VRodeo: 09: Polybius, Arizona Sunshine, and More

Yee- haw?

extremely fitting that jeff minter was the guy to end up making the real polybius, considering the legend was based on tempest

Statik is dope.

More people should be talking about Statik.

Edit: Everytime I want to play PSVR, I always fully shut down and start back up the PS4. It's dumb that you have to do it in order to make sure the tracking is at its best, but it's necessary.

Ben's filling in for Sleepy Brad™ again, poor guy.

Both Polybius and Statik look fun...not +400€ fun, but still. Arizona Sunshine, though, holy christ. Looks like something you'd maybe fit on a free sample disc that comes with PSVR, if even that.

I highly advise people to check out Arizona Sunshine on PC. The PSVR version is absolutely terrible.

The hell are you talking about? It's a great game, especially since they added non-teleport movement.

Was rather creeped out walking through the mines.

Edit: Oh it's the shitty PSVR version, lol, my god that looks so much worse than it does on PC

Polybius looks mesmerising in the way I want VR to be.

Trapped in the VIDEO GAMES DIMENSION.

Maaaaaan, Jeff Minter is amazing. That game looked fucking bonkers.

Polybius looks REAL GOOD. I want to inject it directly into my cerebellum and VR seems like the only adequate delivery method.

good twitter follow if you like pictures of sheep, too.

The volume on the higher quality version of the video is lower, I think? That's weird.

The voice levels seem to get a little too loud since they've come back form E3

HEY PC VR DEVS! Not everything needs Wave base shooter multiplayer.

Look at Polybius

Ive heard Moon Cresta sounds in there!

Polybius seems SO much faster in the headset with its silky smooth real 120fps. It really is something to behold! And theres 100+ levels apparently xD I cant get much farther than lvl 20 or something like that. Its insane, like youre getting pure 80s arcade bliss blasted in your mind, definitely one of my favourite vr games. Tried playing it out of vr as well and doing that after playing in vr felt like I was playing a different, way slower, worse AND harder game. Wouldn't recommend it out of vr.

Jeff minter has a walktrough of the first few lvls on youtube explaining the basics.

Buncha edits:

Arizona sunshine has probably the worst psvr tracking I've encountered yet. Only tried with the move controllers. Seems better that way maybe.Not by much though.

The psvr aim controller works with the brookhaven experiment since today, havent tried i out yet though.

That psychonauts game looks incredibly sharp in the headset compared to other stuff on psvr. And the lighting is a step above most psvr games as well.

Dick Wilde works really great as well, in it you can jump, duck, walk and around in a small area to avoid stuff while sadly only shooting waves of stuff coming from the front with a boss (joined by lots of normal enemies) as 11th wave. But theres so much stuff flying at you that physically avoiding stuff while shooting is really fun in this game. The guns are fun to schoot with a few exceptions and I prefered the move controled guns to the aim controlled ones. It helps the tracking of the moves in it is really great.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds Jeff Minter's twitter feed weirdly inspirational, like he's got some things figured out.

16:34

Holy crap. I have Arizona Sunshine on steam and love playing it with the Vive... that PSVR version is hideous, holy shit.

Polybius looks rad af. I also have no idea what's going on in it.

e: I don't think I can justify getting a PSVR just for that game, buuuuut....

I believe single beeps and bloops falls below the copyright threshold so it's legal to lift those sounds.

How have these guys not had Jeff Minter in the office or on the E3 couch for an interview?

@engineno9 said:

He rarely leaves his pasture. Seriously, I think Polybius could be a much bigger deal (killer app is a useless phrase but it's up there in terms of PSVR selling points imo) but they're not... great at marketing.

Statik: the VR Fidget Cube

Yes! Glad they finally got around to show off some Polybius and Statik, both super solid PSVR games. Bummed they keep having tracking issues, I've had mine since launch and never have had any issues.

The Arizona Sunshine main character sounds eerily like Jason. Like incredibly so.

Wait! Polybius? isnt that the game that the CIA/FBI were investigating the arcade machines for data of players? or was is bullshit?

Ben has been on the job for a few months and is already falling asleep. Professional.

Can confirm Arizona Sunshine is way better on PC. Still my second favorite VR game, after Soundboxing.

Still no Star Trek Bridge Crew?

Arizona Sunshine on PC is pretty good. Yes, the voice acting is silly, and it's a zombie shooter. But it was the first decent VR FPS that wasn't just a shooting gallery. It had somewhat of a story, varying level designs (running through a dark abandoned mine with just a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other hand as your only illumination was very tense), occasionally different gameplay mechanics, needed some tactical moves to survive,... I think it still holds up, I haven't seen any VR FPS games do better tbh. Farpoint seems a really bad and boring game compared to Arizona, at least from what I saw from that game's Quicklook. This version seems pretty bad though.

The exclusivity controversy was about them having a mode only playable when you owned a Intel i7, the horde mode I think. Was even dumber when they first claimed that people just *needed* to have an i7 because of the performance, then later said it would be a timed exclusivity anyway, and in the end just made it available for everyone because of angry customers.

Statik looks great and I'd try out Rhombus, but the others didn't really have an impact with me. Polybius looks... idk I'm just not into that style of arcade gameplay. Arizona just had absolutely nothing going on.

It's an urban legend. This is just Jeff Minter using the title and forever confusing matters whenever people discuss Polybius, haha.

I wish they wouldn't do the 90 degree camera angle thing

I'm sure a million people have said this already but that glass smashing sound is from another VR game I know from the Gear VR, that the name escapes me of, which doesn't play quite unlike this magnificent creation.

Just wanna throw out there that my PSVR has worked flawlessly since I got it in October. Don't know why they are having issues with it.

It's actually really hard to copyright sound effects so I assume he's in the clear

I enjoyed Arizona Sunshine on PC, for what it was, but that PSVR version looks so awful. The graphics settings are way, way down and the sound seems to be absent. But it looks like the biggest change from my experience is using that double-handed M1 - using hands as hands and reaching for pistols in holsters looks like it makes the gunplay a fundamentally different experience. On PC reloading and ammo conservation seemed far more important which increased the tension in the quite-pretty environments. AZ felt like a scary game, which I don't get from this video at all.

Could be talking out of my ass on this one, but I swear they said somewhere (on the podcast, maybe) that they were trying to figure out how to get enough people set up at once that they could even play it. Most of their VR coverage (even going back to the giant streams they did when each platform launched) has been one person playing while the others sit on the couch and watch, Bridge Crew is a game where you need multiple people in VR at once.

I remember someone suggesting that they might just be able to do it with the headsets they have (since the game is all cross-platform, between PSVR, Oculus, and Vive) but they would need one or two people playing at home, plus people playing on both coasts to make it work. I'd love to see it happen, because that game sounds incredible just conceptually, but it seems like it will be a huge hassle to make it happen.

I'm not sure if Statik could go to PC b/c the controllers don't have gyros unless you're using a VR controller, which isn't the right form factor for the game

So I for the longest time thought that pretty much everyone except the most hardcore saw VR as a novelty.

During my summer internship, I have already met 3 people who have a VR setup and absolutely love it, and play it regularly (including my boss).

I stand corrected.

I wonder if this game benefits from VR from the depth perception. I can play Thumper only in VR because of this reason.

Honestly... This new west bomb crew bums me out so bad... Jeff seems kind of tired a lot with these guys and Ben is just.... I'm not trying to be critical or mean. Just goddamn I miss the days of Drew, Jeff and the older gang. I thought I would adapt, but I find myself just mostly sticking to the Beast team and their stellar new team member Abby. They really are killing it over there.

@benwayne: I agree 100%. If it wasn't for GBE then I would have probably tapped out by now. Losing Dan and Drew really hurt the West.

Polybius looks fking amazing.

I bought Arizona Sunshine for PSVR because of all the online hype I've been hearing about the PC version... After watching this, I'm wishing I had my $30 back. That being said, the devs came out and said they're working on a patch to fix a few issues with the game, so I'll wait until then before I give it a shot.

I mean they're perfectly happy to play with internet randos on stuff like Rec Room, I guess I don't get why Bridge Crew is such a special case.

Jeff and anyone curious about the Polybius myth should check out the youtube video from Gaming Historian.There is some truth to it, assuming his facts are accurate.

With Arizona Sunshine I think you guys should have saved it for a vive video. VR content is bad enough as it as, at least show the game where it shines most. Roomscale is pretty great with this game. Although I didn't find the game that much fun.

Arizona Sunshine definitely looks and plays better on PC, but the real draw I found was playing it coop with a friend. VR coop is a prety awesome magical thing. And Arizona Sunshine is challenging enough that it pays off to work together both in terms of deciding who takes what resources and in terms of strategy in the later levels. It gets challenging enough where you sweat your resources and die occasionally, but is well balanced enough that it never becomes overly annoying. It's also only about 5 or 6 hours long and the levels for the most part all try to do something slightly different introducing a new concept, enemy, gun type etc., enough to keep it moving at an ok pace. It's not the greatest game in the world, but it's perfectly solid. This version looks rough though.

Statik looks pretty awesome. Love the idea / tone of it