Last month, I wrote about how I used a VR headset for the first time at Gamesc𓄧om. My impressions were mostly positive as I discovered the potential of𒁏 this technology; I had a small taste of its current state, and found out about its unique feeling of immersion and its limitations during my demo.
I'm No Longer Afraid Of Path Of Exile 2
We sat down with director Jonathan Rogers at Gamescom to learn what's new in Path ♐of Exile 2 and start a save with a new character.
I played Dig VR, Escaping Wonderland, and a third game I couldn’t speak about at the time. That last game (you guessed it) was , and i🐼t wasn’t only the best of the three by a mile: it was the best time I had with any of the dozens of video games I played at Gamescom.
I haven’t tried Half-Life: Alyx and other similar first-person experiences in VR, but I imagine 🐓that Metro Awakening won’t feel quite as new if you have played those titles.
Developed by Vertigo Games and Deep Silver, Metro Awakening is the fourth entry in the series and the first one without its original developer, 4A Games. You play as a medic called Eres Serdar, who needs to find medicine for his sick wife. To do so, you must explore the welܫl-known and dangerous subway stations of a post-apocalyptic Moscow, dealing with scarcity, other people’s greed, and radioactive monsters around every corner.
The first thing I experienced in Metro Awakening was a tutorial divided into multiple white rooms with different weapons and pieces of equipment. I grabbed pistols, an assault rifle𓄧, and a crossbow, while also trying to break some glass bottles standing on a table in front of me without much suc𝕴cess.
I expected the shooting to be realistic – you have to change mags manually, check how many bullets are left, load ammo into the chamber, tighten the arrow in the crossbow – but imagining is one thing and actually doing it is something else entirely. I know that other VR games use a laser sig𒁃ht so you know where your shot will go, but this title gives you nothing but your gun’s physical crosshairs. If you want to learn how to shoot, well, you have to learn how to shoot, period.
While it can be really tough to enter this new dimension of play at first, I tried to remain calm.ꦡ The tutorial’s simulated combat is logical, responsive, and intuitive – it simply feels real. It’s what I dreamt that VR games were going to be when the technology was being developed, and in a way, I can’t believe we have actually come this far. After two decades of playing FPS with a mouse and keyboard or a controller, now I want to spend at least one experiencing shooters in this way.
After the tutorial, you get to your first metro station and need to use a generator to ope💖n a locked door. You connect the wires from your device to an electronic panel and start moving the generator’s lever, producing the power you need. This small action followed by other simpler ones, such as climbing a ladder by going up one step at a time, tapping your head to turn on your helmet’s lamp, or crouching down by doing so in real life, let me get inside of this universe instantly, forgetting that I was inside a booth with another person looking at me performing weird moves.
If any of these actions sounds like a bit too much, you can tone down the experience. For example, you can play while seated, handling certain phy🌊sical actions, like crouching, by pressing buttons. These are great accessibility options for people who need them or prefer to have an easier time. In my case, I was thrilled to be able to do all of these actions by myself, getting both physically and mentally tired while diving deeper into this dark subterranean world.
Speaking of darkness, it’s remarkable how easily you can lose sight when you’re not using your flash꧑light. Nothing new if you have played the previous entries, but it feels completely different here. The same happens with the mundane and often boring task of picking up items: you need to manually grab them and put them in your backpack by moving your hand to your back, and you can toss the objects you don’t need as you would normally throw away trash. However, if you see a gun lying next to a corpse, you can either repl🐟ace the one you already have or just remove its mag to see if it has any sweet bullets left for you.
Your backpack works as your whole inventory system, and you can grab it any time you want by moving your right hand over your shoulder, pressing a button, and putting the same hand in front of𝓀 you. You’ll see any equipment and weapons you possess, and ಞyou can organize your stuff in an intuitive way.
These cool details might not matter if the combat itself was basic. For🐬tunately, that’s not the case. I didn’t get to mess too much with it, performing stealth kills like you can see in the game’s reveal trailer, but I got to face some basic mutated creatures crawling around, getting out of my sig🍒ht, and jumping to me when I least expected them.
While the beasts move slowly around for a little while and stay still for a few seconds, clearly giving you time to aim and shoot them down – they are your first encounters in a VR game, after all – tension filled my body, and I started lꦇaughing nervously as I was missing most of my shots. Until I took it down, caught a breath, and kept moving, excited to know what would come next.
When Metro Awakening was announced, the initial excitement was met with disappointment when it was revealed as a VR-only experience. I was one of the thousands of players feeling let down, as Exodus was a fantastic entry in the series and it was time for a new chapter. However, after less than an hour with Awakening, I completely understood the decision to test new waters, and I ended up more excited than I was before, even if I don’t own a VR headset at the mome♛nt.
The best thing I can say about Metro Awakening is that it’s not a tech demo, or something that f💜eels like someone came up with a cool idea for a mini-game, disguised it as a complete package, and called it a day. This feels like a fully fleshed-out video game, and a solid new entry in the series – I’m sure I have only seen the tip of the iceberg, or the first obscure tunnel in a complete maze.
It's Time To Call My Group Of Friends Back For Killing Floor 3
Killing Floor is back and we had the chance to play some wav🍎es at Gamescom 2024.
