The future of fitness might be a VR-friendly exercise bike

To the casual observer, my morning with VR startup VirZoom was spent peddling like a madman with an Oculus Rift strapped to my face. My experience was a little different; far as I was concerned, I was atop a majestic Pegasus snagging coins out of trees in a verdant valley. The folks at VirZoom believe virtual reality doesn’t have to be experienced on foot or on a couch, so they’ve made a $249 stationary bike (now up for pre-order) to help make exercising less tedious and more awesome.Slideshow-349083

The Massachusetts-based team has been at this for a while; they showed off a prototype at this year’s E3 that put users on an actual road bike. The plan at the time was to build a sort of modular, bring-your-own-bike system, leaving users to steer around virtual worlds by turning the handlebars. Eventually, though, the team ditched all of that and built a custom stationary bike laden with sensors and buttons and thumbsticks on the handlebars. That modularity angle still sort of exists, though: VirZoom’s software plays nice with the Rift, along with Sony’s as-yet-unreleased PlayStation VR headset (which sadly wasn’t working when I went to play with it). They even claim compatibility for HTC’s Vive and its room-scale approach to VR, though we’re not getting our hands on that anytime soon.

So, how does all of this actually work? Once you’re strapped into a headset and seated on the bike, you’ll spend most of your time leaning from side-to-side to navigate menus and peddling to jump into games. Speaking of, the software line-up is pretty limited so far — the launch bundle comes with five games, and you’ll have to pay $9.99 a month to access your fitness data, multiplayer modes and updates for those existing games. The first month of that Plus subscription services comes free and you’ll almost certainly need it, too. The pack-in games, while surprisingly immersive, feel more like quick, arcade-y hits than anything else.

Consider Pegaso, the game I spent the most time with. Leaning my body left and right steered my winged steed and pumping the bikes pedals enough made it leap and soar through the air. Cruising at high altitudes over a valley felt amazing (even though I was damned sweaty at that point), and slowing down to drop into the treetops and snag a coin quickly became second nature. That’s it as far as gameplay, though — it’s pure time attack, leaving you to collect coins and apples to prolong your flight time until you get tired of it. Another pack-in game has you astride an earthbound horse, racing down the dusty roads of a frontier town lassoing bandits.

This one’s a little more complex and makes use of the handlebar buttons to snag varmints who keep getting faster and faster. Make no mistake: at higher levels (or with the bike’s tension turned up), you’ll be drenched. Slightly bored after a while, but drenched. Co-founder CEO Eric Janszen was quick to point out that games can be created widely used Unity engine, and that there are already a few other titles in the works.

While generally pretty neat, VirZoom’s method of motion tracking isn’t ideal for every situation. One of the launch titles puts you in the driver’s seat of a high-performance car on a loopy track; leaning side-to-side steers the car while a button on the handlebars switches gears. If that sounds like no car you’ve ever driven, well, you’re in good company. The fun of lead-footed starts off the line soon gave way to physical confusion — my big clumsy head and the camera tracking its motion didn’t come close to replicating the precision of a steering wheel, or even a traditional handheld controller.

So yes, the VirZoom setup is far from perfect. It is, however, a surprisingly effective way to make exercise feel like anything but. I’ll report back once final units start shipping to the masses, but those of you mulling a purchase might want to take the plunge soon — the first 300 bikes are going for $199 instead.

Paid ‘Destiny’ level boosts promote progression over experience

When developers Bungie and Activision released their biggest-ever paid Destiny expansion, The Taken King, it signalled a return to everything that made the game great. It appeared that both companies had addressed nearly all of the suggestions the Destiny player base had put forward, which included the re-introduction of the all-important six-player raid.

Since the expansion’s debut in September, however, Bungie has also slowly introduced additional, paid mechanics. So far, they’ve been designed to augment players’ characters but not detrimentally affect gameplay for those who choose not to buy them. But as Christmas approaches, new upgrades have hit stores, and the Destiny community is up in arms about them.

The items in question are Level 25 Upgrade Packs: $30 (£25) digital add-ons that can be applied to any Destiny character class (Hunter/Titan/Warlock) to instantly level them to Level 25. The Taken King lets players to rank their characters up to Level 40 and continue building them up by increasing Light levels via armor and weapon upgrades.

Bungie included one of these level boosts for free, called a Spark of Light, if you bought The Taken King: Legendary Edition. It was basically there for people who had completed the previous Destiny expansions with one character and wanted to rank another of their alternative classes quickly in order to better tackle end-game content.

With The Dark Below, House of Wolves and The Taken King expansions now awaiting new players, it’s likely that Destiny will see a healthy boost in sales ahead of Christmas. Bungie believes that some will want to forgo the grind and pay more money to bypass some of the early content. If you bear in mind that The Taken King, which includes all of the previous expansions, currently costs $30 at some retailers, new players will effectively be buying the game twice to activate a one-time level-up.

There is a reason for the cost, though. If the upgrade is priced too low, lots of people will buy it and the players who properly leveled their characters would feel shortchanged. With a high price, it will likely be reserved for day-one Destiny players who no longer have the time or inclination to play through the earlier content again, or newbies who no idea what they’re doing.

If new Destiny players decide they want to pay to level, they’re not only losing out on the fun, but Bungie is basically saying that it’s cool not to go back and play through earlier parts of the story. Granted, the first year of Destiny lacked direction and an overall narrative, but if you wanted the best directional jump, maximum agility and shorter recharges for your super ability, playing the early-game content was how you opened them up. Instantly ranking to Level 25 gives you subclass infusions and telemetries, so there’s no need to play the whole thing through.

Bungie recently reduced the amount of XP that players earn from Weekly Nightfalls and bounties. That makes levelling characters slower, which in turn leads gamers to question developer intentions. When a paid upgrade for quick progression suddenly appears after the speed of progression is slowed down, you can understand why.

With no major expansions on the horizon, Bungie and Activision need a way to keep Destiny gamers active while they work on future updates. Sparrow racing and free timed events are likely to replace paid upgrades, so they’ll need to recoup money elsewhere. Microtransactions help, but so do costly level boosts that incentivize players who value progression over experience.

Via: US Gamer

Source: Xbox.com, PlayStation Store

Twitch on Xbox One now shows hosted (and recent) game streams

Twitch’s Xbox One app just became much more useful if you can’t stop watching live streams. Thanks to an update, Amazon’s game-focused video service offers the Host Mode viewing you’ve seen on the web — if a streamer wants to showcase someone else’s work on their channel, you’ll see it on your TV. Also, there’s a fresh Recent Activity hub that shows channels you’ve watched, channels you follow, and recommended on-demand clips. All told, you’re much more likely to have something to watch… even when your favorite “let’s play” host calls it quits for the night.

Source: Twitch

Playdate: ‘Star Wars’ week celebration, episode one!

Get ready for a week almost 40 years in the making: over the next five days, Engadget Playdate is all about Star Wars. The movies, the toys and, most of all, the video games. Join us as we trip over our nostalgia in preparation for The Force Awakens. We’ll be revisiting the best of Star Wars gaming in chronological order, starting with the prequel trilogy’s Republic Commando and Star Wars: Starfighter

Want some say in what we’ll play next? Join us at 6PM Eastern / 3PM Pacific at Twitch.tv/Joystiq and tell us what your favorite Star Wars game is. Not interested in joining in the discussion? You also watch the show on the Engadget Gaming homepage, right here in this post or, as always, in our archives at a later date.

http://player.twitch.tv/?channel=joystiq

[We’re streaming these games at 720p though OBS, so rest assured they’ll look much better on your PC at home.]

Developer diversity changes the way video games are made

In 2003, BioWare developers working on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic hid a fact about one of the game’s characters from their own marketing team. This character, the Jedi Knight Juhani, happened to be female and she also happened to be gay. Developers weren’t sure how players would receive that trait.

“I think for a long time it was just assumed that nobody would accept it,” BioWare lead writer David Gaider said in 2013. Even in the final game, Juhani’s sexuality is vague. “We kind of hid it,” Gaider continued. “She never says, ‘She was my lover.’ She just says, ‘We are very close.’”

That ended up being a wake-up call for Gaider and a turning point for BioWare. The studio’s future games, notably Jade Empire and Mass Effect 3, feature homosexual characters or options for players to engage in the relationship they prefer. Twelve years after Knights of the Old Republic, it’s more common to find games featuring gay, female or non-white characters, though these experiences are still in the minority. Most games, especially big-budget titles, stick to the default blockbuster action-hero idea of a protagonist: straight, white and male.

This means that games featuring other types of characters — racial, gender, identity and sexuality minorities — immediately stand out. Mirror’s Edge stars an Asian woman; over two seasons, The Walking Dead stars Lee and Clementine, two apparently black characters; The Last of Us features gay romance; Guacamelee stars Mexican luchadores; and so on.

Clementine and Lee in season one of The Walking Dead

Experiences like these are becoming more common. The definition of a “normal” game is shifting, and as it does, Gaider’s fears from 2003 are fueled online.

“If I deal with non-straights in real life I rarely know it, but for some reason it has to be unnecessarily thrown in my face in games, TV and movies,” one Engadget commenter wrote in 2013, in response to Gaider’s panel discussion. “[Mass Effect 3] was a let-down, but having a straight character I liked from 1 and 2 go all gay on me was what made a mediocre game a terrible one.”

“Gender matters,” another commenter wrote in mid-2015. “I don’t want to play as a stupid weak girl.”

A third reader wrote the following in February on an article about Masquerada, a game featuring gay characters: “God Help Us. We are firmly entrenched in the Age of Messages in Video Games.”

Comments like this aren’t news to Dr. Kishonna Gray, director of the Critical Gaming Lab at Eastern Kentucky University.

“Those who have always been reflected in any type of media suggest that diversity and accurate representations are unnecessary,” she says. “Those who make these comments have always been catered to. They have diverse stories. They have meaningful representations. They are not reduced to perpetual stereotypes.”

Guacamelee is a celebration of Mexican culture and platforming action

Guacamelee developer DrinkBox Studios ran into a prickly issue when it was searching for a publisher, studio co-founder Graham Smith says.

“When we were seeking funding early on in the project, we had a big publisher tell us that they were not interested in Guacamelee due to a previous luchador-themed game performing poorly,” Smith says. “In their minds, luchadores were not marketable.”

DrinkBox was nervous following that chat, but it moved forward with the luchador theme that it loved anyway. Turns out, the studio’s instincts were spot-on; plenty of players gobbled up Guacamelee. The project’s Mexican-inspired world occurred naturally, as the idea came courtesy of Augusto Quijano, DrinkBox’s concept lead who happens to be from Mexico.

“We never discussed the marketability of the characters in either Guacamelee or Severed,” Smith says. “We’ve been more concerned about having characters that work well with the story, theme and gameplay of our games.”

DrinkBox’s Severed stars a one-armed warrior, Sasha

DrinkBox benefited from a cultural conversation that some studios don’t see, considering the industry remains disproportionately white and male, according to the IGDA’s 2015 developer satisfaction survey.

Working with diverse developers is the best way to ensure realistic representation in a video game, argues Dr. Gray.

“I don’t want these studios diversifying characters if they don’t know how to do it without being stereotypical,” Dr. Gray says. “If you don’t have the skill set to create a gay character without her being ball-busting masculine, don’t make her. Or better yet, diversify your staff with people who are either members of these populations or who have done research on these populations.”

Some games miss the mark and fall firmly into “ball-busting” exploitation territory — think Lococycle, Resident Evil 5 or Gay Fighter Extreme. Whether these games are borne of good intentions or a lazy cash-in, Dr. Gray says exploitation is avoidable. When developers take time to understand the characters they’re creating, whether via research or personal experience, it shows.

Guacamelee is a great example — and it’s not alone.

The leading ladies of Life is Strange

The young women at the heart of Life is Strange, for example, are complex and engaging, and it feels as if the story couldn’t exist without them at its center. That took research, Dontnod artistic director Michel Koch said in 2014:

“We have women in the dev team — not that many because it’s still the video game industry and there are not that many women — but we have women working on the game. And our writer, which is an American writer we’ve worked with before, he’s consulting with his nieces. He’s showing scripts to them, to read it and see if it feels genuine and fresh.”

In the same conversation, creative director Jean-Maxime Moris said that Dontnod’s short history of featuring female protagonists (starting with Remember Me) was a product of narrative focus, rather than a marketing or activism decision.

“That’s not us trying to be different for the sake of being different,” he said. “It’s not as if we’re trying to ‘fix the industry.’”

Other studios go out of their way to make minority characters feel authentic and robust, such as Never Alone developer Upper One Games, which partnered with Alaska Native storytellers to create a riveting and educational platformer that respects a culture rarely seen in video game form.

Never Alone is as educational as it is gorgeous

The gaming industry is actually above the US average in terms of representing a variety of sexualities in its work force, according to the IGDA‘s 2015 survey. More non-straight developers would naturally lead to games featuring broader, more honest sexuality options. Not all games, but certainly some.

Read Only Memories, a project from the founders of LGBT-oriented gaming convention GaymerX, features inclusive gender, sexuality and pronoun options for its main character, but creator Matt Conn has been careful not to focus on those facets. He’s always been clear that it’s not “a gay game.” It’s pitched as a retro-styled, narrative-driven cyberpunk adventure game — because that’s what it’s all about.

This isn’t a matter of hiding a minority character or storyline, as Gaider and BioWare did in 2003. It’s about not exploiting these aspects.

Building and selling diverse games is a tricky art, though much of the trouble is naturally avoided when studios invite non-straight, non-white, non-male developers onboard. A broader range of perspectives inherently cultivates different ideas, new angles and representative stories. After that, the game sells itself. There’s no need to hide a project’s non-traditional aspects — just as there’s no reason to over-sell these same traits.

It’s a simple formula, according to Dr. Gray: “Don’t tell us. Just do it.”