Its an urban myth that Valve hates 3s. The beloved studio has taken us up to Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal 2, Left4Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and DOTA2, but it can can never quite bring itself to complete a trilogy. This week, though, the company announced that its breaking that curse in a way; its currently working on three VR games.

Thats enough to get anyone thats been playing games over the last five to 20 years very excited. Over that period, this developer has released some of the most celebrated and popular games of all time, including pretty much all of the above. More recently, its turned its attention to VR and built the SteamVR system seen in the HTC Vive, as well as The Lab and Destinations. Weve long wondered when Valve would combine its brilliant new hardware with its famed game making skills for a more robust experience, and now we know its really happening. One of these three could be Valves killer app.

But what is Valve actually making?

Thats the real question here, and one that well go mad thinking over in the coming weeks and months. Were expecting at least one of these games to be revealed this year but, until it is, were all going to be guessing as to what the studio is working on. Lets get our thoughts in order.

This is probably the safest bet for at least one or two of these games. VR gives developers a whole new set of tools to play with and, while we desperately want to see some Valve franchises in VR, it makes more sense to build a universe from the ground up, or at least a new property in the existing Half-Life/Portal-verse. You shouldnt turn your nose up at that thought; all of Valves celebrated series had to start somewhere. Think about how incredible the first Portal was, and then imagine if they could pull that off again in VR.

At first we thought these were the least likely sequel options out of Valves stable of IP, but then we recalled the early days of the Oculus Rift, when development kit owners tried TF2running on the headset. I also remembered that Valve recently invited the developer of one of VRs most popular online FPSs, Onward, to work at their studio over January, seemingly legitimizing their belief in the genre. Could TF3 really be in the works?

DOTA2 already has some basic VR integration, but it doesnt allow you to actually play the game. While wed love for DOTA3 to fully support headsets, theres no reason for Valve to make the sequel while this MOBA remains so popular, and certainly not restrict its popularity. But it could still put the series colorful cast of characters to work in VR with a spin-off adventure. Theres a lot of potential there we hope theyll explore.

Its been a long time since we had a new entry in the Left4Dead series, unless you count the arcade installment that hit Japan a few years back. VR is the perfect venue for its return although, frankly, weve seen a lot of shooters that try to distill the series intense combat into a stationary experience. If Valve is making L4D3 in VR, wed want it to be the full experience with full locomotion. How could they possibly pull that off? Thats up to Valve to solve.

Valve assures us that these new games will be full experiences, but that doesnt mean one couldnt build on the world(s) it established in its free minigame compilation. The Lab still features some of the most compelling mechanics in VR and, if the company were to build some of these into fullgames, they could definitely create something compelling.

Personally, Id bet that this is one of the three games; a trailer for the HTC Vive last year seemed to drop a pretty big hint that a Portal VR game was in the works. Weve had a glimpse into what the mind-bending world of Portal can look like in mixed reality, but the potential for an amazing VR experience is almost too good to pass up. Imagine more intricate puzzles that have you sticking arms and heads through multiple portals to solve challenges. Theres a lot of great opportunity here. There is a solid but short VR mod for Portal 2to tide you over in the meantime.

There, we said it. Dont shoot the messenger.

Tagged with: Half Life, portal, Team Fortress, The Lab, valve

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The Big Question: What Are Valve's Three VR Games? - UploadVR

The smartwatch, an everything-plus-the-bathroom-sink approach to packing technology into something you wear on your wrist, is dying.

Fortunately, something much better is coming in its place: the smart watch.

Typically, one would refer to this as a natural evolution, but tech writing diehards seem so set on killing off the smartwatch, I figured its best to let them have their way.

So yes, technophiles, the smartwatch is dead, poke its over-sized, short-battery-life corpse with your toe and then move along to write about the death of virtual reality or how 3D TVs are the next big thing I just have to buy.

For the rest of us, something interesting is happening in the world of wearables: The ability to make things you want to wear smarter is getting easier and the people creating this intelligent jewelry are becoming more adept.

What that means is that the general purpose, relatively unfocused smartwatch is evolving to become a watch that is smart.

If youre into the outdoors, you might pick up the latest watch from Casio or Garmin, both packed with features designed specifically with the avid hiker or camper in mind. If youre a runner, maybe the watch from New Balance is for you. Just need a few notifications sent to your wrist? Check out the stylish watches from Timex and Fossil.

And as of this week, if youre really into retro gaming, you should check out the Gameband, a watch that essentially serves as a micro console on your wrist. When it launches it will include 10 games like Asteroids, Tempest 2000, Battlezone and Missile Command all playable on the device, and the ability to upload more.

Soon, I suspect, there wont be a major watch creator in the world that doesnt have some smart features built into some of its watches. And thats a very good thing.

Dont get me wrong. If you, like me, also adore the feature rich, over-sized look and abilities of a general smartwatch, Im sure those will stick around too. But I suspect well see less and less of them as companies like Samsung, LG and Apple start to define the uses most important to their users.

Just this month, Google introduced the latest version of Android Wear, an update to the software that runs Android-powered watches. That update brings with it a massive shift in the direction of the watch which essentially frees it from the phone.

We also learned this month that the Apple Watch, according to one research company, accounts for about half of all smartwatch sales. That same company, Canalys, estimates that Apple shipped 11.9 million smartwatches last year.

While the smartwatch isnt ubiquitous yet, a 23.8 million person market isnt exactly small either.

A key to Apples success with its watch last year, according to Canalys, was a sharper focus on the fitness market. That same report shows that companies like FitBit and Chinas Xiaomi are seeing a surge in popularity for their fitness-focused smartbands.

Its not that fitness is the silver bullet for smartwatches, its that these device makers are trimming away the things they see their users not needing and sharpening the ones they most use.

Focus, not GPS, massive battery life or cell service, is the most important feature in the next wave of smart watches.

Good Game is an internationally syndicated weekly news and opinion column about the big stories of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Brian Crecente is a founding editor and executive editor of Polygon.

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The smartwatch is dead, long live the smart watch - Polygon

Virtual reality continues to be an incredible platform for creators to innovate when telling stories and there are plenty of groups taking advantage of this, large and small. Hulu has taken to the medium for news and comedy shows along with the Life brands shift into documentary-like VR content, but Within is an entity that was named entirely with VR storytelling in mind.

Continuing its trend of producing high-quality immersive content, Within unveiled a new episode of their science and engineering documentary series called The Possible.

Founded by filmmaker Chris Milk, Within collaborates with companies like Apple, NBC, Vice, and many more to create experiences across a collection of genres. The Possible, made with financial backing from GE, will place viewers face to face with cutting edge technology and discoveries across the life of the serial series. Its second episode is namedListening to the Universe and tackles something that Einstein actually got wrong:

A century ago, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational wavesripples in spacetimebut believed they were so small that humans would never observe them.

More recently, an MIT physics professor did the math and concluded that Einstein was wrong. So he built the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which measures almost infinitesimally small disturbances in spacetimesmaller than anything thats been measured before. And in 2016, LIGO succeeded, detecting gravitational waves from a massive, faraway collision between black holes.

Pakistani-American astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala PhD is the MIT physics professor mentioned in the episodes summary and shes also known for herpioneering experiments on laser cooling of macroscopic objects and in the generation of squeezed quantum states of light.

If this new episode is any testament to the future stories, The Possible is going to be a very deep dive into science and tech and include collaborations with some of the greatest minds in the world. Listening to the Universe is available in the Within app for iOS, Android, Steam VR, Oculus Home, and PS VR and its available to watchon their website as well.

Tagged with: 360-degree video, Astro physics, documentary, Listening to the Universe, science, VR, Within

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The Possible's Second Episode on Within Tackles Something Einstein Got Wrong - UploadVR

In the space of just one year virtual reality has gone from a highly anticipated hobbyist kit, to a commercially available consumer product available atBest Buy. While the overwhelming majority of that is positive, one thing I do find myself missing is the days when one, or two innovators could blow our collective minds with a hacked together prototype. Thatwild west era when people with enough imagination, guts and duct tape could create something truly incredible has been overshadoweda bit as more and more money pours into the space. Last week I got to dive back into that time thanks to a new, very early prototype from two modern-day VR cowboys.

The product is so early that it doesnt even have a name, but its creators do. Stephen Greenwood and Allan Evans are the mad scientists who one day had the thought, I think we could make a VR headset that works underwater, and are now following through on that theory. Greenwood works in digital production for Discoveryand Evans is the CTO and co-founder of AvegantGlyph.

The duo invited UploadVRto try out theirunderwater HMD in an early-access demo and we got the whole thing on tape.

There were two experiences running on the underwater headset. The first was a space walk with soothing music played over bone-conduction, underwater headphones. The second was a coral reef complete with schools of fish that would swim right up to me. This experience was scored by David Bowies Space Oddity. Come to think of it that song makes more sense for the space experience, but the juxtaposition actually worked amazingly well.

Speaking to the headsets design, Greenwood explains that, Essentially its basically like a Google Cardboard headset but with a waterproof phonebasically we put lenses on a dive mask. It uses water as part of the working distance anda Samsung Galaxy Edge Phone.

What he means by working distance is that the unique lenses inside this HMD use the refraction of the water to properlyalign the images of each eye. VR images are warped and distorted using lenses and software to cost effectively offer a wide field of view with a commodity display. The lenses on this headset do some of that bending, but they depend on the water that leaksinto the headset to do the remaining work.

What this breaks down to is a mass of waterproof rubber and tape and a display that only truly works to render proper VR when youre underneath the water. Submerging yourself and watching a brand new world appear around you is an incredible experience and the weightlessness of the water provided a layer of immersion I didnt even know I wanted until now.

That transportive essence is what Greenwood thinks could be a key use case for the device going forward, stating that maybe someday when this is high fidelity enough you can go for a dive on the great barrier reef without ever leaving your city.

Ultimately though, for now this project is all about answering questions. It was our chance to explore some theories about VR underwater. Do you get motion sick when youre underwater? Do you get a sense of Zero-G? Can you do a space experienceIt also allows your mind to have a suspension of disbelief. So I think as crazy as it is yeah its worth trying, Greenwood said.

There is no positional tracking inside the device and audio is currently provided using third party conductive headphones that can be heard clearly underwater. However, Greenwood and Evans were very clear that this is an early, early prototype that could be described as pre-pre-alpha.

The inventive pair does not necessarily know just yet where their research and development into underwater VR will take them, but Greenwood can see it being used to create large-scale installations in pools or at the beach and could even be aligned with the sensory deprivation scene for floating.

In any case, it was exciting to see that not every question in VR needs a massive investment check to be answered. Some amazing experiencescan still be forged on a very small budget with a very big idea.

Just make sure you keep your eyes open.

Tagged with: experience, Headset, prototype, underwater, VR, water

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We Tried an Underwater VR Headset, and it Worked - UploadVR

Of all the sports that developers can shove the letters VR in front of or behind and quickly push out the door, ping pong seems the most susceptible. You just need a motion controller (or two) and youre pretty much good to go. No need to run around a pitch or cooperate with team members; its just you, your paddle, and your opponent.

With that in mind, it surprises me just how long its taken for a true ping pong game to appear on PlayStation VR (PSVR). But, four months on from launch, its finally arrived as a port of Reddolls VR Ping Pong, which initially launched last year on the HTC Vive. The results? Well, its ping pong in VR. It might not be the most ambitious use of the technology, but pulling on a headset certainly beats having to set up a giant table.

VR Ping Pong is one of those games that reminds you that the industry is in a similar phase to that which the wider gaming industry was going through around the time of the Nintendo Entertainment System. This isnt a flashy party game with power ups and special moves but something that wants to capture the nature of the sport as best as the technology can, like Nintendos Tennis or Baseball.

In both versions of the game, you use the headsets respective motion controllers to both wield your paddle and serve the ball, though this can also be done with just one controller if you so wish. Youre placed in a virtual stadium with a set of blocky characters seated and ready to applaud.

Playing against AI, I found VR Ping Pong to be pretty much as accurate and responsive a ping pong game as I, a sporadic player in real life, could ask for. After a while finding my feet (much of my time was spent in the games practice mode), I was able to competently return the ball with slight adjustments to the angle of the controller and force I was applying making a world of difference. In the heat of a match you can quick quickly forget about your real life surroundings and accept this virtual reality as the real one, so make sure you dont have anything placed nearby when playing.

Not every shot I hit went the way I thought it should, but the vast majority of mistakes and bugs came down to blips in my headsets tracking, which the game itself cant really be faulted for (although a foul system that detects irregular movement could certainly help).

What I do take issue with, however, is the lack of multiplayer. In 2017, releasing a ping pong game without even a basic online component really isnt acceptable, and it massively restricts the amount of value VR Ping Pong can offer. It single-handedly prevents this take on the sport being a definitive one for VR headsets; not allowing friends from all over the world to have a ping pong match as if they were in the same room is a missed opportunity. It could have been one of the better social experiences on PSVR.

There are, however, a decent batch of challenge modes that prove to be fun distractions from the main game. My favorite was a minigame in which pieces of the table that the ball bounced on would disappear, making matches progressively harder.

VR Ping Pong is a likable take on the popular sport thats held back by its lack of multiplayer. Theres only so much fun you can have with the AI matches and minigames and, once youve had it, theres little reason to stick around.

Tagged with: PlayStation VR, VR Ping Pong

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VR Ping Pong Review: No Table Needed But No Friends Allowed - UploadVR

There are no shortage of videos by thrill-seeking urban explorers who seem to have a death wish. They'll sneak their way up skyscrapers or radio towers, and then take a few pictures at the top or upload a short video of highlights inevitably scored with some kind of dubstep. This video from Jame Kingston is a little different. Not only is it 26 minutes long and virtually unedited, but he talks way through his thought process out loud the whole time. It's terrifying and fascinating.

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The feat here, as Kingston explains in detail, was to climb up and then between a pair of cranes that extended between two buildings. His dream, insane as it may be, is to jump between two such cranes like in the James Bond movie Casino Royale but, perhaps thankfully, this particularly situation didn't present the opportunity. Still, his calm explanations of where he plans to put his foot next, and where he intends to hang is just mesmerizing.

Feats of daring and dexterity like this are obviously incredibly dangerous but they're also illegal, so under no circumstances should you ever attempt to break into a construction site and start climbing the equipment. You're liable to be arrested or worse. But even though that comes as common sense to most of us, it sure is interesting seeing inside the mind of someone who might disagree.

Source: James Kingston

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Let a Daredevil Talk You Through His Craziest Stunt Yet - Popular Mechanics

New York Times

600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself New York Times I met scientists who were convinced of the possibility and necessity of converting our minds into code, of uploading them into machines. I visited a cryonics facility outside Phoenix, in which the severed heads of the faithful were stored in liquid ...

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600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself - New York Times

New York Post

Woman who stuffed dead mom into suitcase says video confession was false New York Post ... a clarification, Mack and her lawyer Yulius Benyamin Seran, say: Considering that contents of the video are fake (by design), recorded under a pressure of about one year ago where previously Tommy Schaefer has written the scenario of confession ... Video confession from Heather Mack 'scripted by former lover'9news.com.au all 8 news articles »

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Woman who stuffed dead mom into suitcase says video confession was false - New York Post

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a Cathedral." ~ Antone de Saint-Exupery

Several years ago, while in Barcelona, Spain, I had the opportunity to visit Catalan architect, Antonio Gaudi's, one-of-a kind, "Sagrada Famlia." While not officially a "cathedral" because it is not yet the seat of a Bishop, it is often thought of as such because it stands as high or higher than many ancient cathedrals. What is unique about the structure is that, while Gothic in design, it is also very "Art Nouveau" and unlike any other cathedral ever built; it is one-of-a-kind, in a class of its own. If you have ever seen pictures of it you'll understand why I call it one of a kind. I encourage you to Google "Sagrada Famlia" and see for yourself--you'll be rather stunned.

Gaudi designed and took over the construction of the project in 1883 and, the amazing thing is, to this day, it is still a work in progress. It stands higher than many skyscrapers; scaffolding and huge mechanical cranes loom in the skyline. The completion of the project is tentatively set for 2026, the centennial of Gaudi's passing. It is said that he devoted the best of his years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Can you imagine holding such a grand vision and not living to see it come to full fruition?

One-hundred and twenty-eight years after his vision was cast, I humbly stood at the base of this monolithic structure and gazed skyward wondering how much more had to be done to complete his vision. My mind raced back to the year 1883 when there was little more than barren land and rocks in that spot and I imagined him standing there, looking up, seeing his masterpiece in its completed form. That's what visionaries do--they see their dream in its completed form long before it is realized in the material world. The transformation of concrete and rocks into a cathedral happened before Gaudi's workers ever broke ground...and the fact that they are still working on the manifestation of it proves it was a very big vision.

Do you have a vision for your life and, if so, how big is it? Can you see yourself living that life now, even if the outer manifestation of it isn't yet visible? While many say you have to see it to believe it, others are saying, you have to believe it to see it. Which are you? This is where and when the foundation for a life worth living is established. The practice is to contemplate your life as Gaudi contemplated his cathedral--as a completed idea in the creative Mind of a Universe that knows no limitations. In other words, the sky really is the limit; the only caveat is that this creative Mind is waiting for you to upload the design blueprints known as your belief system. What is your vision for your life? Are you looking up, or looking down? Be mindful of where your predominate thoughts go because, whether you are aware of it or not, that is the design plan you are uploading.

Clearly, Gaudi believed in his vision, so much so that it had no alternative but to become a reality, even years after his passing. That is a powerful vision when it takes on a life of its own. Turning a pile of rocks into a cathedral isn't difficult once you have the vision--the Universe conspires to support you in your vision if you are willing to stand in it, own it and act on it. We are all visionaries--that is to say, we each hold in our mind a vision for our life; what it can or can't be, might or might not be, or, will or won't be. So the question really isn't, do you have a vision for your life--if you are alive you have a vision. The real question is, what is your vision? Are you looking down at the rocks or up to the sky? Remember, the Universe is listening and it is already uploading your blueprints.

This Blogger's Books and Other Items from...

Your Redefining Moments: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be

by Dennis Merritt Jones

The Art of Uncertainty: How to Live in the Mystery of Life and Love It

by Dennis Merritt Jones

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Does Your Vision for Your Life Cause You to Look Up...or Down? - Huffington Post

Charlotte Business Journal

The fastest way to win (or lose) business on LinkedIn Charlotte Business Journal Although, it should be said, if you upload the wrong type of photo on LinkedIn, you can do more harm to your personal and professional brand than if you'd had no photo at all. With all that in mind, I want to spend the rest of this article ensuring ... and more »

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The fastest way to win (or lose) business on LinkedIn - Charlotte Business Journal

Hideo Kojima is rarely hesitant when pushing the envelope in his creative endeavors and his resume (Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders, P.T., Death Stranding) speaks for itself. Hes become so incredibly prolific that, not only does his work inspire a rabid fandom, the creators every word carries a great deal of weight with professionals throughout the industry. He meticulously manages many aspects of his games and it would be interesting to see what a mind such as his could bring to life with VR. In a new interview with Rolling Stones gaming vertical Glixel, Kojima spoke of his new gaming studio and also had quite a bit to say about virtual reality.

When it comes to VR, Kojima has gone from not seeming very impressed to expressing that he believes it will significantly change entertainment, education, and culture. This interview embodies the spirit of the latter, with him stating that VR is a powerful medium that has the ability to change not only games but our lives. He goes a step further by explaining how it could potentially shape things right down to how we order our food. Itll have a large impact on our culture at large.

The more physically involved nature of VR, such as moving actively with headsets on our heads and controllers in hand, has resulted in a software ecosystem mostly filled with experiences that are intended to be short and sweet. With Resident Evil 7 being the most recent exception, its very rare that we get traditionally full-length gaming experiences. Kojima broke into Glixels question about him changing his stance on video games being considered art on the strength of VRs immersion by comparing VR to a film, a medium that lives within one to three-hourformats.

I believe that in the very near future, games and movies will meld together, he says. The main difference is that a movie is not interactive, whereas a game is. Its almost like industrial design, where you need to think about the way many people will interact with a product and design it around that. Thats a big difference between movies and games.

When asked if he thinkstwo-three hour games can be satisfying and memorable, he responded that he believed so. Games right now, the main way of creating a large-scale game has been to spend three or more years that takes 100 hours to play or something like that. But I think games will also move in the same way toward an episodic nature, meaning smaller but released in a steady stream.

Beyond his comments on VR, Kojima also dropped a hint on his potential utilization of augmented reality. In a way its like AR, he says about breaking the fourth wall in games, like when players had to find a codec frequency for Metal Gear Solid on the rear of the video games case. He said he doesnt want to use the same tricks again so maybe, in the future, well see Kojima add an entirely new layer of game youll have to see through AR glasses or on your smart phone.

A lot of Kojimas anecdotes about the future of things like film and education breaking away from traditional frames are already a reality as creators are able to offer dynamic and immersive VR experiences that operate outside of the box. In August of last year, Kojima joined the advisory board at Prologue Immersive to focus on VR. Hopefully, well see him take a more active role and treat gamers to a virtual reality experience in a way only he can deliver.

Tagged with: gaming, Hideo Jojima, Metal Gear, virtual reality, VR

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Hideo Kojima: VR Will Have A Large Impact On Our Culture - UploadVR

Yesterday, Oculus announced the release date for what will be one of its first big Studios games this year, Rock Band VR. But theres plenty more where that came from.

Following the news, Jason Rubin, Head of Content at Oculus, tweeted out a tease that the launch of the Harmonix music game was Starting Months of high profile rollouts for the headset, suggesting were going to see many more Rift and Gear-exclusive games in the coming months.

Starting Months of high profile rollouts with #Rockband from @Harmonix for @Oculus Rift: https://t.co/W7offpnzzD

Jason Rubin (@Jason_Rubin) February 6, 2017

Thats a very exciting thought, but it left us wondering: What exactly is coming?

So we decided to round up all the Oculus Studios projects we know about right now and shine a spotlight on them below. Keep in mind we dont have release dates for any of these games yet so were not sure how far away from release they are.

What Is It?: Made to showcase the power of Touch, this is a gritty underground shooter where youll use inventive weapons to take down monstrous and robotic enemies, making use of cover and highly customizable guns.

Who Is Making It?: 4A Games, which is known for the Metro series of shooters. Theyre tonally very similar to Arktika, set in a bleak apocalyptic wasteland. This team knows a thing or two about making convincing environments.

Why Are We Excited?: 4A has plenty of experience in making moody, atmospheric shooters quite unlike anything weve seen in the VR industry so far. Arktika could prove to be a genuinely engaging VR FPS with a meaty campaign that takes us on an epic journey.

What Is It?: A first and third-person multiplayer warfare game, where you lead machines and soldiers into battle in a fight for what remains of the Earths resources. It is more top-down shooter than it is strategy game.

Who Is Making It?: Force Field VR, a new studio thats dedicated to the technology and is making several Studios projects. Were expecting big things from them going forward, not just in VR but in augmented reality too.

Why Are We Excited?: If you got into the recent beta that was available on the Oculus store then you should know. Landfall is proof that great gamepad-based gamesarent going anywherenow that Touch is here. The game is releasing later this month, so keep an eye out.

What Is It?: A Touch-starring sci-fi adventure in which you navigate around a space station using your hands. A routine repair job soon turns into a catastrophic incident, and players will be left fighting for survival in the cold depths of space.

Who Is Making It?: Ready at Dawn, which is known for its graphical prowess. Games like PS4s The Order: 1886 and the PSP God of War spin-offs pushed the hardware on which they were running to their limits, so were expecting them to do the same for Rift.

Why Are We Excited?: Lone Echo is easily the best-looking Rift game weve seen so far, but it includes some exciting gameplay mechanics too. Not only that, but theres a very promising multiplayer mode to go with the solo campaign. We have high hopes.

What Is It?: The automated future is here, and robots do a lot of jobs for us. Only this specific batch of droids has malfunctioned, and youre here to take them back in. One problem? They dont want to come with you, so theyll have to be returned piece by piece.

Who Is Making It?: Epic Games. You know, the guys behind Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and the Unreal Engine that so many developers use to make their VR projects. We expect great things from such a high caliber developer.

Why Are We Excited?: Epic knows how to make AAA blockbusters better than anyone, and were expecting them to make one of VRs first. The best part is every Touch owner will be able to play it; Epic and Oculus are releasing the game for free.

What Is It?: A noir adventure game with a trippy horror twist. Wilsons Heart has you using Touch controllers to explore a seemingly abandoned mental asylum, where youll quickly find yourself questioning whats real and whats in your head.

Who Is Making It?: Twisted Pixel, a studio that made its name back in the days of Xbox Live Arcade with the Spolsion Man titles. They excel at making quirky, experimental projects and this looks to be no exception.

Why Are We Excited?: Wilsons Heart makes the best use of the Oculus Touch controllers weve seen in a game, and what weve played promises one of the most intriguing stories in VR so far. This is one of our most anticipated VR games in general, let alone from Studios.

Tagged with: oculus, Oculus Studios, robo recall, wilson's heart

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Oculus Studios Promises 'Months Of High Profile Rollouts', Here's What's Coming - UploadVR

With the Windows 10 AnniversaryUpdate, Microsoft introduced extensions to theEdge web browser. While weve already covered the variety of free extensions available for you to download, a recent report from Windows Central has pointed out thatEbates has joined the slowly growing list of Edge extensions.

With theEbates Cash Back extension, you can shop and save online with coupons and promo codes at over 2,000 stores all while earning Cash Back rewards. All you need to do to enjoy the benefits of this extension is to install it and shop online as you please. Then, when youre shopping, theEbates Button will remind you to activate Cash Back as you go from store to store. Its safe to say that thanks to the latest edition to the Edge extension family, you will save money, and have an extra piece of mind.

Unfortunately, while the Ebates extension now brings the total list to Edge extensions 22, it still lags far behind those of its closest competitor, Google Chrome. A visit to the Google Chrome Web Store shows an almost endless scrolling list of compatibleextensions from a variety of different fields and themes. But, on the bright side of things, Edge and Windows 10 market shares are increasing gradually, and Microsoft is working to make Edge even better in the Windows 10 Creators Update (better battery life anyone?)

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Ebates joins slowly growing list of Edge extensions, only 22 so far - OnMSFT (blog)

The original Psychonauts is the definition of a cult-classic. Tim Schafer spent over a decade at LucasArts making comedicadventure games like Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and The Secret of Monkey Island. Eventually, he left LucasArts to found his own game studio, Double Fine Productions, and their first game was a third-person platforming adventure about a secret society ofpsychic spies. Fans loved it, critics adored it, and as is the case sometimes, it just didnt sell well.

Fast forward severalyears after a handful of re-releases of the original and Psychonauts 2 is officially happeningfollowing the studios raise of over $3.8 million thanks to the democratic power of crowdfunding.Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin then, alternatively, is a VR-exclusive first-person adventure puzzle game in which you embark on a rescue mission for the leader of the Psychonauts himself. The entire 3-4 hour adventure begins right where the original game leaves off and leads directly into the numbered sequel set to release next year in 2018.

Last week I visited Double Fines San Francisco office and had the chance to play through the first 45 minutes of the game and chat with Project Lead,Chad Dawson. He explained that when Schafer had first theorized the idea for Psychonauts 2, this interim story we find here wasnt factored in at all. The plan before was to simply reference the mission you embark on with your team in the sequel, but just leave it as a quickly referenced unplayable flashback. The prospect ofSonys PlayStation VR (PSVR) quickly changed that.

After playing the game for an extended amount of time, I can see why. When I originally got my hands on an abbreviated demo at E3 and was pleased with the quality of the presentation and the appearance of Double Fines trademark humor, but was unsure how well it could translate to an entire adventure. Thankfully the mechanics seem more than capable.

Dawson explained that what I was playing was essentially a final build of the game thats already passed certification by Sony. After donning a PSVR headset, I selected the New Game option from the main menu and got loaded into the mind of Raz, the main character of the series and primary protagonist in each of the franchises games. As a psychic spy, he has a litany of special mind powers.

For starters, his clairvoyance allows him to jump into the minds of other people, seeing things through their eyes and reading their thoughts. Telekinesis lets him lift and move objects, he can push things too, and even set items on fire as well. The games opening moments serve as a tutorial of sorts, as it slowly introduces new powers and mechanics.

Eventually Im able to connect to the mind of the captured Psychonauts leader,Truman Zanotto, while he is being held captive in a secret enemy base. This is where the real game starts. In a traditional point and click adventure game, youd explore the environment and search for clues about what to do next, but in this new Psychonauts game, it feels like a more organic puzzle solving adventure. I can look around my surroundings using my actual head and leap into the minds of guards standing around.

After taking over the minds of others, I can see the room from new perspectives, looking for clues and items to help me figure out where the leaders being kept. All in all, thats what the game boils down to. Youll be placed in a tricky situation, tasked with finding out what to do next using your surroundings for clues, and listening to exposition and details explained through dialogue. And even though in real life I was sitting in a meeting room surrounded by other people while I played, I couldnt help but chuckle to myself at the jokes and witty humor throughout.

Dawson also explained the myriad challenges that a game like Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin presented. Since the team had never worked on a piece of VR content before, they started to realize that traditional movement caused some sickness in people, which is part of why the clairvoyance mechanic is used to teleport around levels by traveling through the minds of others. Since PSVR performs best as a 180-degree device, every time a player teleports there needs to be at least one other person in the line of sight directly in front of you so that you can move again.

This changed the way environments were designed and forced the studio to think about levels differently. An old-school adventure game or a modern interpretation of the genre like Double Fines Broken Age might simply display 2D illustrated scenes that you can move around and click on, but that doesnt work in VR.

Some games like Obduction [Review: 8/10] adapt immersive, puzzle-based adventure games into VR with little changes, but Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin feels like a more robust re-imagining of the genre. Its designed from the ground up with VR in mind and the mere presence of psychic puzzles truly make you feel like the headset is a portal into the minds of the games characters. Its about as clever and clean of a genre/platform combination you could hope for and feels right at home.

You wont have much longer to wait until you can get your hands on it either, asPsychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is set to release for PSVR this February 21st. Currently there are no plans for a Rift or Vive version, although perhaps that will come at a later time.

Are you a Psychonauts fan? Do you plan on getting this when it releases in a couple of weeks? Let us know in the comments down below!

Tagged with: double fine, playstation, ps4, PSVR, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin

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Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin Feels Like an Evolution of Double Fine's Adventure Game Roots - UploadVR

If our wishes come true, Valve will one day bring Portal to VR headsets. But what might the beloved puzzle series look like if it was brought into the real world with mixed reality?

Thats a question developer Kenny W set out to answer with this incredible fan-made project that combines the crazy world of Aperture Science with our own. As a simple side project, the developer has brought a fully functioning Portal gun onto Microsofts HoloLens, and its able to shoot its iconic orange and blue reality-defying doors onto different surfaces in the real world.

While you obviously cant step through them to teleport yourself (its running on HoloLens, not magic), the app does feature the lovable companion cube, which can be placed in one portal and then fall out of the other.

As you can see in the trailer above, this brings a lot of the mind-bending rules of Valves videogame into the real world. At one point the user has the cube continuously falling through two portals before switching one of them to fire it across the room. HoloLens is able to recognize objects within your space, thus the cube bounces off of walls and lands on surfaces like tables. It even realistically rolls down a set of stairs.

Its not a full game as such, and the portals dont visually reflect the place they lead to like in the real game, though thats impossible with the current HoloLens hardware. At one point the player does topple a gun turret that could have otherwise shot at him, proving that theres definitely challenge to be had here, but youre not likely to see this evolve into a full MR game without Valves official approval, especially while HoloLens itself remains a developer kit and not a full consumer product.

Still, Valve has approved of fan-made VR minigames set in its universe, so theres always hope.

We do know that Valve is making its own VR videogames and, if were lucky, it just might be a new entry in the Portal series. If its anything as cool as this, it could be one of the best VR apps yet.

Tagged with: HoloLens, mixed reality, portal

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Portal On HoloLens Might Be The Coolest Use Of Mixed Reality Yet - UploadVR

I chose the Cargo Case for my iPhone 7. I tend to drop my phone from time to time, so I didnt want to take a chance with just a skin or one of the thinner cases. Rather than choosing one of their abundantdesigns, I went with the custom option. Designing my case was easy and fun. I chose a photo from Pinterest that goes well with my wardrobe and uploaded it to the site.

Ive been using the case for several weeks, and its a fantastic case. Not only does it look sharp and my match my outfits, but it offers excellent protection. Its constructed of plastic and a hard rubber around the edges which gives it some flexibility. This makes it easy to take on and off.

The Skinit Cargo Case has custom cutouts for the lightning port, speakers, camera, and Ring/Silent switch. It has button covers for the volume buttons and Sleep/Wake button. There is a lip around the edge that comes up over the screen edges so your screen wont get damaged ifyou put your phone face down. The edges of the case have some texturizing for extra grip. Yet for all that protection, the case is not overly bulky. The decal is true to color and affixed strongly onto the case.

If I have any complaints about it, its only that the design doesnt cover the entire case. Some of the other designs do have edge-to-edge designs, but the Cargo Case has a substantial amount of either black or white and gray. This gives Skinit a lot of room for branding; the name is imprinted both on the edge of the case and on the back next to the camera. I dont mind branding on the side, but its not my preference to have it on the back as well. But these are small quibbles.

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Skinit Custom Cases Personalize and Protect Your Devices - AppAdvice

I have to admit that the complexities of the Oculus/ZeniMax legal battle had me wanting to stray away from the topic for this weeks column, but as I was pondering over the news of the last week I kept coming back to it. We had headline after headline of juicy details along with what I think was a historic verdict that placed a hefty $500 million decisionon the VR specialist.

Ultimately, there was no getting away from it.

The thread I keep coming back to, however, goes beyond just this trial. Though hell wince handing it over (if that is indeed the end result after promised appeals), half a billion is probably water off a ducks back for Mark Zuckerberg. It is actually the exact amount that Facebook is investing into VR content, and theyre not likely to see returns on that for a long time yet. And lets not forget that Facebooks own origins are so closely intertwined with legal drama that Hollywood managed to make a movie out of it.

Courtroom battles are to be expected when companies making billions are brought into the field, and I dont think this verdict alone will have Menlo Park regretting bringing Oculus into the fold.

But I do wonder if viewing the result as the latest in a string of high-profile embarrassments for Oculus keeps Zuckerberg up at night.

To say the Rift has had growing pains is a bit of an understatement. It is a wonderful headset, arguably with the best content library of any VR device right now and bolstered with some truly excellent position-tracked controls in Touch. The product Facebook offers is state of the art and a sublime taste of the future. But the company that built it just cant seem to catch a break of late.

Some of those issues have been unfortunate, perhaps unavoidable mishaps. Rifts belated launch was a rough time for VR enthusiasts, as shipping confusion stretched out for months, and during that time Oculus enforced and then removed security measures that didnt win it many fans in the VR industry. These incidents were made all the more public by outcries from figureheads like Epics Tim Sweeney. Still, as a subsidiary shipping its first product you could forgive these issues.

The infamous ballpark situation, which saw the company suggesting a price drastically lower than the $599 it came to be in the months before launch, has mostly been forgotten. What hasnt been forgotten, I dont think, is last September.

It was a pretty uneventful news days when, out of the blue, a report surfaced online that Rift creator Palmer Luckey had funded a political propaganda campaign in the midst of a very divisive election. I dont need to tell you what the implications of such information surfacing online could be and, if you were reading the Internet that week, youll have seen it for yourself. After a brief apology on social media, VRs former poster child vanished. He hasnt tweeted or been seen on Facebook since, and only recently popped up to testify in court.

This is too good an image.

Think about that for a second. The last time we heard from Palmer Luckey, he apologized for embarrassing the company he helped start and, in doing so, gave himself a stigma that will be brought up in likely every internet comments section on stories about him for years to come. Four months on, a jury decided he had broken a non-disclosure agreement, and cost Facebook yet more public humiliation.

Its an extraordinary turn of events, the likes of which few could have foreseen. And it leaves me asking, with all the hindsight he has now, would Mark Zukcerberg have done anything different?

Publicly, I think hes going to tell you that he wouldnt. But inside the mind of the CEO, perhaps he would.Either way, we know Zuckerberg isnt going to do anything other than lie in the bed hes made. Now led by Facebooks new Head of VR, Oculus is more closely integrated with the social networking company than ever. Oculus has had a year of taking steps forward and backward seemingly in equal measure. Maybe now it can finally put troubles behind it.

Tagged with: Field in View

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Field in View: With $500 Million Worth Of Hindsight, Does Mark Zuckerberg Regret Buying Oculus? - UploadVR

For many people, the end-all be-all of virtual reality is being able to get up and move around inside of a digital space with roomscale. With the HTC Vive, you set up lighthouse base stations in opposite corners of your play space and the system tracks your movement in 3D space around your entire room. With the Oculus Rift, you can accomplish something very similar with extra sensors and the Oculus Touch motion controllers.

Theres nothing quite like taking a step forward with your own feet and feeling yourself moving in a digital environment. For some genres of games, like first-person shooters, its nothing short of revolutionary. Even thoughroomscale is amazing, it doesnt mean that something else isnt just as impressive and exciting in its own way. Just because we have full movement in roomscale VR now, it doesnt mean that gamepad-based VR experiences are dead.

While the VR industry is still in its infantile stages, developers are constantly experimenting and seeking new ways of delivering exciting moments to players. The best horror game I played last year was a roomscale-only title called A Chair in a Room: Greenwater [Review: 8/10], the riveting Onward is an incredible shooter that immerses you in its action, and exploratory puzzle games and adventure titles like The Gallery [Review: 9/10] breathe new life into formerly dormant genres. I recognize the potential of roomscale, but it doesnt have to come at the expense of the gamepad.

The first VR game I ever played almost two years before it released was EVE: Valkyrie [Review: 9/10] and it blew my mind. Cockpit experiences and racing games feel great using gamepads and are arguably even more immersive than their standing, moving, roomscale counterparts. This is especially true while were still struggling with VRs distracting wire problem and room size requirements.

But when it comes to gamepad games, the best practices of how to create a control scheme, what works for different genres, how to design a game world, what makes something fun, and all of the other guiding principles have been researched, developed, and iterated on for decades. Bringing those existing ideas into the immersive world of head-tracked VR is complicated enough without asking people to move around as well.

With so much potential and history in the game industry thats rooted in the player holding a gamepad while seated, it feels like a disservice to that legacy to simply ignore it altogether. Some roomscale experiences have the potential to wrap us up in the power of their stories and innovation of their technology, but other times I just want to sit down with a controller in my hand and play a good game.

When I play a game like Luckys Tale [Review: 9/10] in VR, Im reminded of Super Mario 64, but I feel closer to the action than ever before. Edge of Nowhere [Review: 9/10] reminds me of Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and The Last of Us, but the sounds of the world surround me. Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] feels like the most immersive and terrifying game ever when youre trapped alone inside the PSVR headset.

Damaged Core [Review: 9.5/10] is inventive and unique in a way that couldnt work outside of a headset. These and other games weve seen over the past couple of years are proof that you dont necessarily need to get up and move around in roomscale to enjoy a VR experience.

Landfall, which just had its free weekend beta, is a clever implementation of a top-down tactical game that uses a gamepad as the bread and butter form of controlling your unit. Updating a genre and re-imagining it in a new way doesnt necessitate throwing out the gamepad in favor of motion controllers.

I love being able to look down at my hands and see them accurately represented with hand controllers, but depending on the type of game, that could be a poor form of interaction. If Im playing a fast-paced shooter like Rigs [Review: 8/10], that cockpit isnt conducive to using motion controllers. Third person games feel right at home while holding a gamepad and plenty of obscure or more niche genres work better with dedicated buttons and analog sticks.

At the end of the day, there is enough room in the industry for both gamepad and roomscale VR. There is a certain time, place, and mood that lends itself well to moving around a room in an immersive digital space. Getting physical with sports games, ducking behind cover in shooters, and exploring strange new worlds feels like a natural fit. But if youre putting me in charge of an army, sticking me in a cockpit, or asking me to control a character in third-person, Id feel more at home with a gamepad in my hand.

And finally, being perfectly honest here, sometimes I just want to relax on a couch. Its the same reason that despite my love for VR as a medium and as a way to advance technology, I dont want to give up traditional gaming either. Looking at a TV or monitor a few feet or yards away is satisfying in its own way and I dont think everything needs to be in VR to be good, and just because it is in VR doesnt mean it cant use a gamepad.

The more options we have the better chances there are for innovation and simply good game design. I want to play and enjoy VR games because they are good games first and foremost, not because they are novel experiences.

Tagged with: gamepad, oculus, PSVR, rift, room scale, roomscale, touch, Vive, VR

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Roomscale VR is Great, But the Gamepad isn't Going Anywhere - UploadVR

Unless youve spent the past 12 months so engrossed in Serums wavetable editor that the outside world has become but a distant memory, youll have noticed that were living through interesting times at the moment. Of course, by interesting we mean utterly terrifying.

During such turbulent eras musicians have traditionally turned to making protest music, but from Bob Dylans meaningless Blowin' in the Wind to Mike Reids challenging UKIP Calypso, protest songs are exclusively dreadful pieces of music. Theoretically, their musical shortcomings are mitigated by their ostensibly world-changing powers, but in reality, their effect is limited to say the least.

In fact, creating protest music isnt just a waste of time, its likely to be counter-productive to your cause. If that sounds like an alternative fact, prepare to have your prejudices blown away by MusicRadars top 5 reasons why your protest music is actually making things far worse.

No matter how catchy your melodies or funky your beats, dont fool yourself: your opponents arent going to be swayed by your arguments. Even if your message is objectively accurate, itll likely have the opposite effect to that which you intended according to this research paper, which notes that If people counter-argue unwelcome information vigorously enough, they may end up with 'more attitudinally congruent information in mind than before the debate,' which in turn leads them to report opinions that are more extreme than they otherwise would have had."

Lets take this famous saucily-titled anti-cop jam as an example: despite the evidence submitted to the N.W.A. Court, US law enforcement declined to go F themselves. Who could have imagined such a shocking turn of events?

Unsurprisingly, Facebook has become the primary source of news for younger generations, but once youve dropped your 2-step folktronica truth-bomb on your timeline its only likely to reinforce your similarly-minded friends opinions.

This is because - as everyone apart from the supremely naive realised years ago - social media is an echo chamber that can isolate us from opposing political ideas. Whats more, when people like something theyre given the feeling that theyre helping, reducing the likelihood theyll actually do something useful.

On the plus side, perhaps you might radicalise your mum, or at the very least get a couple of SoundCloud plays off someone you spoke to briefly at a party in 2007.

On the plus side, perhaps you might radicalise your mum, or at the very least get a couple of SoundCloud plays off someone you spoke to briefly at a party in 2007.

So, youre fully committed to dismantling the exploitative capitalist system with your freaky breakcore sounds, but who is really benefiting from your supposedly anarchic antics? Youve bought a computer (which is unlikely to be organic and locally-sourced), forked out to your ISP to upload the data, and everyone who finds your music is almost certainly going to be data-mined to within an inch of their lives by unscrupulous tech giants.

Whats more, your incendiary bangers may be bookended by ads, making a mockery of your anti-establishment stance.

If you're reading this - let alone making socially-aware future bass music on a MacBook in your local independent coffee shop - youre not just a regular Joe. Youre a member of the liberal elite, an ill-defined section of society that everyone hates. It doesnt matter that youre working in the service industry and scraping by on an income that your parents would consider a pittance: your snobby, highfalutin attitudes are driving a wedge between the classes and youre indirectly responsible for the rise of right-wing populism in Europe.

Perhaps instead of banging on about identity politics you should write an aspirational song about poppin bottles in the club like everyone else?

In his documentary HyperNormalisation, film-maker Adam Curtis argues that individualistic self-expression is actually antithetical to effecting political change:

I sometimes wonder whether the very idea of self-expression might be the rigid conformity of our age. It might be preventing us from seeing really radical and different ideas that are sitting out on the margins - different ideas about what real freedom is, that have little to do with our present day fetishization of the self. The problem with todays art is that far from revealing those new ideas to us, it may be actually stopping us from seeing them.

Who could possibly have thought that dedicating the entirety of ones life to programming the most anal neuro bass patches possible alone in a darkened bedroom would result in a navel-gazing attitude?

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5 reasons why your protest song is making things worse - MusicRadar

It's easy to be befuddled about "serverless" or "function as a service" architectures. For one, "serverless" is a bit of a misnomer -- thereare servers, but you don't have to maintain them. All you do is upload a snippet of code and let the hosting service handle the rest.

Butwhat sorts of applications are suited to this kind of deployment? The answers tend to be the same whether you're dealing withAWS Lambda or Azure Functions; the designs of those systems all depend on blocks of code triggered by specific actions. Here are five common kinds of apps built out of such pieces.

This is one of the simplest and most direct applications for a serverless architecture: creating REST APIs that return data to be consumed by either another service or by a single-page application.

REST APIs in general are not hard to build. Most of the time, all you need is a basic web framework, a library for rendering data in the format you're returning (typically JSON), and whatever glue code is needed to talk to the back end from which you're pulling data.With a serverless architecture, the developer can focus exclusively on writing and deploying the code needed to serve the API, and not be distracted by much else.

Many common functions that need hand-tuning in a REST API, like autoscaling to meet demand, are addressed automatically by serverless frameworks. Plus, the pay-what-you-use model that's become the staple of cloud pricing means a lightweight, minimally accessed API costs next to nothing to deploy.

This widely adopted mechanism of callbacks over HTTP is a common strategy to implement push, pipes, and plugins -- all of which increase the utility of web applications. Serverless frameworks are particularly well suited for webhooks for the same reason they're useful for creating APIs generally: low overhead, minimal maintenance, automatic scaling. For example, a webhook can be implemented on Azure Functions with Node.js to process SMS messages or phone calls through the Twilio service.

What's more, most webhook-type actions don't need a lot of code to get to work. Thus, they're ideal for thefunction-oriented approach provided by a lambda-style serverless setup and less likely to outgrow such a delivery mechanism.

Serverless architectures also provide a straightforward method to serve up static content: images, audio, or HTML pages that aren't modified by an application.Static assets can be stored on a number of back ends, including an Amazon S3 bucket, and be accelerated through a geolocated cache, such as Cloudflare. (If you're using S3, it's possible to choose Amazon Route 53 to map URLs to specific resources; AWS Lambda itself isn't even needed for these rudimentary cases.)

Again, the big advantage is that each piece of the puzzle automatically scales to fit demand.It's also relatively easy to add dynamic functionality over time if needed. However, with this approach, spin-up time for the function might impact performance, so geocaching becomes more useful.

Think of this as a combination of the above approaches. The basic assets for a page can be served as static content; to render data on the front end,the necessary API calls can be implemented as serverless functions. Rendering of data happens on the front end via a JavaScript framework.

Upside: Each separately served element of the application can scale independently. Downside: The app has to be implemented as a collection of disparate functions rather than a single unified project, though this shouldn't be much of a hurdle for anyone using modern source control and project management techniques. Also, you'll need to implement a front-end framework like React, Angular, or Vue.js -- but again, any self-respecting web developer should already have at least one of them.

Serverless apps run in response to events, but nothing says an event has to be a HTTP request. It could be an event or a message piped in from a cloud service or triggered to run on a schedule -- a convenient method to perform passive or low-priority functions. For example, an image uploaded to an S3 bucket could trigger a function that causes the image to be labeled with appropriate metadata, resized, and cropped based on feedback from an image recognition or analysis API.

The most consistent detail about working with serverless frameworks right now is that they involve creating loosely coupled components -- microservices, for lack of a better word.If the app you have in mind doesn't lend itself to being composed in this manner or if you're trying to port a monolithic app that will be difficult to pull apart and rework, don't shoehorn a serverless setup into that role. Build new, little elements, and grow them from there.

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Build 'em now! 5 uses for serverless frameworks - InfoWorld