‘Jackal Assault’ is all I ever wanted in a seated VR game

There’s already plenty to look forward to in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare due out on November 4th: Space, futuristic weaponry, rifle customization, enhanced multiplayer modes and a bit of Jon Snow. While I missed the opportunity to try the game at the Tokyo Game Show this week, I did come across Jackal Assault which is a PlayStation VR freebie that comes with the CoD title, and it didn’t take long before I fell in love with this space dogfight demo. More importantly, I didn’t feel sick at all, which is surprising given the speedy maneuvers I managed to pull.

There’s no gameplay footage of Jackal Assault at the time of writing this article, but most part of the demo I tried was very similar to what’s shown in the above CoD footage (from 1:35 to 3:05). The game puts you inside a Jackal fighter jet, you have a bit of time to look around the launchpad, and moments later you’re shot into cold space behind a fellow Jackal, with Planet Earth staring right back at you. You’re then tasked with a simple debris removal job to get you familiarized with the controls, which are straightforward on the PS4 controller.

Suddenly, an anomaly is detected nearby, and you’d end up being ambushed by a fleet of similarly-sized enemy spaceships plus their large but stationary battleship. That’s when the game really begins. Soon I found myself taking full advantage of my 360-degree view to track down enemies while flying smoothly at full speed, and occasionally braking to make sharp turns in the debris field. There was certainly no shortage of adrenaline throughout the game. Interestingly, at no point did I notice any nausea even while moving my head around, so I could simply focus on pointing my Jackal at the damn things to shoot them down with my rounds and missiles. Every explosion put a smile on my face.

That was until the demo got cut short by a black hole that came out of nowhere and sucked everything in. Given how simple yet thrilling Jackal Assault is, I wouldn’t mind a longer demo, but then again, it was a good time for me to wipe away my sweat.

Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida ‘understands the criticism’ of ‘No Man’s Sky’

The vast and ambitions No Man’s Sky didn’t have the smoothest of launches. Even after pushing out a huge day-one patch, some players still encountered glitches and crashes, and some players even feel like the game didn’t deliver on what the marketing campaign promised. Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said he understands complaints from players who don’t feel like they’re getting what was promised to them.

“I understand some of the criticisms especially [creator] Sean Murray is getting, because he sounded like he was promising more features in the game from day one,” Yoshida said.”It wasn’t a great PR strategy, because he didn’t have a PR person helping him, and in the end he is an indie developer.” Indeed, No Man’s Sky is one of the most massive “indie” releases of all time, and it’s plausible that Murray simply got overwhelmed with the work as his game got bigger and its release became more and more anticipated by players.

Regardless of some unhappy players, Yoshida is still happy with the game overall and is glad it’s on Sony’s platform. “I am super happy with the game actually, and I’m amazed with the sales the game has gotten,” he said. But Yoshida has also had to deal with lots of customers unhappy with the game who wanted to return it, so even if it’s selling well, it’s far from a runaway success for Sony.

Source: Eurogamer

‘Gravity Rush 2’ expands a portable adventure to PS4 scale

The original Gravity Rush was a key launch title for the PlayStation Vita — a (rare) original adventure that wasn’t a portable iteration of something that already existed. But when it came to the sequel, Sony’s Japan Studios wanted to bring it to home consoles and Gravity Rush 2 was announced alongside a PS4 remaster of the first game. I got to play the latest demo of the sequel here at the Tokyo Game Show, and it looks and feels like a bigger game in nearly every way — exactly what GR2 needs if it wants to stand out on Sony’s main console against stiff competition.

In Gravity Rush 2, you still play as Kat, wielding gravity-warping powers that let her tumble up, sideways and (boringly, realistically…) down. Combined with a surprisingly intuitive control scheme, you’re soon soaring around towns and locales, while the relatively simple fight system lets you fight back against invading inter-dimensional blobs of black stuff.

Said blobby aliens (with handy glowing red weak spots) are still around, with some sort of dimensional disaster occurring between the end of GR and the start of GR2. For not-fully-explained reasons, there are now a few powerful upstarts with powers of their own (self-healing brawlers, crystal-winged angels), as well as military forces with both giant mechs and high-tech battle suits built to go toe-to-toe with anyone with gravity powers. This already sounds like it will help alleviate some of the battle tedium that I felt when playing the original game — everyone likes a good boss battle.

It was even cooler when Raven — the gravity-powered antagonist from the first game — started fighting alongside me. She would often team up alongside Kat as I charged up my most powerful attack, ensuring I did more damage to the giant mech robot attacking us. Both fighting and exploration is made even more interesting by the introduction of two new gravity power styles: Jupiter (slow, hard-hitting) and Luna (light as a feather, but weedier in a fight).

Luna style was the most fun for me, at least during my short play-through. Kat skates along the ground as if it’s ice; she even can stand on water or thin branches. She can also leap pretty damn high without even needing to tap into her gravity mojo. Both styles add a change of pace mid-battle, and you can interchange between the new styles and your normal power-set by swiping up and down on the DualShock touchpad. By the way, slamming into the ground with the Jupiter style is so, very, very satisfying:

You can further augment abilities through a new talisman system (you’ll find them in side-quests as well as during the main campaign), which will let you boost and fine-tune your skills. You will be able to swap between talismans in-game, meaning you can equip yourself better for whatever particular task you’re trying to complete. Harder kicks, longer lasting powers, more things to magically throw with your gravity powers were all outlined during my briefing, but this is just scratching the surface. Combine this with the three power styles mentioned above, and Gravity Rush 2 looks like a deeper game — the kind that PS4 owners would expect.

As the sequel was built for the home console, it all looks predictably far gorgeous and grander than handheld-bound Gravity Rush. There’s a heavy stylistic tone to the series, but Sony’s console has the power to deliver the vision on a bigger scale; to add fluffy cloud surroundings to the skies, to fill street markets with a bunch of people without choking on the graphical fumes. Stand somewhere high, and you can see for (possibly) miles.

There’s a learning curve to both navigating the skies and nailing the black blobs with your kicks and gravity skills. New players will be introduced to Kat’s existing skill set gradually throughout the start of the game, but if you’ve played the first title on Vita, if not the PS4, you’ll be soaring and falling in no time. And to those that didn’t get what they wanted from the original story-wise, Director Toyama ensured the audience during a Q&A session that many of the game’s mysteries, including the origin of Kat, will be answered in the game.

The in-game world will be at least twice, if not three times, as big as the original, with each region having a particular flavor, delivered through building and character design and through the soundtrack. The music is rich, big-budget orchestral pieces, while in-game characters are still talking in something nonsensical that sounds like a language from both North Europe and South America all at once. The attention paid to both audio and design was what helped make the original stand out, so while it’s nice to see the game take a slightly more exotic twist on design, it looks like Japan Studios have also given the sequel just as much attention, perhaps more. The demo I played showed a world that was busier than the original, and as I said before, just grander.

While more places to explore is great, there will still be extra missions and challenges to help you power up your character, with a new mining side-quest letting you challenge other players online. This challenge system existed in the first game, but the introduction of customizable talismans suggests canny item management could trump raw gaming skills. Inside the mining areas, you’ll also be able to find gems and upgrades, as well trinkets from players who died in that area. Which is a bit morbid. And if mining sounds a bit like glorified grinding for new powers and cash, Toyama insisted that it will not be necessary for finishing the game, but more like an extension for those who want to play more.

Gravity Rush 2 launches in the US and UK on December 2nd, and November 30th in the rest of Europe.

Playing ‘Rez’ on PlayStation VR made me fall in love again

I haven’t been able to find someone at Engadget who doesn’t enjoy Rez. (Although now that I’ve written that I’m sure I will.) And if anyone does dislike it, they should play it in VR, because they’re wrong and they need to be corrected. Yes, Rez Infinite, in high resolution, 60 frames-per-second loveliness, comes to the PS4 with PSVR compatibility and it cranks the already addictively immersive experience up a notch. I played it yesterday, and this is definitely what I’ll be playing on my PlayStation VR come October.

The game is a well-established critical hit, originally released on the Dreamcast a whole 15 years ago, that’s been retooled and tailored to VR. But the interesting part is that it already feels made for VR: Anachronistic “hacking the mainframe” concept, “immersive experience” back-of-the-game-box sales pitch. The music! The addiction! Oh no, not again!

Your targeting reticule (gameplay summary: you shoot down pretty much anything that moves) is in the center of your vision, so you can look at what you want to shoot, tap or hold the ‘X’ button, and it (usually) goes down. This, coupled with the simple game mechanics (like the lack of movement controls), make it the most accessible launch game I’ve played on PSVR. No motion sickness, no confusing controls. You sit down, strap in and play Rez. And chill.

I bopped my head as I (effortlessly!) cleared the demo level. Some people stared, while others recorded awkward gifs — but I didn’t care. I can’t wait to play the whole game all over again. And if you’ve never played it, well there is (probably) no better way to play it.