Hasta La Gadget!

EVE Online is one of the more prolific sci-fi games out there which has a very dedicated player base, dedicated to the point where the publisher of the game, CCP, has recently announced that they plan on building a monument dedicated to the players of the game. The developers of the game also created a spin-off of sorts called EVE: Valkyrie which is a multiplayer shooter game also based on the EVE universe, and the good news is that it looks like the game will be taken to whole new heights as the folks behind the Oculus Rift VR headset have announced that they will be co-publishing the game and turning it into an exclusive.

This exclusivity means that only those who have the Oculus Rift headset will be able to enjoy the game, but hopefully the headset will become available commercially in the near future so that everyone will be able to enjoy it as well. Also we’re not sure this exclusive deal means that we can expect more goodies from the developers in terms of additional Oculus Rift features and whatnot, but given that the game was designed for VR from the start, this exclusivity should be something worth looking forward to.

Oculus Rift To Co-Publish EVE: Valkyrie, Makes It An Exclusive original content from Ubergizmo.

Oculus isn’t just supporting CCP Games from a distance in its creation of EVE: Valkyrie – the maker of the Oculus Rift VR gaming headset announced today that it will co-publish the game with CCP, making it an exclusive launch title when the Rift launches to consumers later this year.

Valkyrie originally debuted under the codename EVE-VR, and features space fighter gameplay with an in-cockpit viewpoint. Oculus has used Valkyrie as a showcase piece of software for its virtual reality gaming headset, both at E3 last year and again at CES in January, where it was used to demo the new, more user-friendly ‘Crystal Cove’ production prototype Rift hardware.

Getting in bed with CCP as a co-publisher guarantees Eve: Valkyrie prime placement for the Rift’s eventual consumer launch, but it also means that Oculus will have the equivalent of a top-flight ‘console exclusive’, so to speak, complete with established brand recognition. The EVE Online MMO still entertains a massive audience, even a decade after its launch, as evidenced by the scope of a recent in-game space battle.

Total video game immersion might not be as far away as you think: The Oculus Rift is a huge step in the right direction, and it may have an optimal bedfellow in Thalmic’s Myo armband, the gesture control wearable that picks up on electrical impulses from your arm to deliver fine-tuned control over connected devices. While the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset can track head movements, and even now sense when you move forward or pull back, it still requires that you use a physical controller in most cases, which tends to dampen the realism to a degree. You’re not actually going to reach for that ladder run when climbing in-game, for instance, or grip that stock when you’re taking aim with your assault rifle. Oculus Rift and Myo are such a natural fit that it hasn’t escaped the notice of its investors. Spark Capital has a stake in both companies, and that’s no coincidence: A source close to the firm tells me that they considered the possible cross-device potential when they made their investment in each company, both of which were announced in June last year. Myo is marketing its devices as a much more broadly focused input mechanism, but the gaming segment is the fatted pig ready for market for investors, we’re told. The Oculus/Myo team-up isn’t just speculative, either. An email from Myo founder and CEO Stephen Lake confirms that indeed, development efforts are underway to link up the two pieces of hardware. “There are projects using both Myo + Rift,” he explained via email. “For example, there are developers in our Alpha program integrating both with Unity for various games. I think it’s a badass use case.”

For Oculus Rift, the key to success appears to depend at least in part on the headset’s ability to provide a convincing simulation of reality. Disconnects between what users are seeing in-game what they think they should be able to do in terms of character control and in-world interaction. For Myo, the big hurdle will be demonstrating a focused consumer use case that appeals to a big enough segment of the consumer market. In other words, Myo hooking up with the Rift is like chocolate meeting peanut butter, and it’ll be interesting to see how deep that relationship eventually goes.

With the Oculus Rift designed to be a virtual reality headset for gaming, safe to say it helps to create a very immersive gaming experience. We’ve seen some creative uses of the Oculus Rift, such as how it simulates a guillotine, as well as provide a freefalling simulation, and now thanks to a group of Canadian indie developers, they have created a game for the Oculus Rift that simulates diffusing a bomb called “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”. Created for the Global Game Jam, the game basically tasks one gamer with the Oculus Rift to do the diffusing, while the rest of the team will have to pore through various documents trying to determine the make of the bomb and how best to diffuse it.

The game will also take advantage of the Razer Hydra motion controller, presumably for the wearer of the Oculus Rift to perform the diffusing of the virtual bomb. This also means that unless you have both the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra, you’d be out of luck if you wanted to try the game for yourself. According to the developers, there was a lot more features that they would have liked to add to the game but couldn’t as they were pressed for time. Such features included sensors that would prevent gamers from flipping the bomb over, panels that required unscrewing, and so on. All in all it’s a pretty clever idea and you can check it out in the video above.

Oculus Rift Game Lets Players Diffuse A Bomb original content from Ubergizmo.

We’ve seen people use the Oculus Rift to simulate beheadings. BeAnotherLab used the virtual reality headset for something less morbid but no less interesting. The organization’s The Machine to be Another was an “artistic investigation” in which the Rift was used to give participants first person views from actual people.

In one experiment, participants were told to direct the movements of a performer – if they moved their hand, the performer would move their hand as well, if they walked, the performer walked etc. The participant wore an Oculus Rift, through which he or she saw real time footage from a camera mounted on the performer.

The participant could also make the performer pick up objects scattered throughout the experiment area, at which point the performer would say something about the object they picked up. It was like a first-person video game, except you’re controlling an actual person and exploring the real world.

In another experiment, two participants – one male and one female – became each other’s performer. The pair had to synchronize their movements, which is why you can see them being slow and tentative in the video below. The idea was to put the participant in the body of the opposite sex. Note that the video below contains nudity:

Amazing isn’t it? Perhaps studies and experiences like this will be a lot easier to pull off when computer graphics become more life-like. Imagine you’re a browser and head to The Machine to be Another website for more information.

[via The Verge]