Recent reviews of some little bits and pieces:
Review: Project Stardust
Source: https://youtu.be/SalMwmQRImc
This is a great little freebie! Having all the full Star Wars dialogue and music build as you head towards the Death Star or barrel down the later stretches of the trench run is pretty hair-tingling.
Loving the extra touches like the virtual cockpit buttons for radar & firing mode and such. The motion controller inputs work well (I like the 'roll on one hand yaw on the other, with both doing pitch' set up - very intuitive). There's a certain inertia to the craft which means the trench run is tough but not completely unfair, once you learn to boost out of collisions (rather than using the daft-but-necessary 'air brake'
).
I still haven't aced the run - I'm assuming you have to beat the timer rather than dodge Darth's wrath, so I'm just going as fast as possible...
Ultimately, it's mainly a minor endurance mini-game all about making that trench run, with a bit of pew-pew pre-amble. But I honestly can't fault it for that
[rating]3_5[/rating]+++
---
Short Films: Bonfire
Probably the closest thing to a 'VR cartoon' I've seen to date. Lovely toy rocket style and cute characterisation at points.
By 'cartoon' you should totally expect something short and sweet, with the interactions just adding a bonus bit of protaganist glitz, rather than gameplay as such.
The second ending option didn't add a huge amount, but playing it through again revealed bits I'd missed each time, and revealed just how much work they'd put into the alien character.
[rating]3.5[/rating]+(+)
---
Review: The Key
A strange interactive indie short this, with a slightly early-VR-days feel. The fairly lovely, if occasionally basic, art style is transporting enough, although shortcuts like 2D background elements do detract at points. The interactions are minimal, but add rather than detract. The limbo world that you're led through has a twist in the tail, deploying some alternative visual tech which if anything gains something from its shonky appearance and rough edges.
The core message is a bit agitprop-y and simplified ultimately, but somewhat impactful for all that along the way.
[rating]3[/rating]++ [Free]
---
Review: Oika
A bizarre educational vanity product, attempting to chart the birth of the cosmos until now, via a weird surfer-dude voiceover. Unsurprisingly it falls way short of those crazy ambitions
The first half, aside from a fun little dalliance inside the singularity at the birth of the universe, and some peculiar moments accepting stone tools from an ancestor, is full of missed beats and mainly lacking in either facts or wonder.
It pulled some points out of the fire with the second instalment though, allowing you to visit the same forest scene in different segments of the light spectrum. And dialling down the 'cosmic heatmap is a blueprint for creativity' sketchiness. A little bit...
[rating]3[/rating]-- [Free]
---
Review: Nefertari: Journey to Eternity
Another high quality scan of a historical location, with decent interaction options, and further V/O info.
The 'found untouched' presentation is a nice approach, with the floating dust mites, a blocked entranceway rasped by howling winds, and torchlit hands for exploring the small tomb. (Although the local oil lamps are lit, and the actual treasures have still been raided)
Although it was cool to see the art up close, with its plaster imperfections, and to be able to click on many of them to get some info about why they were depicted there, there was a certain 'flatness' to this compared to reconstructions like the Dawn of Arts cave painting. It's not just because the art is ‘2D’ and not pleasingly curved around surfaces, or because the audio guide was particularly dead pan. It's because it just really begged for that little bit of extra budget to create a narrative world out of these historical facts, and cross the floor from academic interest to broader appeal.
It was cool to learn of the 'starry sky' on the ceiling, to hear a bit about the linen clad gods of the dead, to discover that even the depicted cows were named. But an animated recreation of one of the related myths, cast against that starry backdrop, or a historical recreation 'flashback' to knit the two together, was the missing magic ingredient for this for me.
Very interesting to have 'been there'. Very cool that this exists. But not sure how much it will stay with me as history 'brought alive'.
[rating]3[/rating](+)
Review: Project Stardust
This is a great little freebie! Having all the full Star Wars dialogue and music build as you head towards the Death Star or barrel down the later stretches of the trench run is pretty hair-tingling.
Loving the extra touches like the virtual cockpit buttons for radar & firing mode and such. The motion controller inputs work well (I like the 'roll on one hand yaw on the other, with both doing pitch' set up - very intuitive). There's a certain inertia to the craft which means the trench run is tough but not completely unfair, once you learn to boost out of collisions (rather than using the daft-but-necessary 'air brake'
).I still haven't aced the run - I'm assuming you have to beat the timer rather than dodge Darth's wrath, so I'm just going as fast as possible...
Ultimately, it's mainly a minor endurance mini-game all about making that trench run, with a bit of pew-pew pre-amble. But I honestly can't fault it for that
[rating]3_5[/rating]+++
---
Short Films: Bonfire
Probably the closest thing to a 'VR cartoon' I've seen to date. Lovely toy rocket style and cute characterisation at points.
By 'cartoon' you should totally expect something short and sweet, with the interactions just adding a bonus bit of protaganist glitz, rather than gameplay as such.
The second ending option didn't add a huge amount, but playing it through again revealed bits I'd missed each time, and revealed just how much work they'd put into the alien character.
[rating]3.5[/rating]+(+)
---
Review: The Key
A strange interactive indie short this, with a slightly early-VR-days feel. The fairly lovely, if occasionally basic, art style is transporting enough, although shortcuts like 2D background elements do detract at points. The interactions are minimal, but add rather than detract. The limbo world that you're led through has a twist in the tail, deploying some alternative visual tech which if anything gains something from its shonky appearance and rough edges.
The core message is a bit agitprop-y and simplified ultimately, but somewhat impactful for all that along the way.
[rating]3[/rating]++ [Free]
---
Review: Oika
A bizarre educational vanity product, attempting to chart the birth of the cosmos until now, via a weird surfer-dude voiceover. Unsurprisingly it falls way short of those crazy ambitions
The first half, aside from a fun little dalliance inside the singularity at the birth of the universe, and some peculiar moments accepting stone tools from an ancestor, is full of missed beats and mainly lacking in either facts or wonder.
It pulled some points out of the fire with the second instalment though, allowing you to visit the same forest scene in different segments of the light spectrum. And dialling down the 'cosmic heatmap is a blueprint for creativity' sketchiness. A little bit...
[rating]3[/rating]-- [Free]
---
Review: Nefertari: Journey to Eternity
Another high quality scan of a historical location, with decent interaction options, and further V/O info.
The 'found untouched' presentation is a nice approach, with the floating dust mites, a blocked entranceway rasped by howling winds, and torchlit hands for exploring the small tomb. (Although the local oil lamps are lit, and the actual treasures have still been raided
)Although it was cool to see the art up close, with its plaster imperfections, and to be able to click on many of them to get some info about why they were depicted there, there was a certain 'flatness' to this compared to reconstructions like the Dawn of Arts cave painting. It's not just because the art is ‘2D’ and not pleasingly curved around surfaces, or because the audio guide was particularly dead pan. It's because it just really begged for that little bit of extra budget to create a narrative world out of these historical facts, and cross the floor from academic interest to broader appeal.
It was cool to learn of the 'starry sky' on the ceiling, to hear a bit about the linen clad gods of the dead, to discover that even the depicted cows were named. But an animated recreation of one of the related myths, cast against that starry backdrop, or a historical recreation 'flashback' to knit the two together, was the missing magic ingredient for this for me.
Very interesting to have 'been there'. Very cool that this exists. But not sure how much it will stay with me as history 'brought alive'.
[rating]3[/rating](+)
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