I barely survived on a dinosaur planet in PlayStation VR

Stepping outside a battered space pod, I drink in the forest’s sights and sounds. A shallow river meanders to my left. Some birds chirp overhead. It’s a tropical paradise. Or it would be, were it not for the legions of dinosaurs roaming around. I’m playing Robinson: The Journey, a game developed by Crytek for the soon-to-be-released PlayStation VR. As Robin, a young astronaut, I’m tasked with searching for survivors on a strange, alien planet. The problem is that I suck at pretty much everything.

First, there’s movement. Most VR games will keep you in a single spot, or, in the case of the HTC Vive, an area enabled by its room-scale tracking. In Robinson, however, you can move around like any other video game. The left stick moves your astronaut, while the right stick changes the camera angle. In VR, it’s both liberating and incredibly jarring. I could walk in any direction and peer at any part of the environment, near or far. But strafing left or right, while my body was stationary in the real world, felt unnatural. I was never sick or unable to continue, but I definitely felt a little queasy.

Crytek has tried to mitigate this problem in a few different ways. As you look around, for instance, your character will naturally slow down and, at times, grind to a halt. Then, if you need to strafe, you can push the stick horizontally and Robin will move a smidge in that direction. These controls are designed to help your body and brain adjust to the game’s free flowing movement. They also encourage you to take in the environment at a slower, leisurely pace. Which is sensible, except sometimes I would slow down to the point where I thought Robin had got stuck on a tree root.

Okay, so I’m not the most nimble astronaut. What about my survival skills? They’re not much better, it turns out. Robin’s robotic buddy, Higgs, tells me “Laika” is being a bother and requires some assistance. I have no idea who or what Laika is, but can hear a primal cry somewhere behind me. Curious, I investigate. (A dinosaur scream. What could go wrong?) After looking in a few random bushes, I realize that I need to move a crate blocking a nest inside the cave. I fiddle about with my multitool — a Gravity Gun-inspired instrument that can push and pull objects — to free the creature. In the same breath I leap backward, expecting a violent confrontation.

But it doesn’t come. It turns out Laika, a small two-legged beastie, is a companion I’ve been training in my spare time. I’m relieved, but also a little embarrassed by my misplaced ‘fight or flight’ instincts.

Never mind. I’ll just prove myself as an engineer instead. Before Robin and Laika can explore the rest of the jungle, Higgs explains that I need to open a gate blocked by a blue force field. I look around, a little confused. I can shout to Laika and guide him over the fence, but nothing happens. Unsure, I turn around and start walking back towards the space pod. “You need to go to the river,” a Crytek developer hints. Under the headset, I feel my cheeks turn a bright shade of red as I traipse over, pulling out the multitool and removing some boxes that were blocking a hydro-powered generator.

Before long, the gate is open and I’m wandering down a path flanked by large, leafy trees. Some herbivores break cover and Elijah Freeman, an executive producer at Crytek, explains that I can scan them with my multitool. Completing this task will add them to my encyclopedia, along with a detailed 3D model. Maybe I can excel as a dinosaur historian? Determined, I keep the multitool aloft and creep forward. Before I can reach them, however, they scuttle away into the undergrowth. I press on undeterred, scanning the environment for any signs of life.

Up above, I spot some birds gliding from one branch to another, mere silhouettes against the harsh midday sun. Immediately I hit the scanner, waiting for the colored orbs that indicate a successful lock-on. To add a little challenge, the orbs appear in two different colors: green and red. Hoovering up the green ones will complete the scan, while touching a red one forces you to start over. The mini game is simple provided your prey stays still — unfortunately, the birds had no interest in such behavior. A few seconds later they had soared out of view, never to be seen again. I look down and scan a rabbit gnawing at a flower instead. It’s not the same.

Before long I hit a fork in the jungle, which indicates the end of the demo. I’ve enjoyed my time with Robinson: The Journey, but can’t help feeling a little dejected. As an agile adventurer, I’ve failed miserably. As a computer genius, I’ve struggled. Even my turn as a prehistoric archivist ended in disappointment. Never mind. When the game comes out, I’ll have more time to hone my skills. To become one with the wild. That’s dependent, of course, on me getting used to the controls and the mild motion sickness it seemed to trigger in me. Right now, my brain could use some fresh air.

Surely I just played my final ‘Final Fantasy XV’ demo

While Final Fantasy XV’s decade-long development doesn’t beat Duke Nukem’s excessive run, it’s still a hell of a long time for another part of one of gaming’s biggest, longest-running franchises. And it’s still not here. However, at the Tokyo Game Show, I got what is possibly the last taster before the main course; a lengthy 30-minute play-through that — barring some brutal initial loading times — felt like a finished game.

The demo started in a pretty fascinating way: you’re thrown into a throne room on fire, and some evil (and huge) human figure is goading you to fight. You’re also no longer the boy-band prince that’s been part of FFXV’s promotional materials since 2006, but an older, grizzled version. Even your fellow bros are looking a bit rougher around the edges. You then assemble to duck another magical flame attack, and the demo frustratingly moves on to a glossy intro movie showing the King (the protagonist’s dad) biding you farewell as you cross the country to marry… someone. That early fiery scene seems like a tantalizing teaser of what’s to come. I’m all about time skips.

After setting up on your bro roadtrip, your car breaks down, and while it gets fixed, you’re free to do some chores, hunt some monsters and get used to the battle system quirks. Like the surprisingly dense Episode Duscae demo that came out two years ago (!), you’re given free reign to do what you want. Explore, fight, camp out, eat at the cafeteria and all the other important things.

My party gained levels, picked up new skills and I even forced them into casual clothes during my play: nothing seemed particularly locked down, and I could access monster hunt side-quests even if they were beyond my current level. Like I said at the start, it felt like the start of a whole, entire game, and it wouldn’t be a huge shock if it was.

Director Tabata himself said the game would have been ready for its previous September launch date, but the team wanted to avoid the curse of the Day 1 Patch, iron out bugs and add further polish.

I’m still not sure what to make of Final Fantasy XV: it’s willfully different, and I get why. Now I need to work out whether Square Enix can deliver on a modern, open-world Final Fantasy game — and get me to care about Noctis and his buddies. The only way I’ll figure that out is when the whole thing lands. Which is currently November 29th. For now.

‘Yakuza 6’ adds the thrill of running your own cat cafe

As Sega attempts to tie up the long-running (typically late-to-translation) Yakuza series, the sixth iteration has yet more ridiculous mini-games and side jobs, offering more mundane distractions from the boot-to-face Japanese gangster brawls that typically make up a large part of the games. While calming a weepy baby is certainly mundane IRL, if you’re a speedy enough typer (through your DualShock controller) you’ll be able to charm webcam girls online — for those days when the protagonist can’t quite make it to his regular hostess club. And that’s just to start with.

Yazuka series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi went in-depth at TGS 2016 about some of the more obscure timesinks the latest game comes with. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• Busking.
• Finding stray cats.
• Using said strays to run your own cat cafe.
• Typing online with web-cam girls. Oh boy.
• Soothing a crying baby. (That. Might. Be. His. Son!)
• A baseball simulator.
• In-game playable two-player (!) versions of Virtua Fighter 5 and Puyo Puyo.
• Making friends with other hostess bar patrons. Oh boy.
• Darts.
• Batting cage practice.
• Mah Jong.
• Diving for fish.
• Eating fish (probably)

Naturally, there will still be plenty of thugs to punch, people to swear at, and all that delightful melodrama you’d come to expect from a Yakuza game. Iteration six is scheduled for release in Japan later this year.

‘South Park: The Fractured But Whole’ delayed to early 2017

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is set to hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in the first three months of 2017, a slight delay from its initial release date of December 6th. Ubisoft announced the date change in a two-sentence update on the Ubiblog.

“The development team wants to make sure the game experience meets the high expectations of fans and the additional time will help them achieve this goal,” the announcement reads.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole (man, that name never gets old) is a follow-up to the 2014 role-playing game South Park: The Stick of Truth. It was a solid first showing from show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but the duo say they’ve learned a lot from that initial release. Even PewDiePie’s playthrough gave them ideas on how to improve the new game, apparently.

When The Fractured But Whole (still not old) finally hits the market, don’t expect it to come with any ready-made DLC options. Stone and Parker have been vocal about their resistance to producing DLC as a way to generate cheap cash from content on the cutting-room floor, though they have some ideas about extra scenes they might add to the new game down the line.

Source: Ubiblog

Apparently, that ‘Monster Hunter’ movie is still happening

Films based on video games really don’t have the best track record. From 1993’s Super Mario Bros. to this year’s Warcraft, these movies almost always seem to lack whatever it is that resonates with fans of the games they’re based on. What’s the next potentially disappointing adaptation? Monster Hunter, apparently. Speaking at Tokyo Game Show, Capcom’s Ryozo Tsujimoto revealed that a live-action adaptation is currently under development.

The announcement was almost an afterthought to a new trailer for Capcom’s Monster Hunter Stories, though Tsujimoto was careful to note that the two projects were unrelated. “While it isn’t related to Stories,” he said, “there is a Hollywood movie adaptation of the main series in progress.” It’s not the first time we’ve heard about such a project, either — in 2012, Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson showed interest in making a Monster Hunter film. There’s no indication that Anderson is involved in the current film, however, and Tsujimoto didn’t offer any details on director, release date or cast. Still, one more major video game franchise is heading to the silver screen. Will you see it? Tell us all about it in the comments below.