Category: Games

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VR gaming has largely been a difficult space to navigate from a consumer perspective. PC-based platforms require a decent rig, the room to prop up external sensors, and the willingness to deal with wires–not to mention the high cost of entry. As vast as VR worlds can be, the setup requirements have been somewhat restricting. Oculus Quest forgoes all of that by delivering a standalone VR gaming platform with the features we’ve come to expect from the high-end. It’s not perfect, but Quest is an example of the ideal VR experience.

Quest offers a whole lot more than its cheaper, entry-level counterpart, the Oculus Go. With Quest, you get six degrees of freedom (6DOF) for positional tracking thanks to the headset’s four inside-out sensors–formally called Oculus Insight. This translates to roomscale capability without external sensors. In many ways, it’s an improvement over the requirements of beefier PC-based headsets which rely on base station sensors (save for the upcoming Rift S) since you’re no longer tied to a dedicated space for VR. A potential drawback of inside-out tracking, however, is the headset’s inability to pick up controller movements that fall outside the range of the sensors, though it hasn’t been an issue in our experience thus far.

Oculus Quest headset and Touch controllers. It’s all you need to get into VR.

Another piece of tech that elevates Quest above other mobile VR platforms is the incorporation of the revised Touch controllers. These are fully-featured controllers with analog sticks, face buttons, grip buttons, and triggers–they’re reminiscent of the first run of Touch controllers, but lighter and with the motion-sensing ring above the face buttons for better tracking with the Quest’s sensors. You won’t miss out on functionality offered in PC-based VR, and Touch remains the best solution for VR controllers at the moment with their ergonomic design and smooth buttons and triggers.

So, what’s powering Quest? Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip. It’s typically used in smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Note 8, and the reliance on a mobile (though relatively powerful) chip is an inherent compromise that needs to be made, and the visual limitations show with games like Apex Construct and Journey of the Gods. This isn’t a slight against the quality of those games, it’s been enjoyable to explore their full 3D worlds. Rather, they’re examples of the general upper limit of Quest’s hardware capabilities, which fall far short of mid- to high-range gaming PCs. Regardless, the Snapdragon 835 provides enough power to render an acceptable level of visual fidelity for games.

Quest will launch with Robo Recall but the game was not made available during our review period; it’d be a good test of Quest’s ability to keep up with something more graphically demanding. However, there’s reason to believe that it’ll work just fine. Tweaking level of detail and graphical features isn’t the only option to make things work. A technique called foveated rendering lowers the pixel count of screen space in your periphery, and it helps ease the hardware’s workload without sacrificing necessary visual clarity. You can think of it as adaptive resolution for the areas you’re not focusing on, and the drop in peripheral resolution is only noticeable if you’re looking for it.

I almost think of the Oculus Quest as the Nintendo Switch of VR; it’s not the most powerful piece of hardware, but its portability and ease-of-use makes it stand out against existing platforms while delivering a new way to enjoy games.

The headset projects a total resolution of 2880×1600, higher than the current mainstream HMDs, but it’s worth noting that Quest’s fast-switch LCD displays run at 72Hz. On paper, it’s a considerable drop from the 90Hz we’ve come to expect from VR displays, but there haven’t been any perceivable issues with the downgrade quite yet. Having played games like Thumper, Beat Saber, I Expect You To Die, and Face Your Fears 2, the loss in peak framerate won’t make much of a difference. And if Space Pirate Trainer and the Superhot VR demo are anything to go by, 72Hz might just suffice in the long run. Again, a fast-paced experience like Robo Recall would be a good test to see if a max 72 FPS is enough to mitigate disorienting players.

By and large, the hardware performs admirably, and the operating system follows suit. Quest is painless to setup; every time you boot it in a new location, you simply set up your Guardian boundaries to establish a safe play area, or you can just set the ground level and continue as a seated experience. It runs Oculus OS, so your only means to access software is through the Oculus Store–Quest is a closed system.

Battery life might seem disappointing at first as Quest lasts for around three hours on a full charge. But considering that I didn’t feel the desire to stay in VR for too long, I could easily go for three to four sessions before needing to juice up the headset. And if you don’t mind staying tethered to play while charging, a lengthy USB-C cable comes packed in.

One aspect I find disappointing is long-term comfort. Quest’s headstrap is adjustable on the sides and on top with secure velcro straps, and the whole thing pulls back and lifts upward with ease which makes the process of getting it on rather painless. But Quest needs a better facepad out of the box. The stiff padding isn’t so much the issue as it is the noticeable pressure point it creates on your forehead. I’ve tried loosening the straps, but the headset would sag a bit. I tilted the headset downward a little, but offset the pressure to my upper cheeks and pull my undereyes downward. I wouldn’t call this a deal breaker since I’m not one to stay in VR for too long, but after about 45 minutes, I needed to give a rest before bearing the discomfort again.

Journey of the Gods from Turtle Rock Studios makes its debut alongside the Oculus Quest.

Given that most of the Quest library is comprised of games that are already out on other platforms, it may not be all that attractive for those with existing VR setups, though it’s worth mentioning that several games will be cross-platform between Rift and Quest. While there’ll be 40+ games at launch, we’ve only been able to experience a handful of them with the Oculus Quest. You’re not going to get photo-realistic 3D worlds in games, so the appeal of Quest really relies on the creative use of the headset’s power. Journey of the Gods and Moss, both of which will be available at launch, are such examples where imagination overcomes graphical limitations, and the hope is that more games like them are in Quest’s future.

Above all else, Oculus Quest nails down convenience. It’s a unique feeling to be able to slap on a headset and get a full untethered VR gaming experience with ease. I almost think of the Oculus Quest as the Nintendo Switch of VR; it’s not the most powerful piece of hardware, but its portability and ease-of-use makes it stand out against existing platforms while delivering a new way to enjoy games. It’s between the lesser mobile headsets and traditional powerhouses, and that’s an attractive place to be.

This sentiment isn’t set in stone, though. Again, I still need to experience more demanding games in both the graphical and physical sense to see if it can keep up. But our initial impressions after about 10 hours with a handful of games are promising, so there’s reason to believe Quest is the platform VR gaming needs. Oculus Quest launches on May 21 with the option for 64GB storage at $400/£400 and 128GB at $500/£500. Pre-orders are now open on the official Oculus website.

Detective Pikachu features Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds lending his voice talents to the title character, but he had a very different direction in mind for his vocal style. His idea was to style it after film noir, a genre known for its gritty monologues and fatalism.

Reynolds described his take on The Tonight Show (via THR) as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit had a baby with Blade Runner.” But that concept quickly got push-back. He characterized the studio’s reaction as, “Or maybe just do Ryan Reynolds … Maybe shut up and do the other thing.”

It seems the actor is happy that his voice made the movie so cheerful and bright, though. He said he’s glad that a movie that’s “just a nice adventure” is being released right now because “the news these days is just like pouring hot lemon juice into your eyeballs.” Evocative!

Detective Pikachu tells the story of a teenage boy (Justice Smith) in the Pokemon world who visits Ryme City to put his deceased father’s affairs in order. He meets up with his dad’s former detective partner, a talking Pikachu (Reynolds) that only he can understand, and they set off on an adventure to solve the mystery of his father’s death.

Reviews are relatively positive, though critics appear to agree that fans of the venerable franchise will get more out of it. GameSpot’s review concluded that against all odds, live-action Pokemon works.

“Detective Pikachu should prove enjoyable for any and all Pokémon fans, young or old,” Michael Rougeau wrote. “It presents fun answers to the fantasy of what life would be like if Pokémon were real. It introduces new wrinkles to the world of Pokémon, although not all of them completely work. Still, as the first official live-action trip to the world of Pokémon, Detective Pikachu presents characters I want to see again and a setting I’d like to return to.”

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The latest timed event in Destiny 2, the spring-themed Revelry, is winding down this weekend. You’ve only got until the next weekly reset on Tuesday, May 7, to dive into the Verdant Forest, complete your Triumphs, and unlock the game’s latest Exotic weapon, the Arbalest. If you’re still struggling, we’ve got a guide that can help nabbing Arbalest go a little quicker. And if you need more Exotics, good news: the snake-faced Xur returns once again with a bag full of them.

Head to Io to find Xur this week. He’s hanging out in the Gaint’s Scar region. From the spawn point, ride your sparrow north and head to the cliff wall on the left side of the area. Look for a cave entrance: Inside, you’ll find Xur waiting and, as usual, acting a little weird.

The Huckleberry is Xur’s Exotic weapon of choice this week. The Exotic submachine gun fires bullets extremely quickly, and kills refill its magazine from reserves, making it a deadly close-range bullet hose. In the armor department, Xur brought two Forsaken Exotics this week, making up for last week’s disappointing inventory. Titans can pick up the Antaeus Wards leg armor, which reflcet incoming projectiles, refilling your Super energy, when you slide. For Warlocks, there’s Contraverse Hold, Exotic gauntlets that power up your charged Void grenades, returning grenade energy on a hit and helping you resist damage. Hunters get a Year One Exotic: Gemini Jester, a leg armor set that disorients enemies and turns off their radar when you dodge near them.

Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they’ll cost you:

• The Huckleberry (Exotic SMG) — 29 Legendary Shards
• Antaeus Wards (Exotic Titan leg armor) — 23 Legendary Shards
• Gemini Jester (Exotic Hunter leg armor) — 23 Legendary Shards
• Contraverse Hold (Exotic Warlock gauntlets) — 23 Legendary Shards

If nothing Xur has strikes your fancy, you can also purchase a Fated Engram from Xur. Thanks to a recent update, Fated Engrams can now dish out Exotics from the Forsaken expansion, as well as from the original Year One group. Grabbing one of the engrams gives you a random Exotic that you don’t already have–if you can afford it. Fated Engrams will run you 97 Legendary Shards, and you can only get one per account each week. Xur also offers the Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.

Finally, Xur brings yet another Invitation of the Nine weekly bounty. Completing these gives you a Powerful gear drop, as well as a bit of story about the Nine and the Drifter, along with a new Lore entry that fills in the history of the Emissary of the Nine. As usual, you’ll have to clear out a mess of enemies of various types, and complete a Strike. Stick to the planet mentioned in the bounty to kill the enemies you need, as they don’t always count if you kill them in other places. Be sure to finish the bounty by Thursday’s daily reset, or you won’t be able to grab a fresh bounty from Xur on Friday.

Thanks to Disney’s acquisition of Fox, the X-Men are now under the Disney/Marvel umbrella. And due to the sheer amount of time it takes to make movies, it will have to be years before we see them on the big screen as an integrated part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe–if we ever do. There’s already a slew of movies slated for the next era of the MCU, known as Phase 4: a Black Widow solo film, a Guardians of the Galaxy three-quel, and a Black Panther sequel, just to name a few. There’s even a Shang-Chi film in its planning stages. And none of those involve the X-Men.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who is notoriously cagey about the future of the MCU, was clear on the X-Men’s hiatus in an interview with io9, where he discussed the new merger:

“It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”

It’s probably for the best; fans will need some time and space to accept anyone as Wolverine other than Hugh Jackman.

But Avengers: Endgame may have already set some X-Men-related plot points, though we may not see them pay off for another decade. And they have everything to do with the three Snaps in Infinity War and Endgame: the first by Thanos, the second by Hulk, and the third by Iron Man.

The Hulk had a potentially key line of dialogue, right before he performed the second Snap at the Avengers compound. He explained to the group that he must be the one to do use the Infinity Stones, because the resulting, massive amounts of gamma radiation they release would kill the average person. And since it was gamma rays that created the Hulk, he would stand the best chance of survival.

But just because everything looked normal on the outside, doesn’t mean it was. What if these gamma rays affected more than just the Snapper, and also mutated people’s genes? Maybe one Snap wouldn’t do that, but there were three Snaps total, and the last two happened in close succession.

If a fraction of that gamma radiation could create a massive green rage monster, what could multiple Snaps, which affected not only Earth but the entire universe, have upon living creatures? And especially the ones closest to the epicenter, on Earth?

Could it cause varied, odd mutations in certain people? Like the ability to absorb life through touch? Or the ability to read minds? Or even the ability to control the weather? It would continue a key, running theme in the MCU: that many of our heroes’ problems are the unintended consequence of trying to do good.

Tony Stark built weapons for America’s troops, only to find out they were being used to kill them. After the Chitauri attack on New York, Stark Industries stepped in to help clean up New York, and inadvertently caused a bitter, unemployed Adrian Toomes to become The Vulture. In Avengers 2, Stark and Bruce Banner created an artificial intelligence to protect the Earth, only for it to gain sentience and grow evil. The Sokovia Accords were meant to bring accountability, but they turned out to be just another level of corrupt bureaucracy.

That the two “positive” Snaps–the first by Hulk, the second by Iron Man–could create such a life-altering, catastrophic effect, would be both thematically consistent and karmically justified. You can’t do or undo something that big, and expect to get away with it scot-free.

So if the Snaps create mutants in the MCU’s future, how will they explain the existence of older mutants, like Magneto and Professor X (assuming they keep the X-Men timeline true to the source material at all)? Maybe by exposure to the Infinity Stones earlier in the timeline, as seen throughout the MCU movies. Nazis experimented with the Tesseract in World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger (in the comics, Magneto was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp as a child), and it was later studied as a part of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., which we saw in The Avengers. The Stones could have been in any number of places on Earth or space since the beginning of the universe. And if a young Sabretooth and Wolverine came in contact with a stone centuries ago, they may be lying low, thinking they’re the only mutants out there.

This would also dovetail with Marvel’s timing issue. It might take several years for these mutant “gifts” to manifest; in the comics, they were often latent, triggered by puberty or a moment of trauma. There could be Phase 4 and a Phase 5–perhaps even a Phase Six–before the first wave of new mutants begin appearing.

And lastly, in the comics, Xavier’s mansion was located in Westchester, New York. With the new, upstate Avengers facility now destroyed, what better place to build the mansion than on the land where the last two Snaps occurred? It would be a symbolic gesture on Xavier’s part; he embraces his new students for who they are and how they came to be.

In short, the ending of Endgame is a little too neat. There has to be a loose end or catch to playing God. And this unexpected consequence would be a masterful way to bring the X-Men into the MCU fold where they belong.

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