Peter Populous, 22cans and Godus

As an old school geek, I was fortunate enough to grow up with games as they evolved over the years.  I have had the opportunity to experience many of them on various devices and in different formats and while I will not reveal my actual age here by discussing specific platforms or titles, I will instead acknowledge one thing that can make a good game great. In fact, it can even turn one of the most bug-ridden, graphically inferior, frustrating software builds into something you can remember fondly, despite all of your misgivings. Can you guess what that is? No? How about another hint.... A completely random example of this is Bullfrog's "Syndicate". I recently loaded up this low-fi gem on DOSbox and revisited a few missions. While attempting to load my agents onto the shuttle train into the city one time, I somehow managed to get one down onto the stations tracks, unable to climb back up again, another two boarding the train and the fourth was dragged along behind the shuttle as it left the station. While I may not have experienced this particular bug on my original playthrough (or I did, but have since forgotten about it), the game itself went onto critical acclaim and much success.

For those of you playing at home, I am of course, talking about game mechanics. Being able to have a way of controlling one or more agents from a top down perspective, along with giving the player the added complexity of being able to specialise agents/research tech for tasks all the while having real time control, soon became the genre in gaming known as RTS (real time strategy). Good mechanics can make a game AND define a genre, or they can be "just" a good idea. While modern games and the emerging VR experiences on offer can often share elements of their design, more often than not, they generally stay within their defined specialty/genre. While there are no limits to what a game/experience can offer, trying to "do it all" is more often than not, an unwise decision. Recently, another old-school, genre defining classic (coincidently, yet another Bullfrog game), has been reborn by its original creator (Peter Molyneux) and the 22cans team. "Godus", the "spiritual successor" to Populous, has opened up for early *OPEN BETA* access via Steam.

GODUS; if you are a fan of Populous (or curious about exactly what a "god game" is),
then *this game* is the one to play. Even if it happens to be in OB and can be prone to crashing.

GODUS; "Mount or the gods" - Player vs AI

POPULOUS; This was *the* defining god-game of its time,
one that I must admit is a personal favourite.

While this game has nothing to do with VR (although I think it certainly has potential for a port/adaption of some kind), it was the most fun I have had with a god-game since playing Black-and-White. The interface is intuitive, the graphics fit the game (it walks the line between being high-fidelity while keeping it bling-free for the most part) and I had a blast just clicking through without a tutorial - just so I could see how easy it was to pick up. I also admit to some frustration with the controls. Sculpting land and the click-fest required to collect belief can be RSI inducing, especially when you ended up getting sucked into the game, which is easy to do here. Trying to expidate the process by clicking faster only results in accidentally demolishing homes and/or flag clicks. The same can occasionally be said for sculpting land - accidentally knocking down homes while trying to find squares of land for your followers. As noted above, this game is in open beta, so expect crashes and patches that can change or break things - however - updates and hotfixes are well supported and issues are sorted out quickly. This game is in quite an addictively simple format... enough to perhaps gift a copy to a lucky friend/family member even, bugs and all.

HAWKEN in-game screenshot - default <medium> settings
(post Ascension patch)

 HAWKEN has recently included Oculus RIFT support with its Ascension patch. Originally, RIFT support was supposed to be provided at "launch" on 12.12.12. Obviously, seeming this is now the date which it went open beta, the early-alpha "support" now included by the devs is most certainly that, early-alpha indeed. While you will still need to tweak ini files and link a shortcut to the win32 executable (along with the now ubiquitous "-vr" addition in the command line), more has been done than simply adding Oculus RIFT support. Much, much more work is needed here, which I guess will be a lower priority for now, since the team now have their hands full post patch, and have a still-broken matchmaking/autobalance system to sort out.

Still, I had a ton of fun with my HAWKEN/RIFT combo (although to be fair, HAWKEN is still a solid game, even without the RIFT) and while initially concerned about some motion sickness, having the fixed location of the pilot inside a seated "cab" helps mitigate this alot. Even more so inside a faster paced game like this. Personally, I used the console command "togglevisor" to remove the HUD because the crosshairs were useless, even with appropriate IPD adjustment. At this stage however, even the minimap, radar and health are not visible because of the distortion and optics. Having the HUD "visor" toggled off also removes information relating to heat and the crosshair is reduced to a tiny dot - even though you can use your secondary weapons ability (unlike before). It is obvious that the dev's plan on moving the radar and other such information onto ready-made slots for aditional monitors inside the Mech. Being able to free-look around the cabin while my mech remained stationary was awesome and full of tactical potential. On a reddit topic that discusses how to get the Oculus RIFT working with the game (link), someone mentions disabling the turn-cap HAWKEN has. However, not only is even editing your ini files technically a breach of the ToS, It certainly wasn't noticable for me, even with the cap at the default. Mind you, I am not sure how quick my head-turns wearing the RIFT are, so its possible it could impact some FPS'ers.

HAWKEN; end game - RIFT-compatible screenshots comming soon!

VorpX, another driver for the RIFT has been released after much anticipation from the community (although it is still in beta). Unlike Vireo's Perception (open source) and Tridef, VorpX brings support for newer games such as Bioshock's Infinite and other modern day DirectX titles. While initial problems with payment gateways and a manual code-issue process by the developer meant delays for customers receiving serial numbers, the additional options that VorpX offers, along with support for more recent titles, VorpX should be considered a go-to solution for those wanting a universal VR driver for their RIFT. While you will be paying per-licence, VorpX allows two installs per license, meaning you can avoid having to pay for another license for the laptop or second PC. I stopped my playthrough of Inifinite the moment I found out that VorpX would be supporting it, so with any luck I shall have that opportunity soon, provided some of the initial teething problems with the payment gateway have been sorted.