PlayStation VR Worlds: An action movie minigame collection
Travel around the world with Sony’s London Studio. Over the past year at various press events, Sony’s London Studio has shown a handful of experiments it created for PlayStation VR.
There was The London Heist, where players participate in a freeway shootout, using one hand to load ammo while holding a gun in the other. There was Into the Deep, an underwater shark attack where you stand in a cage and watch a shark tear it up. And there was VR Luge, where you lie down and race along a street in California.
Today, Sony revealed that it is releasing all three of these together, along with two other short games, in a retail and downloadable package called PlayStation VR Worlds. Think of it like Wii Sports but with quick tastes of what it’s like to be in different action movies.
According to London Studio lead producer Tom Handley, while Sony has called these “tech demos" in the past, releasing them as a package was the plan all along. "It started absolutely as kind of a package, a desire to create a collection of bespoke experiences for VR, which we have then demoed bits of," he says.
The two newly-announced games are Scavenger’s Odyssey, an adventure game where you control a ship in space, and Danger Ball (seen above), a "futuristic sport" where you use your head to bat a ball back and forth, which Handley compares to Virtua Tennis.
Danger Ball, at least conceptually, seems like a bit of an odd fit amongst the four other experiences that put you into extreme scenarios. But Handley says that’s the point.
"What we’ve gone after is that variety," he says. "VR is this kind of brand new medium, this brand new way of playing games, so we wanted to showcase as best we could the different things that you can do in VR. So we have consciously picked five very different things — different themes and tones, different game mechanics, different ways to play."
Fitting with that concept, the five games span across all of Sony’s control schemes for PlayStation VR. The London Heist works with either the DualShock 4 or two PlayStation Move controllers. Scavenger’s Odyssey works with just the DualShock 4. And the other three all only use the tracking in the headset.
While Sony showed VR Worlds at a PlayStation VR press conference today, it didn’t show either Scavenger’s Odyssey or Danger Ball, so we’ll have to wait to get a more detailed look at those down the line.
Watch Epic Games’ Unreal Engine presentation at GDC 2016
What’s the future of Unreal Engine 4? Epic Games is discussing the state of its Unreal Engine during a presentation at the 2016 Game Developers Conference. Tim Sweeney, a co-founder of the company, is on stage — watch live! Potential topics include Paragon, the studio’s new MOBA, and the Bullet Train VR demo.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice demo shows off incredible real-time motion capture tech
It’s a new way to create video games and other types of entertainment Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice developer Ninja Theory debuted a new trailer during the 2016 Game Developers Conference for the game formerly known as just Hellblade, and the two-minute video is about more than just the titular character.
Senua, the protagonist of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, is a Celtic warrior left traumatized after a Viking invasion. She develops psychosis as a result of the attack, and hears voices in her head; Hellblade seeks to explore mental health issues through the character.
Tameem Antoniades, Ninja Theory’s chief creative officer, presented the trailer during Epic Games’ “State of Unreal" talk at GDC 2016 today. In the middle of the trailer, a picture-in-picture window popped up to reveal that it wasn’t a trailer at all — Senua’s facial animations in the video were being generated from a live performance on stage by actress Melina Juergens, which was being captured in real time and streamed into Unreal Engine 4.
Ninja Theory and Epic Games worked with Cubic Motion, a facial animation and computer vision firm that has contributed technology to games like The Order: 1886, Until Dawn and Ryse: Son of Rome, on the demo. The facial rig was built by a company called 3Lateral and "optimized for real-time performance," said Cubic Motion in a press release.
"The robustness and quality we showed today is the result of serious technical breakthroughs that will transform production," said Dr. Gareth Edwards, CEO of Cubic Motion. "We’ve seen a few groups try this kind of thing before with more primitive technology, but we’ve never seen a system reach the kind of level required to make it a genuine alternative to offline production for facial animation."
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is in development on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC, and is set for release later this year. For a behind-the-scenes look at the real-time capture in action, check out the developer diary from Ninja Theory below. You can see the final product in the trailer above.
A talking seagull, and making VR characters you can talk to
That time when a seagull tried to steal your lunch. At Sony’s PlayStation VR press event yesterday, most of the software on display consisted of games, but a handful of short films popped up as well. One of those, Gary the Gull, runs about four minutes and features a seagull talking to the viewer for most of that time. The twist is that the viewer can talk back.
The film is the first public experiment from a company called Limitless, which has created technology to help make virtual characters that can respond to a viewer’s actions. A separate team called Motional used that tech to create Gary the Gull which asks the viewer to shake their head, answer basic questions and turn around to get different responses out of the seagull.
“Just like in real life, if a seagull started talking to you, you’d probably talk back," says Tom Sanocki, CEO of Limitless.
The story features light conversation where Gary asks the viewer’s name and tries to convince them to turn around so he can steal their lunch, but there’s nothing overly complicated here. Over the course of four minutes there are six points where the viewer can interact, and those generally takes the form of yes or no answers. In many ways, the short film feels like a tech demo intended to sell Limitless’ technology, or to give a hint at what could be possible down the line.
Sanocki says he isn’t sure yet in what form Limitless and Motional might sell or distribute the project, but that Limitless is working with other partners as well to add different sorts of interactive characters in different mediums. He sees a world where characters like Gary the Gull can appear as part of a larger game, as well, similar to what Lionhead attempted with its simulated boy in the unreleased Milo & Kate.
Ultimately, Milo & Kate ran into trouble by being overly ambitious, whereas Gary the Gull seems too simple to really judge one way or the other. It makes for a fun four minutes, though.
Rime dev takes back rights, Sony out as publisher
More to come in the future Spanish developer Tequila Works has reacquired the rights to Rime, its pretty, surrealist adventure game, from Sony Computer Entertainment, the company announced in a press release.
“SCE is no longer proprietary of the IP, nor the publisher of the game," a representative for the company told Polygon. Tequila Works promised more updates on the game, originally planned as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, in the future.
The game was revealed at Gamescom in 2013 and has been in development since. For more on Rime, check out our interview with its developer and watch the trailer below.
New Disney-focused Crossy Road coming to mobile devices
MICKEY LOOK OUT FOR THAT TRUCK MICKEY NO Hipster Whale will release a new Crossy Road game starring Disney characters “soon" for mobile devices, the developer announced today.Disney Crossy Road will feature more than 100 Disney and Pixar characters. As in the original Crossy Road, players will attempt to guide characters to safety in "endless Frogger"-style gameplay. Check out the teaser trailer above to see Mickey Mouse attempt the challenge. For more on the original Crossy Road, which has been downloaded more than 120 million times since its launch, check out our feature.
Tumble VR lets you stack blocks like an adult
Everything in balance. At a Sony press event yesterday, Supermassive Games — best known for horror soap opera Until Dawn — revealed Tumble VR, a sequel to the block-stacking PS3 PlayStation Move puzzle game Tumble.
Essentially an adult version of a child’s pre-school test, each stage of Tumble VR gives you a set of cardboard blocks and a task, and it’s up to you to combine those blocks in a way that accomplishes the task without letting physics get in the way. In one scenario, for instance, you have to place six blocks on a table but place them low enough that a floating “limbo" bar doesn’t knock them over. So you rotate the blocks, find the proper orientation to make them all fit and complete the stage.
In another stage, you have to stack all the blocks vertically at just the right angle to balance them and reach a certain height. Basically it’s this, as a video game.
In other stages, you may have to use blocks to shine light in a specific way, or blow up your blocks at specific angles. The developers have taken the idea of stacking blocks and tried to come up with as many permutations as they could on what that means.
You can use either a Move controller or a DualShock 4 to rotate blocks, and for the latter the game provides options to let you use an analog stick or the built-in motion sensing to place a piece at a precise angle. During a demonstration of the game, I ran into brief issues with moving the DualShock out of the camera’s view and not realizing it, thus temporarily losing control over the controller and my piece, though it was easy to find a solution by resetting the shapes in front of me and rotating the table they were sitting on.
The final version of Tumble VR will contain more than 80 stages, as well as two-player cooperative and competitive modes with one player in the VR headset and one player watching the TV screen. The game is on track for release later this year.
McLaren now uses Epic’s Unreal Engine to help design its high-end cars
Game engines aren’t just about video games High-end British car maker McLaren Automotive is now using Epic’s Unreal Engine to help design its luxury and high-performance cars, McLaren design manager Mark Roberts announced at GDC 2016 today.
“McLaren is all about cutting technology …. most of all about truly great design," Roberts said. "Working with our friends at Epic to create a range of new tools, new virtual tools in the visualization field … it’s going to revolutionize how we do things starting with design and going right through to the customer who can customize their car in the engine."
Roberts said the car maker gave Epic capture data from all of its cars, plus actual paint samples, material samples of paint and fabric, and even audio recordings of engine noise and the sound of doors opening and closing. That data was then used to produce the first real product born of this new closer relationship between Epic and McLaren.
That product is the Customer Configurator, which allows a potential customer to fully customize their car and then see what it looks like and sounds like in an Unreal Engine-powered demo.
The Unreal Engine is also helping to power and improve McLaren’s design process, Roberts said.
"UE4 has given us this incredibly level of believability so our designers can make accurate, confident designs before we even thought about going to a model."
New Captain America: Civil War clip included in behind-the-scenes video
Them boys up to something! Joe and Anthony Russo, the brother directing team behind Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, have shared a new, innocent-looking behind-the-scenes video that happens to include a clip from the film.
In the video, which was posted to their Facebook page, Joe Russo swings the camera around to focus on the various people he has on his creative team, like special effects supervisors and executive producers. While focusing on the sound mixers, however, he leaves the camera tilted just enough that you can see the part of the film they’re working on.
Posted by The Russo Brothers on Tuesday, March 15, 2016
In the clip, the Avengers and other superheroes have been gathered in a board room and are instructed they can no longer carry out their duties as heroes unless they reveal their identities. It’s a crucial turning point in the comic the film is being loosely adapted from.
Marvel recently released a new trailer for the film, which gave audiences their first look at Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. Captain America: Civil War hits theaters May 6.
With gender disparity in esports, researchers look for ways to close the gap
How can more women become inspired to enter the world of esports? Women represent half of the game-playing public, but their representation in the growing esports scene is criminally small. At this year’s GDC, Morgan Romine, PhD, director of initiatives at Intel and ESL’s AnyKey project, was joined by CounterLogic Gaming Red Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Stephanie Harvey —€” who also happens to work for Ubisoft —€” to discuss how best to increase women’s presence in esports, by organization and by example.
Romine opened the panel by discussing the controversy over whether women’s competitions are a good idea. She explained that she and her partner at AnyKey brought women with experience together to hash out the topic and what value women-specific tournaments have. They concluded that these events are a necessary short-term strategy, and part of a many-pronged approach needed to address systemic problems in the space.
Romine specifically cited the importance of Title IX in legitimizing women’s athletics programs in the U.S. Title IX passed as a federal law in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments Act, and stipulated that men and women must receive comparable and equitable access to athletic programs at institutions receiving federal funding. Title IX led to a surge in women’s participation in collegiate athletics, which in turn has proven to normalize and serve as inspiration for girls hoping to participate in sports.
Similarly, women-specific tournaments create a supportive space and role models for young women who aspire to compete in esports, Romine said. In her work with AnyKey with writer and researcher T.L. Taylor —€” who “literally wrote the book on esports" with Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming —€” Romine has some key takeaways for increasing access and participation for women in esports. Gender-neutral tournaments should be the goal, but opportunities are necessary, Romine says. Next, gender policing —€” the act of determining the "legitimacy" of a participant’s gender identification —€” should not be a factor, and exclusion should not be the goal.
Romine was also conscious of the danger of perpetuating the stereotype that women can’t play as well as men, but it’s a risk that seems necessary to build the kind of grassroots movement and organization necessary to bring forward progress to the scene.
"If we want to see women competing at the top tier, we have to build a groundswell"
Stephanie Harvey is a professional gamer with a master’s in architecture and a degree in game design, and is on a sabbatical from Ubisoft while pursuing a career in competitive gaming. Harvey wanted to demonstrate some of the practical realities facing women in esports by relating her experience in the space. She explained that the generally younger-skewing demographic of esports exacerbates the sexism and racism that can seem so generally common in online spaces. As a female gamer, she was exposed early on in her career to the kind of scrutiny —€” often sexualized —€” that other players may not be subjected to until they find more success.
Harvey began her pursuit in 2003 with the original Counter-Strike. Early in her career, at a tournament where Harvey acted as a mascot for a team, she was approached by young women excited about her visibility and participation, and that inspired her to serve as an example, she said. Harvey explained she was doing it in part for other women "who wouldn’t be able to see without a little push" that they could also participate.
Romine elaborated on the disproportionately high level of harassment women receive while streaming. She talked about her recent experiences at IEM Katowice, one of the world’s biggest esports competitions, where AnyKey helped to stage a women’s tournament that attracted controversy by virtue of its presence. Romine emphasized the responsibility organizers hold to manage their community, including in-stream commenters, and she elaborated on some of the more abusive practices commenters engage in. This has previously included posting both doctored and real risqué imagery, and nude photos of women competitors, in chat.
Despite the hostility shown to female players, Harvey explained her enthusiasm for competition. She described her time playing in the mid-2000s representing Canada in tournaments on an all-female team and how dedicated she was to making a real career happen. She says her first appearance in a World Cup event was entirely due to seeing professional Counter-Strike player Alice "Alie" Lew compete. Lew would later serve as Harvey’s captain.
single events aren’t enough to create a sustainable scene for women in esports
Romine explained that single events scattered throughout the calendar year aren’t enough to create a sustainable scene for women in esports. Players identify with storylines that arise organically as teams evolve and develop rivalries, which requires a regular, frequent schedule to make happen —€” fans need opportunities to watch players compete and invest in their success. Romine also explained that scheduling plays a key part, as women’s events can’t compete with major tournaments due to their lower visibility and awareness with esports viewers. Events at PAX and other non-esports gatherings are underutilized opportunities to expose the scene to new people and attract new blood.
Harvey explained that men often question why women can’t be inspired to play competitively by male players, but she believes that women can be inspired by both male and female players, further establishing that women’s tournaments are justified. It’s a platform to give women an entry point to play competitively. She stressed to women not to give up, and to continue despite "haters." She doesn’t know if she’ll achieve her goal of being a full-time competitive player, but she seems more focused on removing the need for women-specific competition within a few years.
The hope for the next generation of competitive women in esports may lie with college gamers finding community for the first time, according to Romine. "If we want to see women competing at the top tier, we have to build a groundswell," Romine said. "That’s happening a lot at the college level, and we need to encourage the women playing with their friends" to follow their competitive ambitions, she added. "You have to see it to be it."
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