Tag: playstation vr

Thumper
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Surprise! Thumper is out now and it’s fast as hell

Originally scheduled to release on October 13, it appears the team at Drool decided to say, “To Hell with schedules,” and release Thumper a few days early for PlayStation VR, PlayStation 4, itch.io and Steam. For the uninitiated, Thumper is an insane “rhythm violence” game that puts players in control of a chrome beetle, firing down its track at breakneck speeds, all the while fighting metal leviathans blocking its way. It’s bright, intense, and kind of hard to stare at, looking less like a game and more like a Hajime Sorayama painting from a neon Hell. “can’t even describe it to someone else” When…
Rez Infinite
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Rez Infinite brings the club kid experience to vinyl later this year

A product of 90s club-kid culture, Rez is getting a fancy re-release for PlayStation 4 and PSVR this fall. If you didn’t know, the 2001 music shooter is a bit of a cult classic, mostly among those who enjoy the rhythm and graphics that permeate its stylized game world. Like a psychoacoustic trip? This is the game for you. The re-release is not just upping the game to 1080p and 60 FPS (120 for the PSVR version). Rez Infinite will also be released in a collaboration with game and music retailer iam8bit, featuring a one of a kind vinyl soundtrack…
Thumper
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Thumper is set to blow your damn face off this October

Thumper may not be the first rhythm game to feature a craft accelerating down winding paths in sync with the beat, but its aggressive assault of color and sound and speed promises to perhaps be the most hypnotic. The intense and otherworldly  “rhythm violence” of the game has been gestating since developer Drool formed in 2009, and now, like its titular chrome beetle, is finally set to emerge on October 13th for PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, and Steam. “an overwhelming sense of speed and monumental dread” In a recent PlayStation blog post, co-founder Marc Flury discussed what you should expect when…
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Here They Lie might be the horror game VR needs

What happens when you combine nightmares, beards, the claustrophobia of VR, and leaving behind AAA development? Apparently, surreal horror games are born. Here They Lie, announced during E3 last week, is a new title for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR, developed by Tangentlemen Studios. The new studio is made up of other industry veterans, some former Call of Duty and Medal of Honor developers, as well as co-creative directors and lead designers Cory Davis (creative director and lead designer for 2012’s Spec Ops: The Line) and Toby Gard (designer of the original 1996 Tomb Raider and the iconic character of Lara Croft).…
Feature

How virtual reality reinvents party games

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. Though virtual reality can be an immersive, solitary experience, multiplayer games are bringing people together for a new kind of group fun. With all the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding virtual reality (VR) games this year, it makes sense to expect some partying. After all, huddling around the TV with a group of friends to play Mario Party—or transforming the living room into a makeshift concert hall with Rock Band—remain marquee gaming moments for gamer groups. Yet these types of party games seem to fly in the face of the head-mounted displays…
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Synesthesia and vibrators: a history of innovation from Rez

There’s a moment in the demo of Rez’s PlayStation VR inception (retitled as Rez Infinite) where I accidentally transgressed my professional demeanor and said “holy shit.” Not a lone “holy shit this is kinda cool,” as I glanced around the technicolored space of Area 02. Nor a woozy “holy shit I feel nauseous,” as I dizzyingly locked onto rockets flying towards me. But an awe-inspiring “holy shit, this is VR.” VR at its most realized. Rez is VR. And honestly, it kinda always has been. Game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez was always on the cutting edge of not just experiencing…
Thumper
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Thumper is also dragging virtual reality into its rhythm hell

Thumper is so fast. Like, holy shit, not even my eyes can keep up with whatever’s going on in the new trailer—how are my thumbs supposed to? This trailer, as you can watch below, is one minute of totally uninterrupted footage of Thumper at its more advanced stages. It’s like pushing your face up against a passing train. What you should be able to see is a chrome-coated space beetle grinding arse-ways against corners, hopping and fluttering above obstacles, and occasionally switching lanes. But what you might only be able to see is a light show moving at 1000 mph. This whole…
Rez Infinite
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Rez Infinite gives a 2001 music shooter another shot at entrancing you

Despite being a child of ’90s clubbing and music television, the 2001 rail shooter Rez didn’t quite resonate with its majority audience as its visionary creators had hoped it would. A small niche of players got it—no, they really got it—but it didn’t have the impact of, say, a killer DJ set sending ripples across the dance floor. And make no mistake: that is what director Jun Kobayashi and producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi were hoping for. Kobayashi has explained that the title Rez is a shortened form of “resolute,” which may be a Japanese-English misappropriation, but the important part is that he understands…
SUPERHYPERCUBE
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SUPERHYPERCUBE finds common ground between Tetris and Blade Runner

VR had me skeptical, but then again, I’m pretty much always skeptical of new gaming technology. Similarly, when Microsoft’s Kinect rolled around, so too did my eyeballs, right into the back of my skull. I can lazily holler at my Xbox to turn on? Big deal. With VR, I could scan my entire surroundings and yet stay encompassed in another dimension? So what. My perception of VR was comparable to what the editors at Time thought when putting the creator of the Oculus Rift on their cover in that goofy pose: that VR was probably silly. Then I played a…