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'Robo Recall' for Oculus Touch is fun, frantic and completely free
At Oculus Connect 2 last year, Epic Games' Bullet Train demo stole the show -- leaning heavily on the "bullet time" effect popularized by the Matrix films to create a smooth, action-packed shooter that let players take down multiple enemies in slow motion. It had a neat gimmick: it used virtual reality to bend reality in a way we've only seen in the movies. The team brought the concept back to Oculus developer conference again this year as the heavily refined Robo Recall: a frantic, physics-based shooter with a sense of humor. Hands-down, it's one of the best Oculus Touch experiences I saw at the show. Even better? When it launches early next year, it will be absolutely free.
Walking in virtual reality is hard, so 'Lone Echo' got rid of it
First generation virtual reality may have nailed sense of presence, but one major limitation keeps it from feeling truly immersive: Walking. The endless landscapes of the digital world are hampered by the confines of reality -- your playspace is only so big, and if you walk too far in any given direction, you're going to hit a wall. Most games get around this with teleportation mechanics, allowing the player's avatar to jump to far-off locations. Ready at Dawn Studios' Lone Echo took another approach: turn off the gravity, and eliminate the need to walk altogether.
The next batch of Oculus games highlights the Touch controller
2016 has been a banner year for Oculus for one main reason: After four long years, it finally shipped the consumer edition of its VR headset. Sure, it's pricey at $600 and sure, it requires a pretty powerful computer, but for a first-generation product in an extremely young field, the Rift delivers the goods. One of the reasons for that is that Oculus has been busy cultivating a vast ecosystem of games and apps for years now, thanks to the company's fervent developer community. On the eve of Oculus' third annual developer's conference, we got to get a sneak peek at the very latest that community has to offer. The big theme this year? Getting to use those soon-to-be-available Touch controllers.
Oculus Touch to launch on December 6th for $199
Until now, the Oculus Rift has been incomplete. It's a comfortable, high-end VR headset, but without Touch the experience feels like a preview. A taste of the platform's full potential. Thankfully, that's all about to change: At Oculus Connect, the company announced that its motion controllers will be out on December 6th. They'll cost $199, putting the combined Rift price at $798. For reference, the HTC Vive with its wand controllers costs $799. PlayStation VR launches next week for $400, but that's only the headset -- you'll need to pay extra for the camera and Move controllers.
'Minecraft' October updates are big deals for tweakers and VR
Minecraft is close to some updates that could seriously alter how you play if you like to mess with game mechanics... or simply immerse yourself in a virtual world. An upgrade arriving October 18th for Minecraft's Windows 10, Pocket and Gear VR editions will introduce Add-Ons, which let you change how characters and objects behave by tweaking text files. Want giant chickens, or Creepers that trigger huge explosions? It's now relatively trivial. Think of it as an entry point into the world of game mods without having to learn programming.
Oculus' Touch controllers priced at £190 in the UK
If you still haven't figured out why the Oculus Rift sells for a solid $200 less than HTC's Vive, let this be the final word: it's the motion controllers. According to a display in a GAME store in the UK (found by our very own Nick Summers), Oculus' virtual reality motion controllers will retail for £190, or just over $200 after deducting local UK taxes. That's expensive, but not at all unexpected -- if that price holds across the pond, it puts the cost of a room-scale Oculus Rift kit on equal ground with HTC's $800 Vive.
Oculus Rift is finally up to date on pre-orders
After months of shipping delays and in-store demos Oculus is finally all caught up on pre-order shipments for their flagship Rift headsets. While that means the folks who signed up early should have received their hardware by now, those who were waiting for availability to bounce back will now be able to order Rift and have it shipped within two to four business days.
Oculus Touch will control over 30 games this year
Were you worried that Oculus' Touch controller would arrive without any games that used it? If you ask Oculus, there's no reason to worry. It's promising that over 30 Oculus Rift games will use the VR peripheral in 2016. Some of them are titles you'll know, like Rock Band VR and Serious Sam VR, while others are Touch-ready versions of existing VR experiences like Job Simulator and The Climb. Oculus itself will bundle a sculpting title, Oculus Medium.
'Superhot VR' brings time-bending shootouts to Oculus Rift
Superhot, the first-person shooter that slows down time whenever you're not moving, is coming to the Oculus Rift. The studio behind the game teased as much last month, but now we've got a trailer showing off how it plays. The biggest addition is the ability to dual-wield -- two fists, two firearms or one of each, depending on your situation. You'll be able to aim, fire and throw punches with the Oculus Touch controllers (which still aren't out) while dodging bullets Matrix-style with the Rift headset. Superhot's creators say the new game "isn't some port" but a "reimagined and redesigned" game built for VR. It'll launch sometime later this year -- there's no word on pricing or whether it'll come to other VR platforms in the future, such as the HTC Vive or PlayStation VR. If you're curious, you can play the original Superhot on PC, Mac, Linux or Xbox One right now.
Google's Android-powered VR platform supports Unreal games
Yesterday during Google's annual I/O keynote, the company made a point of mentioning that Electronic Arts and Ubisoft -- two of the biggest third-party game studios -- were working on projects for Google's new virtual reality platform, Daydream. Now the company is ready to announce another: Epic Games. The latest version of the company's powerful and ubiquitous game-design toolset, Unreal Engine 4, is coming to Google's next-gen mobile VR system. For developers it ensures easy porting of existing apps to Daydream with little extra work required. For consumers, it means higher-quality mobile VR experiences, and maybe more of them too.
'Rock Band VR' will only let you shred guitar
Abandon all hope, ye Rock Banders who live to bang on the drums, lovingly 'pluck' that bass or croon like you're America's next top someone -- for now, at least. According to UploadVR, developer Harmonix has confirmed that its upcoming Rock Band VR for Oculus Rift will only be playable with the guitar. Harmonix had hinted as much this past March when we attended a Rift preview event, saying that support for those three other instruments would likely be left off the table. But it seems like the effort to put the "band" back together in VR was just too challenging for the developer's first Rift effort. Instead, Harmonix has decided to perfect the immersive experience using only the guitar, which requires a clip-on Oculus Touch controller to track its placement in the virtual space.
Create VR experiences within VR itself using Unreal Engine
Epic Games has been teasing "the future of VR development" recently, and the team is finally ready to tell everyone what that is: Creating virtual reality content within virtual reality itself, using the full version of its Unreal Engine 4. Epic cofounder Tim Sweeney says that while the company's been supporting the likes of the Oculus Rift from the outset, the irony is that, up to this point, the experiences we've seen so far have been developed using the same tools as traditional video games. "Now you can go into VR, have the entire Unreal editor functioning and do it live," he says. "It almost gives you god-like powers to manipulate the world."
Oculus Rift pre-orders get you in line for Touch controllers
Did all of the recent Oculus news make your heart skip a beat? Well, here's another bit to make your blood pump go pitter-patter: Should you pre-order the consumer edition of the Rift VR headset, you've automatically got a spot in line when the company starts accepting purchase reservations for its awesome Touch motion controllers later this year. The news comes by way of a tweet from Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey:
Oculus VP: 'Our number one goal is to make developers successful'
2015 is the year of virtual reality. That's been the consistent messaging coming out of Oculus VR's executive leadership since early this year. And with this week's announcement of a $99 Gear VR headset -- a mobile VR solution co-produced with Samsung -- and the promise of a retail Rift headset coming in early 2016, Oculus finally appears ready to make good on that promise. But although all the pieces of the VR puzzle seem to be coming together -- and the recent press has been (mostly) glowing -- there are still a lot of unknowns. Namely, will the average consumer, once properly introduced, buy into VR? I sat down with Nate Mitchell, Oculus VR's VP of Product, at the company's Connect 2 developer conference in Los Angeles to find out more about Gear VR's potential as a gateway to the Rift, what consumers can expect to come bundled with that first retail headset and whether we'll get to use it with Sony's PlayStation 4.
These were E3 2015's best games
E3 is (thankfully) over, and that means the press that cover the event have recently cast their votes for what they thought were the best games from the show. You know those blurbs on box art saying "winner of over 90 awards" and the like? This is partly where they come from. Collectively known as The Game Critics Awards, the governing body for them is made up of staff from over 30 editorial outlets, including Engadget, that attended gaming's Paris Fashion Week. For a game to even be up for consideration though, it has to be playable -- a stage demo or non-interactive trailer won't cut it. What's it mean for you? In the end, a better idea about what it's like to actually play the biggest games from E3, because we got to go hands-on with them. Without further ado, the winners are in the gallery below. Spoiler: Fallout 4 was pretty successful.
At E3, I saw the missing pieces of the VR puzzle
The excitement around virtual reality may have started when Sony unveiled Project Morpheus last year, but last week's E3 was its coming out party. The thing is, I've been around long enough to remember the hype and subsequent commercial flatline over gaming in stereoscopic 3D. So going into this year's grand gaming gala, I was skeptical -- I had that awkward tech history footnote in mind -- and to a point, I still am. But Oculus helped me get over that a bit. All it took was a game from a trusted developer -- Insomniac Games -- and an input solution that makes VR feel less isolating.
Oculus offers $10 million to help indie developers make VR games
Oculus' top brass showed a slew of new VR games at a special event today -- including a closer look at the badass-looking EVE Valkyrie -- but they need more than big-name developers if they want the Rift to be a hit. That's why the company is earmarking $10 million to fund indie game makers who want to build the new big thing in virtual reality content. Coders, you'd better get crackin'.
Oculus Touch gives you natural, hand-based VR control (update)
Oculus might be giving you an Xbox One controller to get your virtual reality experience off the ground, but what if you want more natural control? Don't worry, that's coming soon. Palmer Luckey and crew just took the wraps off of Oculus Touch, a hand controller system that lets you navigate the virutal world in a more natural way. Each grip includes both motion-based input as well as physical controls and haptic feedback -- in some cases, you'll feel what you touch in the VR space. There's no mention of pricing or whether Oculus Touch will be ready for the consumer Rift headset's early 2016 debut, but we're hoping there isn't a protracted wait.
