Tech,Space,Gaming, and Science Fiction News to wet your whistle
'Defector' on the Oculus is basically VR spy training
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
While I may be a rather incompetent assassin, it turns out that I'm not a half-bad secret agent man. At E3 on Thursday, I was afforded the opportunity to don an Oculus headset and play through a level of Twisted Pixel's upcoming espionage simulator, Defector. I only blew my own cover twice!
You play as, well, a spy -- an unnamed, blankfaced male or female assassin working for a shadowy government agency charged with completing a variety of espionage-y acts across the globe. The level that I played was definitely more Mission: Impossible than 007, but I'd be surprised if there weren't also a number of charm offensive missions, given the game's use of Mass Effect-style multi-path dialog trees.
My mission, if I chose to accept it, was to cajole information out of a notorious arms dealer while aboard his private jet, then escape the airplane once I had obtained the intel. Easy right?
Well, within five minutes I had physically coerced the arms dealer into divulging what he knew by threatening to rip his face off via explosive decompression, pistol whipped him unconscious, strapped him into a parachute with the help of a double agent, thrown his limp body out of said plane, and engaged in a furious first-person gun battle with a dozen or so very large, very angry and very well armed private security personnel aboard an aircraft that was now on fire. Luckily there was an exotic convertible roadster equipped with a parachute conveniently located in the jet's cargo hold with which I was able to make my departure. It was a blast.
Defector puts the Oculus Touch controllers and headset's position tracking to good use. You're able to grasp and pick up objects in the environment, peak around corners and stick the barrel of your firearm over cover. You even have to manually reload your firearm when you empty a clip. That was a really cool touch. The punching action is a bit finicky, though, and didn't consistently pick up my movements.
See, I need to be punching stuff because of course I have to engage the captain of the security force in a bare knuckle fight in order to win his keycard and unlock the cabin door behind him. I mean, how else would I do it, shoot him in the face like I just did to the other 12 enemies onboard?
Actually, that part of the gameplay kind of bugged me. The entire level played very linearly with little opportunity to improvise. It felt like I was playing through a to-do list. I really hope that the full version of the game, which is slated to be released at some point this year, will allow players to use their imaginations a bit more when completing missions. Still, by the end of the demo, my palms were sweating and my heart was racing -- and not just because I'd been shadow boxing a virtual villain for the past seven minutes. I'm excited to see what the full mission lineup looks like.
Note-taking app Evernote has fallen on hard times of late, culminating in its latest spate of job cuts impacting 15 percent of its workforce (54 employees). CEO Chris O' Neil -- an ex-Googler who took the reins in 2015 -- announced the firings at an all-hands meeting earlier today, reports TechCrunch . In a message on the Evernote blog , O' Neill admitted he'd set "incredibly aggressive goals" for the company in 2018. He continued: "Going forward, we are streamlining certain functions, like sales, so we can continue to speed up and scale others, like product development and engineering." The layoffs follow an exec exodus just weeks ago and the company's recent brand refresh (complete with a refined logo and wordmark). But critics are more concerned about its product, especially the free tier, which they claim lacks the perks to
By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here . After six summers of researching, testing, and recommending window air conditioners, we've learned that quiet and affordable ACs make most people the happiest—and we think the LG LW8016ER will fit the bill in most rooms. This 8,000 Btu unit cools as efficiently and effectively as any model with an equal Btu rating, and runs at a lower volume and deeper pitch than others at this price. Little extra features like a fresh-air vent, two-axis fan blades, and a removable drain plug help set it apart, too. The LG LW8016ER is a top choice for an office or den, and some people will find it quiet enough for a bedroom, too. If our main pic
Pre-loaded cartridges of cannabis concentrate are currently among the most popular means of consumption, and for good reason. They're discreet to use and easy to handle, a far cry from the dark days of 2016 when we had to dribble hash oil or load wax into narrow-mouthed vape pens by hand. But, frustratingly, an ever increasing number of oil cartridge manufacturers employ one-off design standards so that their products won't work with those of their competitors, thereby locking customers into proprietary ecosystems. We've already seen this with nicotine vaporizers -- which has a seen a massive rise in "pod systems" in the last few years, each outfitted with a unique canister and battery built to be incompatible with those of their competition. Is it too late for the burgeoning cannabis industry to set a universal standard for their product designs?
Comments
Post a Comment