and twists are done by holding your triggers mid-aid and moving your arms. All thrown in together it’s a little like ballet… for your arms. I’ve played around four or five hours over the past few days and my shoulders are paying the price for it.
Clearly, Carve Snowboarding is a very different beast to the combo-making mastery of console snowboarding and skateboarding games. And so it should be – this is less focused on impossible stunts and more concerned with using VR to simulate the rush of racing downhill, ducking under tree branches and daring yourself to hop into the air and try for an Indie or a Japan Air (terms I had completely forgotten in the 20 years since SSX Tricky).
And it’s really good at replicating all of that. Once you get to grips with the game’s controls, hitting the slopes turns into a real thrill in either the speed-focused Time Attack mode or the point-racking Freestyle option. The former is the simpler of the two, requiring a few runs of a course to find the ideal path and the right board. Each board varies in speed on icier hard snow and the softer, crunchier alternative, whilst they also have different stats for how fast they spin or how well they maintain speed on a landing.
Once on the snow, gliding down the hill feels natural and satisfying. when it works, there’s an elegant flow to weaving between rocks, crouching under a tree branch and then flying into the air off of the end of a grind pipe. Chuhai has some smart tricks for mishaps – go head first into a tree and snow will shoot up into your face, obscuring the screen. It’s a smart way to stop your stomach from lurching forward.
But it’s Freestyle where Carve Snowboarding really shines – you’ll have a few minutes to pull off tricks and keep up multipliers by getting in different grabs and grinding along platforms. It makes for one of VR’s most instantly restartable experiences, heading back up to the top every time you find a new element to work into your sequence. Each of the six levels has diverging paths, huge jumps and narrower, riskier pathways you’ll quickly come to learn like the back of your hand and, with enough practice, start to build a routine around.
Oddly the game doesn’t have any sort of glossary of tricks you can learn but this omission does (perhaps inadvertently) demonstrate the real power of snowboarding in VR – when I needed to learn how to pull off a move like a Squirrel or Cross Rocket I just watched it being done in real life on YouTube. Then I went back and imitated it in the game. Just the fact that this is a viable way to learn how to play the game proves Chuhai Labs is doing something right.
Carve Snowboarding Review –Comfort
Carve Snowboarding is a pretty intense experience however you cut it. You can put vignettes in place and adjust other comfort options but this is a game about shooting down the side of a mountain at 50kmph and swerving to avoid rocks. Only for the strong of stomach.
Fun as this can be, it also showcases the game’s messier side. Without the tactile context of really feeling your board, it’s hard to know exactly where your hand will grip, especially when moving your hand also moves the board. This makes pulling off specific moves something of a juggling act. Fortunately, the game isn’t too punishing; it’s easy to get up to the biggest multiplier by alternating a few tricks and then keeping it going with small hops between bigger jumps and grinds. You won’t be punished for small bumps into the side, either.
Six levels, meanwhile, might not sound like much but Carve gets good mileage out of them. You’ll need to earn five medals in each to unlock the next course which means getting at least a gold medal in either one of the Time Attack or Freestyle modes. Along with boards you can also unlock new gloves and music tracks and, yes, there’s a cozy cabin where you can pet a dog. Need I say more?
Carve Snowboarding Review – Final Impressions
Carve Snowboarding has a steep learning curve that’s well worth mastering, even if it never completely covers up its messy side. Fight through its unusual control scheme and you’ll find a game that captures the thrilling elegance of its real-life counterpart in a way flatscreen games have never quite managed. It doesn’t have the precision of classic snowboarding games and it’ll tie your mind in knots at times but, once you’ve experienced the rush of Carve’s downhill stunts, you wouldn’t want it any other way.
For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our Carve Snowboarding review? Let us know in the comments below!
