“The Oculus Rift has come a long way from a Kickstarter concept piece to billion dollar acquisition by Facebook.”

Oculus VR are not breaking new ground for the integration of VR technology and innovative motion controls into video games.  It has been attempt before in various different guises, from Nintendo’s Power Glove to Victormaxx’s ridiculously expensive Cybermaxx headset. Peripherals for video games have never really improved on the overall gaming experience, at least not enough to make gamers shell out cash on the high priced products. The Oculus Rift is really a refinement of the technology laid down by Jaron Lanier, Thomas G. Zimmerman and others alike. The wide field of view, HD display and head tracking the key selling points of the new device and may well be the final piece of the puzzle that was missing previously. The other issue that held back many devices prior to the current day equivalents was a simple matter of size. One of the first virtual reality head mounted displays was so heavy and cumbersome it had to be suspended from the ceiling, users nicknaming the device the “The Sword of Damocles”. Even Nintendo’s Virtual Boy seems bulky and unwieldy by today’s standards. There is no doubting that Oculus VR have put their work in trying to make their device slip seamlessly into the gaming experience and make the interactivity as intuitive as possible.

“Virtual Reality has come and gone in the past can the current trend maintain prolonged interest and more importantly sell in sustainable numbers.”

However it is not as if the company has a monopoly on the VR market as both Sony and Valve are looking to enter the arena with their own interpretations. At this year’s Games Developers Conference in San Francisco Sony came out swinging with their own version of a VR headset dubbed Project Morpheus. The Japanese tech giants have been working on VR prototype headsets for a number of years, integrating their own Move controllers into the system. Sony has the slight advantage of having a long history in the tech industry and all the experience that comes with it. However the Oculus team can boost about the veteran developers that have joined the company, with id Software founder John Carmack the chief technology officer at Oculus VR. Even Valve’s own VR specialist Michael Abrash has switched sides and joined the Oculus Rift team. It would seem that at any rate gamers will be spoilt for choice when these devices make it market, when that will be is still up in the air. Some hints point towards a late 2014 early 2015 launch for the Oculus Rift, but another important question arises in response to that is the devices proposed price point. Again no official pricing structure has been announced only guesstimates can be made at this time, the most recent Dev kit version of the device going for $350 (€254). $250(€180) to $300(€220) the price range been floated around by some market analysts. Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey has stated that he may adopt a similar model used by the console manufactures, dropping the price and making up the money on licencing deals with game publishers. This is integral to the success of any of the current VR headsets in development, the support of the video game developers to integrate the technology into their games. At the end of the day if there isn’t an extensive catalogue of titles that will support VR then the Rift, Morpheus, Gameface or any of the other VR headsets will ultimately fail.

“The Oculus Team have had VR market all to themselves the last two years but now competition is heating up with others jumping on the VR bandwagon.”

The decision by “Notch” to pull his official support for Oculus Rift integration with Minecraft doesn’t help with publicity for the VR company. Not that ‘Minecrafters’ desperate to see their blocky creations up close and personal are out of luck, as there are mods that support Oculus Rift input. However an official release of a VR compatible version of Minecraft could have been a big boon for the Oculus Rift over it soon to be competitors. The Rift is definitely carving itself out as a PC peripheral as opposed to Sony’s VR which obviously will be supported by their PlayStation console. Sony already demonstrating their eye tracking technology working with the current PS4 release Infamous: Second Son. So just like the console wars that take place between Sony and Microsoft it is the exclusive titles that can often sway customers moreover than hardware specs. There is even now a host of tech companies that want to take VR even further, not happy with just tracking movement of the player’s vision they want get them on the move. Companies like Virtuix with their Omni motion tracking device want to have Oculus Rift users get of their seats and start moving. The demonstration of Valves new VR headset at Steam Dev Days also incorporated spatial awareness and the capturing of full body movement. This entire aside the current generation of VR is still in its infancy with projects still in development and release dates still TBA. It would seem that there is enough momentum behind the VR push this time that it is unlikely to be a flash in the pan. Whether or not it will be a revolution in video game interaction is still out to tender. A quick review of interactive peripherals of video games past doesn’t paint a great picture. Even the evolution of the video game controller has been fairly stagnant for the last decade, although Valve might have something to say about that. The coming years and eventual product launches will offer a clearer idea for the future of Virtual Reality.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post The State of the Industry: Virtual Reality The Future or Fad? appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

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Only a handful of games look to give the player an insight into the lives of those who lived behind the iron curtain. Although Papers, Please is set in the fictitious country of Arstotzka bordered by a number of equally imagined territories, it is an obvious analogy to cold war era Soviet Union. The game transports you into the role of an immigration officer tasked with protecting the borders of the motherland from those who wish to harm or exploit it. On the face of it sitting in a booth checking passports and stamping visas seems like a pretty dull concept. It seems with the plethora of games on the market that any real life task or job can be turned into a game that really shouldn’t e.g. Street Sweeper Simulator, Chemical Spillage Simulator or basically any game released by Excalibur Publishing. However unlike the others the soviet era veneer that is layered over the top of this seemingly dull concept is what makes it stand out from the rest. The graphics re-enforce this tone with the whole game taking on the look of an 8-bit grey and gloomy soviet era cartoon, with the slightly eerie and distorted feel to the faces of the games inhabitants. It’s that style that sells the game, as if it were an ultra-realistic depiction of a fully 3D rendered border station the gameplay would actual start to feel to real and thus make you think why I’m playing a game to work a job with no financial gain. Which is why an interesting moral and political sub plot is introduced were the player has to decide whether someone who spins you a sob story should be allowed into the great land of Arstotzka and risk them being a terrorist in disguise with the aim of causing harm to your fellow countrymen or deny them and risk the financial penalty of a citation for turning away an innocent visitor. As the game progresses the task of assessing those risks becomes more complex with various forms of ID and piles of documents to scan over for any discrepancies. Over all a solid game that takes a repetitive task and adds enough style and moral dynamics to make it fun and rewarding, especially when you find that sneaky Kolechian hiding a bomb under his jacket and get to send him off to the gulag.

“I think a concealed weapon is reason enough for denial, those Kolechian’s will try anything to hurt the motherland.”

Papers, Please was released last week on Steam after coming through the Steam Greenlight program, this is just one of fifty games that have come through the Greenlight program to be eventually selected for Steam distribution. There are also 90 games that have being Green-lit and are awaiting a full retail release. The Greenlight programme started just over a year ago in August of last year and since then has been meet with mixed reactions. It started as an offshoot of the Steam Workshop that allowed developers to upload mods and have user vote on the best ones. The aim of the Greenlight program is to have developers submit their games to the service were the steam community will vote for those that they want to see on the main Steam service. It seems like a valid way to promote indie games and allow interaction between the developer and their fans. Recently Valve introduced a $100 entry fee for anyone wishing to submit their games to the service, with the money going to the Childs Play charity. It was in reaction to the high number of spam and fake games being submitted, in order to deter such submissions. The new policy however was meet with a little trepidation with some arguing that such a high price would also deter small time developers who didn’t have the finances to pay the fee. There is also the issue of the selection process with the number of games getting a full release relatively small according to some. I would have to argue that the small amount of games that do get Green-lit show that Valve are taking the approach of quality over quantity. Anyone can browse the list of game awaiting approval and quickly understand why such games will continue to wait do you really want to play such gems as Sloth Patrol or Voxel Elephant Murder Simulator. Valve themselves have admitted that they would like to increase the number of Green-lit games, but I think people need to realise the amount of work that goes into getting a game ready for release on Steam. Even just purely from a server bandwidth point of view, Valve have to be sure that the game is worth the time and effort to put up on their service for retail. Some games are better just out in the wild on standalone website or on other indie gaming platform such as Kongregate. It’s a question that is asked of every user browsing the games on the Greenlight service “Would you buy this game if it were available in Steam?” it an important distinction between would you play such a game as would you hand over your hard earned cash for said game.

“7 Days to Die a voxel based zombie survival game has being gaining a lot of attention on Greenlight lately, zombies are popular who knew?”

There’s a certain similarity between Papers, Please and Steam Greenlight where your put in charge of deciding somebodies fate whether it be denying an unlawful Repbulian across the border or judging which games deserve a retail release on Steam. I think a service like Greenlight shows a way forward for developers who want to avoid the traditional publishing process and work directly with Valve on digital distribution. Although like with any form of medium it still depends on whether people like your content enough to want to buy it, this has led to some developers feeling frustrated when their game that may have been popular elsewhere fails to find traction on the Greenlight program. It seems like there are always new and innovate systems being developed for developers to find a market for their games. The well establish companies still often prefer to work within the old system, but for indie game designers there are a host of options when it comes time to reveal their masterpiece of programming and art design to the wider world.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post Papers, Please Review appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

“The game is built with the source engine which definitely adds to the Portalesque feel to the game”

The game revolves around the exploration of a rundown abandoned building that places many hazardous and seemingly impossible to navigate challenges in front of you. You start out in a room trapped with impassable pile of rubble in front of you and it would seem there is no way out, that is until you spy through your very fetching spectacles that you carry in your hand. Through the eyepiece you can see what appears to be the previous state of the room before the unexplained apocalypse caused the building to fall into disrepair. Then by using your one power you can temporarily open a gateway to the past and easily navigate the once obstructed path and that pretty much sets you on your way with multiple rooms of obstacles and challenges that can only be navigated by dipping in and out of the past. The one thing that held my attention throughout the game which is beautifully rendered, with the eerie decrepit building really setting the scene for the game but I have to say it was the looping animation on the characters hand that kept drawing my eyes away from the rest of the level. I don’t know if it some sort of lava lamp type affect, but I could not stop looking at the hypnotising motion. I’ve rarely seen such a smooth animation for a hand in an FPS game. The game was created as part of the academic course at the University so it’s only a short demo but the basic gameplay mechanics and unique visual concept could be expanded out into a fully fledged game.

“Everything looks better through rose tinted glasses or in this case magical blue tinted see into the past glasses”

The game was created by a group of student from the Singapore campus of DigiPen University under the team name Minus5 they include Zoel Gan, Ravindran Mark, Tan Chee Ming, Chan Sin Huan, Leau Tat Sin and Zou Xinru. The games creators have a little bit of a vanity streak by placing themselves in the game as portrait caricatures that hang on the walls and can be collected to unveil a hidden secret within game. The Minus5 team give some insight into the game development process in this interview which you should read if you want to find out more. You can also download the game from the DigiPen Game Gallery and see what you think about it.

By Colm O’Sullivan

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Within the next year the video game market is set to reshuffle as Microsoft and Sony gear up for the release of their next gen console. A battle that will be fought and won by whoever can spend the most to attract exclusive titles and DLC and which side can muster enough hype to keep their loyal fans happy and possibly turn a few from the other side.
We can rewind back to 2005 and the release of the Xbox 360, it was Microsoft’s second outing in the console market and with a year on its main rival they easily won a place in gamer’s hearts and emptied their wallets. After the dust settled Microsoft had sold over 75 million units with Sony trailing behind on 70 million itself. Although Nintendo’s console outsold both of them with nearly a hundred million units, it failed to earn respect from gamers and developers alike with most title ported to the Wii failing to sell, which might have something to do with Nintendo’s poor reputation with third party developers. A reputation that was formed in the video game crash of 1983 where Nintendo were one of the few companies that survived the oversaturation of consoles on the market. Is the modern video game industry heading towards a similar faith? The Xbox 720 and PS4 are forecast to release before the end of the year with Nintendo’s latest iteration the Wii U already on the market and the android based Ouya and rumour Valve steam box also in the pipeline, not to mention Xi3 highly anticipated pc/console hybrid the Piston also coming out this year the video game industry is set to become a battleground, that might change the dynamics going forward or send us all back to early 80’s levels of recession.

“Let the fan boy flame wars commence”

All avid gamers and journalist are marking off their calendars waiting until May 21st the rumoured date for Microsoft’s big unveiling of its latest console. Although some have said that E3 which is taking place from the 11-13 June is the more likely candidate which would make a more appropriate setting for a console announcement this fact is backed up by the ever present countdown to E3 on Microsoft Director of Programing Major Nelson’s blog post. This would also fit with Microsoft’s previous announcements regarding its other consoles also happing at E3 in the past. The announcement will merely be a formality as the hype for this console is already at its peak with most of the hardware specifications been leaked over the last few months. A decent press event for Microsoft might be due all the same with one it’s employees getting into hot water on Twitter in the last week. Adam Orth the Creative Director at Microsoft Studios has left his position following the outcry from his comments on the social media site. Orth was discussing the concept of Online DRM which is rumoured to be present in the new console and how gamers must “deal with it” the comment that caused more outrage was in response to a question posed of living in a rural location such as Janesville, Wisconsin or Blacksburg, Virginia that would result in poor internet connection to which Orth responded “why on earth would I live there”. Orth has now removed his digital presence online which is understandable with the amount of backlash caused by his comments. ’Always Online’ is an issue that Microsoft would rather gloss over at the moment especially with the bad taste left by the latest Sims City still felt by gamers and an upcoming announcement would help soothe their tempers. Microsoft also have to contend with Sony who have already had their unveiling back in February with a host of social media and entertainment features announced, but little in the way of technical details or even a glimpse of what its  latest offering looks like. The PS4 is set to boast a similar level of hardware specs as the Xbox720 possibly with a better processors although it’s hard to make comparisons when no official specifications have been released. The next generation of consoles look to catch up with the pc market in terms of hardware with the memory, processing and graphical power of the new consoles equalling a high performance gaming machine. However it is unlikely that it will be the hardware or even the social media features that will persuade gamers to turn out their pockets, it will be the games that Microsoft and Sony can provide that will decide who wins the battle. Sony have announced both the Witcher 3 and Watchdogs as upcoming PS4 titles although more than likely these games will also come to the next Xbox, it is the exclusive titles that hold gamers attention and if it is the exclusive titles that will decide which console reigns supreme then if Valve are determined to enter the console market with the rumoured Steam Box then by purely measuring statistics they will easily win with the PC market boasting the largest number of exclusive games most of which can be found on Valve’s digital marketplace Steam.

“We can only hope to see such level of detail on the next generation of consoles”

Steam has being the saving grace of the PC market with its effectiveness at refocusing the attention of gamers and developers from the console back to the home computer. Since its launch in 2003 Steam has set the trend for the online gaming marketplace being able offer low prices by avoiding high street retailers and selling games straight from publishers to the customer direct and promoting indie developers through its Greenlight program, with the likes of EA taking years before they realised the potential of digital content delivery with their Origin platform launch in 2011 and unable to garner as much favour with gamers. Valve now looks set to take Steam into the living rooms of gamers and compete for space in the TV cabinet alongside the Xbox and PlayStation. The seeds have already been sown with Valve releasing the Big Picture mode which a software update to Steam that allows the user a more console friendly interface for use with a PC hooked up to a TV screen. The question would be do gamers really want another console like this when at the moment a high powered laptop connected to the TV can do what Valve has stated they want their own console to be able to do. A laptop that can also be used as normal computer and not built to be a closed off system which is the one reason for Steam success and the division between console and PC gaming. It would seem Valve have fallen for the bait of the console market and believe there is success to be found but that remains to be seen as it is not the piece of hardware that makes the money but the contracts and deals between the console manufactures and third party developers that have led to Microsoft and Sony’s financial bounty. If the Steam box becomes a more limited and closed off system as with other console on the market they may turn away third party developers who prefer the open and unlimited system that exist in the current PC market. It’s a trap that the makers of the Ouya console have also fallen for.

“Is this the face of Sony & Microsoft’s doom”

The android based device is set for a retail release in June of this year and is priced at $99 dollars. The project was funded by Kickstarter and raised over $8 million dollars and became the sites second highest earning project. Was all that money worth it however, from the initial reviews of the developer’s version released last month it would look like it has potential to become an alternative gaming platform but it’s just not ready yet to compete in the cut throat console market. The critics have panned it for it cheap controller design which could be expected from a pre-release version but it seems it’s biggest problem is that even before its official release it is already a generation behind other android devices already on the market. In a benchmarking test carried out by Futuremark it ranked 78th among other android devices which is not really good enough even with its lower price tag then some of the other devices above it on the list. If the Ouya is looking to set itself up as a legitimate gaming console then it needs to give gamers a reason to switch from their current devices an buy the Ouya. The Ouya is trying to compete on two fronts with the mobile phone market that already holds the vast majority of android game sales and to convince the console gamers that their device is a cheap alternative to the already established consoles. It is hard to see why gamers would ditch their phones that have so much more functionally beyond gaming or how they can be turned away from major AAA titles in favour of casual android based games, it is a similar problem that has plagued the Wii U with third party developers not willing to make games for the console and causing poor sales for Nintendo’s newest console.

Over the next year we will hopefully see the release of all these consoles that will allow us to judge for ourselves whether they will survive in the turbulent seas of the console market or will they sink to the bottom without a trace. It is unlikely that Sony or Microsoft will be too worried about the young pretenders looking to compete with them with both the PS4 and Xbox720 looking set to gain their respective companies a large financial windfall before the year is out. It is the likes of Valve and Ouya that will have a harder time convincing gamers to part with their money regardless of how cheap they price their console and the loyalties that they have built up with other longstanding companies.

 By Colm O’Sullivan

The post The State of the Industry: Ready To Level Up appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

Fast forward to the new year of 2013 and joy of joys I finally got a new pc with hardware max out to the nines, enough power to play any of Crytek’s games on the highest resolution; and as if some Disney style miracle Firaxis Games have just released Civilization V Gold Edition which features all the current DLC and the Gods & Kings Expansion Pack all just for €39.99. However just like all Disney films there is a dark twist in the tale before the hero can gain his prize. It was Thursday evening when I logged onto steam to snap up this deal which according to the press release had been released two days earlier on the 12th February. I proceeded to the checkout and enter my details only until my internet froze to halt just like the hero when confronted by the open chasm with seemingly no way across to the castle and his princess, just beyond his reach so close but yet so far. Not matter unlike the hero I can just wait till tomorrow when whatever bugs infested my router have left of their own accord.

“The screen that greeted me on that faithful morning”

The next day I awoke early and eager to play Civ V it felt like Christmas morning and I was ready to open my long awaited present. However when I logged onto Steam to my dismay Civilization V Gold Edition was nowhere to be seen. No evidence of its existence just as if it had vanished overnight. Some ghostly like remnants remained in the search bar history where Civilization V Gold Edition did still appear but only linked back to Steam’s home page. What was going on was I still dreaming , was this some sick joke concocted by Valve to deny me the pleasure of playing this game that I had waited so long for or was it an error made by the Steam marketplace. Most likely the last one, however it made no difference. I was no faced with two options pay €97.87 to buy all the content that was promised in the Gold Edition or spend the next week cursing Steam, Vale and Firaxis Games for this injustice and constantly search the web for any news or reasons behind the games removal from the service. Obviously I chose the latter as I feared the moment I would hit the purchase button and have nearly a hundred euro drained from my bank account the Gold Edition would suddenly reappear like the villain waiting for the right moment to strike down the hero. What was strange however was the lack of news regarding this problem, as far as the rest of the internet was considered the game was out and available to buy. It wasn’t until the next week when I stumbled upon a forum post on the Civ Fanatics website that mentioned the game was still available in the US how could this be they wouldn’t just release the game in one region, besides there had been no mention in an article relating to the game about region specific release dates. Out of curiosity I logged into the US side of steam and low and behold there it was in all its bargain deal glory the fabled Civilization V Gold Edition. Without a moment’s hesitation I clicked to add to my cart and within moments I was downloading and installing it to my computer. The hero had rescued his princess; it was no time for me to spend the next few months of my life playing this game until my fingers had no strength left to click the buttons from lack of food and rest.

“The new hex based system for movement and combat adds a new element to the traditional gameplay.”

The point to this tale if it has one is if Steam our trying to put themselves forward as the saviours of the pc market and looking to do away with the constraints that put a stranglehold on the console market why was this game only available on the American side of steam when there was no mention of the deal being region specific surly the point of Steam is that is equal to all is unbound from constraints for both gamers and developers alike. As I write this article Civilization V Gold Edition is available on the European side of steam but still displays February 12th as the release date which as you’ve heard is not completely true. So in summation Steam is not infallible and can make mistakes from time to time and Civilization V is a brilliant game with a host of new features that look to redefine the gameplay mechanics of the series and you definitely go buy it now it is available for such a great price.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post Civilization V Gold Edition Review appeared first on Game Design Ireland.