All posts by infinitywaltz

Top 3 Oculus Experiences at FIVARS 2018

October 2, 2018Best Oculus Games, Oculus Rift NewsFIVARSinfinitywaltz

OGR attended this year’s FIVARS Festival of International Virtual & Augmented Reality Stories in Toronto, Canada and found a curated collection of new narrative works for Virtual Reality, roomscale, 360 video, holography and augmented reality.

Of course we wanted to cover the new ideas coming in from around the world for the Oculus platform so here are our three top picks:

Battlescar

directed by Nico Casavecchia and Martin Allais

Winner of the Grand Jury prize, this pumping punk rock diary is brought to life through lighting, a killer soundtrack, a performance voiced by Rosario Dawson and use of dioarama, decoupage and other artistic techniques as ported to a CG VR context. This first episode is an amazing visual feast that feels like a cross between a Ramones music video and an off Broadway play, set in the 1970’s in Alphabet City. We’re looking forward to the next installments.

Oculus Rift | Produced by Atlas V in co-production with 1STAveMachine, Fauns and Arte France in association with Kaleidoscope

Mel’s Wake

directed by Luisa Valencia

From the developers behind “We Happy Few” comes an ambitious experiment in branching spherical video narrative. While still under development, Mel’s Wake has you in the role of a ghost at her own funeral, eavesdropping on various characters from her life. Which way you look affects the way conversations unfold in realtime. At the end you are shown what characters you most interacted with/fixated upon. This could form the basis for very interesting future content.

Oculus Rift | Produced by Signal Space Lab

Where Thoughts Go

by Lucas Rizzoto

We are always on the lookout for people using the tech in new ways, and Lucas Rizzoto’s intimate piece does just that – over several chapters you are asked philosophical or personal questions. Reaching out into one of several dreamy environments, you grasp onto a cute floating sphere (with eyes) and here someone respond to the question – for example: “what did you want to be when you grew up?” After doing several of these, you are invited to grip both triggers and record your own. You are anonymous of course, and, at the festival this was supported by having you in a curtained off tent with little glowing lights and pillows, where you sat on a shag carpet. Your recording is then sent off into the virtual and literal cloud to join the growing number of others. A beautiful and clever exercise.

Oculus Rift | Produced by Where Thoughts Go | $9.99 via Oculus

Top 5 Oculus Releases – August 11th-August 24th – Strategy and Speed in the Stars

August 28, 2018Oculus Rift Newsbest Oculus games, Oculus Go games, Oculus Rift gamesinfinitywaltz

Our latest top five new Oculus releases is heavy on interstellar action – whether that be the measured action of outer space naval battles or more frantic dodging and shooting inspired by classic arcade games.

Flotilla 2

from Blendo Games

Released eight years ago, this game’s predecessor was a wonderful blend of 3D space strategy stripped down into easily digestible chunks and set in a lighthearted universe with space pirate penguins that owed as much to Douglas Adams as it did to more “serious” science fiction.

Flotilla 2 builds on that with a similar premise – think the large-scale 3D battles of the Homeworld series boiled down into simple skirmishes that you can fight your way through during your lunch break – but exclusively in VR, which is perfect for turn-based spaceship combat.

Oculus Rift | 100 MB | $9.99 from Steam

Orch Star

from Orch Star Studios

Now out of Early Access, Orch Star offers more interstellar strategy, but this time RTS instead of turn-based. Playable both on standard PCs and in VR, it features both extended single-player campaign, level editor and multi-player matches.

The setting is also intriguing, and its blending of fantasy and space opera tropes reminds us a bit of Warhammer 40,000 without all the over-the-top edgy parts. It’s also got a ton of visual appeal; its fleets of ships reminds us of ‘70s and ‘80s-era sci-fi animation.

Oculus Rift | 2 GB | $14.99 from Steam

Space Maze

from Redox Entertainment

If strategy isn’t your thing, maybe you’ve just got the need for speed? Space Maze is classic arcade action, right down to the scorching neon colors and low-poly designs, but designed for VR.

With a third-person view of your ship and action that borrows elements of everything from Asteroids to Descent, this is a simple but compelling take on high-adrenaline shoot-’em-ups.

Oculus Rift | 450 MB | $7.99 from Oculus or from Steam

RotatorX

from DEFICIT Games

There’s high-speed spaceship fun for mobile VR players this week, too, in the form of RotatorX, a twitchy but meditative take on the endless racer genre. With its swirling colors, electronic soundtrack and tense, oppressive feel, this one has us thinking a bit of 2016’s stunning “rhythm violence” game, Thumper.

Oculus Go | 136 MB | $3.99 from Oculus

Titanic VR

from Immersive VR Education

Shifting gears from spaceships to…well…regular ships, Titanic VR is a historically accurate recreation of history’s most famous shipwreck through the perspective of one of the survivors.

Even more impressive to us, though, is the ability to commandeer a submersible drone to explore the wreckage in the present day. Then again, we’re suckers for diving simulators.

Oculus Rift | 10 GB | $19.99 from Oculus or from Steam

Top 5 Oculus Releases – July 29th-August 10th – Megastars and Mental Health

August 12, 2018Best Oculus Gamesbest Oculus games, Oculus Rift games, VR mental illness, VR music performanceinfinitywaltz

Another couple of weeks’ worth of top Oculus releases! This time around, we’ve got larger than life experiences about saving the world (or just saving a music festival’s vibe with some sick beats) sandwiched between more contemplative meditations on love and mental illness.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

from Ninja Theory

A thoughtful and intense exploration of mental illness by way of a hack-and-slash adventure set in the Norse underworld, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was one of our sister site’s Top Indie Games of 2017.

Both its brooding atmosphere and its use of multi-layered narration – representing the auditory hallucinations and self-doubt of a psychotic episode – coupled with an notably excellent motion and facial capture animation process, helped make this a moody work of genius.

Adding VR implementation is the perfect enhancement of its themes and one of the rare times that speaking of VR as a means of guiding players toward embodied understanding actually makes sense.

A warning, though: just with headphones on, this game was intense to the point of disturbing. The added experience of playing it in VR may be too much for some players.

Oculus Rift | 30 GB | $29.99 from Steam

Electronauts

from Survios

A hyper-designed DJ simulation for electronic dance enthusiasts, Electronauts thinks of everything.

More a musical tool than a game, this experience offers easy song transitions (no worries of beat-matching train wrecks here), remixing and VR-exlusive digital instruments to let aspiring stars create their own arrangements. If you’ve always thought that people like Tiesto and Steve Aoki had a much easier job than they let on, now’s your chance to prove it.

And while the graphics are decidedly vaporwave – not that we have a problem with neon, mind you – the included music is definitely modern, including the likes of The Chainsmokers and DJ Shadow. What Electronauts gets right is that that if favors energy and and flow over literalism. An excellent immersive offering.

Oculus Rift | 2 GB | $19.99 from Oculus or from Steam

Pixel Ripped 1989

from ARVORE Immersive Games, Inc.

If our previous game borrowed a bit from the ‘80s with its look, Pixel Ripped 1989 embraces that decade wholeheartedly. Rubik’s Cubes and Nintendo nostalgia abound in this paean to an earlier era of games.

Its central concept, however, is cutting edge: it’s AR completely within VR, putting players in the role of a little girl with a portable video game device (it’s not quite a Nintendo Gameboy). As the reality from the game she’s playing spills out into her own, she’ll team up with her own game’s protagonist to save both worlds.

It’s a unique and clever use of VR that manages to be self-referential and meta without bashing you over the head about how smart it thinks it is. The setting is just the cherry on top of the sundae, presuming Ready Player One and Stranger Things haven’t burnt you out on ‘80s references by now.

Oculus Rift | 3 GB | $24.99 from Oculus or from Steam

Megaton Rainfall

from Pentadimensional Games, SL

Starting with a gloriously over the top premise – you’re playing as a superhero who lobs bombs at giant Independence Day-inspired flying saucers – Megaton Rainfall excels at its sense of scale and detail.

Despite a comparatively short story-driven campaign, there’s as much fun to be had here simply flying off into the wild blue yonder and exploring the universe as there is in defending earthly cities from space invaders.

Oculus Rift | 1.6 MB | $14.99 from Oculus or $15.99 from Steam

Anamorphine

from Artifact 5

Bringing things in a more earthly direction, Anamorphine isn’t about saving the world, just about dealing with depression and guilt.

The approach to story that the Artifact 5 team has taken, however – wordless narrative comprised of dreamlike and surrealist images to represent the memories of the game’s protagonist – have garnered this release numerous awards, and it’s been a featured selection at IndieCade, E3 and PAX East.

Oculus Rift | 10.4 GB | $19.99 from Steam