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If you followed Gamescon this year, you'll have no doubt noticed that the word on the lips of every Microsoft,Sony, and Nintendo representative was “indie.” Whether it be Sony revealing that Minecraft, Rogue Legacy, and The Binding of Issac would be part of the PS4 family, Microsoft unveiling a pretty daring new system to encourage indie development, or Nintendo showing that indie developers are fully prepared to make use of the unique capabilities of the Wii U, it became clear that both companies have suddenly realized that indies are no longer a niche market ran by eccentrics and snatched by the gaming version of hipsters, but a viable and exciting source of incredible new ideas, and creative final products.
Scoffing at motion controls is the well deserved cynical right of any long time gamer. However, for as maligned as the whole idea eventually became, during the glorious, shining moment you first played Wii Sports with friends, it seemed on track to become the inevitable future. Wii Sports was nothing short of pick up and play perfection, with appeal that goes from curiosity to party game phenomenon the moment you actually try it. It used the innovation of motion controls to tap into a primal level of game enjoyment that many of us though we'd abandoned with experience and maturity years ago.
In a way its reminiscent of the film industry in the '90s, when guys like Quentin Tarantino were causing as much buzz as names like Steven Spielberg, and for a fraction of the cost. It was a time when film studios were snatching up every indie film they could get, while others like Miramax were becoming among the most successful around for being known as the home of daring new independent films that not only excited audiences with their infinite artistic possibilities, but equally thrilled their producers with insane profit margins.
The expansive nature of Minecraft ’s world is also what contributes to this fully realized sandbox vision. The worlds are virtually infinite (on PC) and provide ample opportunity to adapt and explore multiple biomes and topography. There’s no real reason to go to one area over the other, but players are frequently compelled to do so. It’s an embrace of wanderlust, one that has influenced many other games like the upcoming No Man’s Sky . You have no objective beyond the horizon and there might be seriously dangerous monsters out there. You might not be well-equipped or even supposed to go there at the current equipped state. But you keep going, just to see. Just to explore.
This has been gone over in many other articles, but the short version is that what the player sees in VR is strong enough to trigger an instinctual expectation of motion that, when the body doesn't feel it, causes a nausea reaction. You're seeing something that the brain knows is wrong based on physical feedback; the most likely cause based on data from the last several million years of evolution is some kind of ingested toxin, so systems get purged to remove the poisons from the body as fast as possible. Personally I just get a nasty headach and woozy feeling, but other people need an emergency bucket available. The cost/benefit ratio to FPS VR is completely off, no matter how cool it seems before the reaction kicks in. At this point I've learned the best thing to do with a VR FPS is to poke in for Minecraft-inspired Pokémon no more than two to three minutes to get a sense of the environment, and then switch back to the monitor and never use the headset for it again.
With brand-new blocks come brand-new buildings, and thanks to the 1.16 Nether update, tons of people have returned to the creative land of Minecraft . The success of Mojang's sandbox building and survival game comes from the fact that there's really no set direction to go. Everything is up to the players themsel
LaurenArtist was inspired by the stories of Dracula with this beautiful castle. Here, the choice of location is important too and just adds to the effect of it being a solitary gothic castle in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for players who love to be fancy and a bit drama
With all the new Nether-themed blocks there's been a surge in Nether builds as of late. Ranging from dungeons to ominous castles and even builds within the Nether itself, it's a cool change of style for the game which is normally quite happy and bright-to
The Classic Control is what you'd normally put up with in a standard FPS, where head movement moves the view and body orientation is controlled smoothly by the right stick or mouse. This is the heart of the VR FPS problem, because while moving forward, back, and strafing isn't much of an issue, turning the view without moving your body is when bad things start to happen at the base of your lizard brain. Even in a blocky Minecraft world the sense of Real is too strong, and while you know you're playing a game the part that keeps things like your heart pumping and lungs breathing without conscious thought hasn't the slightest idea what's wrong. The trick is to break the idea of Real, and this is where the special VR Control mode comes into play.(Image: https://www.cgdirector.com/wp-content/uploads/media/2022/09/Types-of-USB-Ports.jpg)
