The new Tomb Raider movie reboot gets a Gear VR tie in.

Tomb Raider VR: Lara's Escape is now available in the Oculus Gear VR Store. Tomb Raider VR: Lara's Escape is an interactive cinematic VR experience based on the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, starring Academy-Award winner Alicia Vikander (Jason Bourne, The Danish Girl), coming to theaters March 2018.

Pursued by soldiers, Lara Croft must into an ancient tomb as only she can. Use Lara's flashlight to explore crumbling caverns in the dangerous, trap-filled cave. Wield Lara's bow and climbing axe to escape capture as you rappel, climb and zip-line to safety. The new movie seems to take its style from the recent Tomb Raider game reboot with the edgy Rise of the Tomb Raider being the most recent. 

You can download for free on Samsung Gear VR.

The Devil Awaits Gear VR users!

For enthusiasts of VR and devotees of horror games, check out The Devil Awaits VR. This immersive virtual reality game is exclusively available on Samsung Gear VR for $4.99.

The Devil Awaits VR is a thriller in which you play as Rick H. Johanson, a thief who tries to escape from the police after committing a robbery in a bank. The main action takes place in an abandoned cabin where he will soon find himself fighting against evil creatures and solving many puzzles to get back home.

“Since the birth of VR, we’ve been wanting to feel real fear and despair in a virtual reality experience, and now we have made it happen,” says Sergio Gardella, CEO at Bloompix Studios. “Samsung Gear VR is the optimal home for The Devil Awaits VR, and I am certain that after playing it, a sense of disheartenment won’t vanish from your nightmares”.

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/1471937396229449/

Add a bit of Ray Harryhausen and a dash of Ultraman and you have this 2 awesome for words F2P VR City Builder/Monster Battler from High Voltage Software!

One of my all time favorite video game companies High Voltage Software, (Dragon Front, Damaged Core, CONDUIT 2: THE SECOND ONE) released They Live to Destroy, a City Builder/Monster Battler, on an unsuspecting world today to Gear VR in association with Oculus Studios. Yes I woke up in shock and awe to this rad new game that truly speaks to my Misfit fan sensibilities. 

The free mobile VR game is full of towering monsters that besiege mankind and remind me of the Neo Geo classic King Of Monsters.  The art style and monster creation are so rad reminding me a bit of Ray Harryhausen mixed with Ultraman style Kaiju fantastico.  Construct your secret island lair, and then conquer all who have ever opposed you with nefarious alien technology and an army of unspeakable horrors.

• Create, upgrade, and personalize your own unique fiendish metropolis!
• Collect and control 40 unstoppable monstrosities!
• Raid and defend against opposition from around the globe for profit and glory!
• Photograph your monsters in action to document your cruel path to total world domination!

You control them, and… THEY LIVE TO DESTROY!

This may be the game....that actually had me stop writing the post to start playing it as soon as it installed. That just happened and I just returned to finish the post.

High Voltage Software has shipped 96 titles on nearly every console in existence since founding in 1993 near Chicago Illinois. Some titles include: The Conduit 1 & 2, Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, Saints Row 4: Re-elected, Damaged Core, Dragon Front, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Zone of the Enders 1 &2, Lego Racers, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, and many more!

Daedalus, a VR game inspired by Escher and Dali is now available on Gear VR.

The Spanish indie studio Vertical Robot has just launched their first VR title: Daedalus, a part platformer, part exploration game set in a spectacular oneiric and surreal world developed for Samsung Gear VR.

Daedalus, architect and creator of fantastic mechanical artifacts, was imprisoned by the king Minos to prevent him from sharing his knowledge of Creta’s Labyrinth with others. Every night, in his dreams, Daedalus explores the intricate labyrinths aboard his own winged creations, trying to relive every step, each leap, each flight to freedom, in an attempt to escape his own tragedy.

In Daedalus, the player will have to discover the labyrinth's exit by finding the platforms that unlock the next level, while exploring mysterious, dream-like environments. As the levels progress, both architecture and difficulty grow increasingly complex. The player will boost, glide, ride wind shafts, use trampolines and activate mechanisms.

Thanks to the impressive graphics, the well thought out environments and carefully designed mechanics, the player will enjoy complete immersion in the game, he will truly feel as if he were inside this dream-like labyrinth that he has to escape.

The Development process

Daedalus began as a prototype VR locomotion system for one of the games the studio is currently developing. The challenge was to create a sort of jetpack locomotion system that would permit freedom of movement and was comfortable using just the Gear VR’s Touchpad. To achieve this, we developed a system that gives the player a helping hand when navigating the environments that proved to be a success.

Later on, when the Samsung Gear VR Controller was announced, they saw it as a perfect match. They were able to decouple the direction of your movement from that of the headset allowing for even more precise control and freedom.

The art side has let itself be influenced by brutalism, surrealism and the likes of Escher and Dali. They feature realistic lighting and a strong emphasis on color.

Additionally, one of the features that makes Daedalus stand out as an authentic virtual reality experience is the fact that the team has managed to include a great deal of high-end graphical features. Notably HDR Lightmaps, Filmic Tonemapper, GPU Particles, specular roughness and even Pre-calculated fluid simulations. Samsung S8 phones even feature Parallax Corrected Cubemaps and Normal Maps,

Since the game relies on creating a dream-like atmosphere, music played a very important role in the development. The team was lucky enough to enlist the help of award-winning composer & sound designer Eduardo de la Iglesia to create the sound FX and compose its unique soundtrack.

http://verticalrobot.com/daedalus/

Dark Days, a psychological thriller for Gear VR launches today.

Dark Days, Parallel Studio’s newest VR experience, immerses you in a creepy motel in the middle of Death Valley to solve puzzles while you fight for survival. Fans of escape-the-room puzzles and thrilling supernatural narrative have a new VR game to look forward to. 

Dark Days is as an excellent Gear VR title that mixes the weirdness of Twin Peaks with the unknown supernatural bumps in the night of The X-Files and the hide-and-seak game play of Amnesia. The game puts you in the role of heroine Jade Lacroix, a writer who checks into a very seedy motel filled with mystery. 

http://www.parallel-studio.com/

Samsung announces limited edition Batman themed Galaxy S7 and GearVR.

Samsung Electronics announced the Galaxy S7 edge Injustice Edition in collaboration with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment. To commemorate the third anniversary of the popular mobile game, Injustice: Gods Among Us, the companies came together to bring Samsung’s technology and one of the game’s central characters, Batman, in a sleek, high-performance smartphone. The limited edition Galaxy S7 edge Injustice Edition will be available in early June exclusively in select territories, including China, Singapore, Korea, Latin America, Russia and others to be announced soon. 
 
The Galaxy S7 edge Injustice Edition package is equipped with a sleek deep black Galaxy S7 edge, accentuated by gold detailing and an iconic seal on the back, inspired by Batman. The package additionally offers a Gear VR (in select territories), along with Injustice game credit and Oculus VR content vouchers.

Developed from the ground up by award-winning NetherRealm Studios, the Injustice: Gods Among Us mobile game delivers stunning graphics and a completely unique fighting gameplay experience. The game features a collectible card mechanic and engages players in 3-on-3 tag team combat that features many of DC’s most iconic characters.

“We are excited to partner with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and offer a special edition of Galaxy S7 edge for fans of Injustice: Gods Among Us,” said Younghee Lee, Executive Vice President of Global Marketing, IT & Mobile Division at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung always seeks to provide the best mobile gaming experience for its users, and this partnership reinforces our commitment to the game’s fans.”
 
 The Injustice: Gods Among Us game is available as a free download on Google Play.

Cats And VR

 

CatsAndVR.com sat down with Ian Paul-CIO of Naughty America to discuss the future of VR & Adult Content.

Recently CatsAndVR.com had the opportunity to discuss VR with the CIO of Naughty America Ian Paul. Over some great beers and some rad 90's punk rock we found out we both had a mutual liking of the band Throbbing Gristle. We also decide to talk about how the adult industry just as it did with home video, DVD, and the internet, is helping to innovate the VR industry. I have decided to create some industry acronyms and will be using NA to refer to Naughty America, VRP for Virtual Reality Porn, and VR for Virtual Reality. Now to the interview. 

Disclaimer: This blog post is rated MA for mature audiences and is full of some great insights into both VR and adult content. There is no nudity on this page because people still have issues with sexual expression. Go figure.

Me: What Is bringing NA into VR and how long have you been thinking about it?

Ian: I think we all have been fantasizing about VR over drinks since the 80's and 90's. Every few years a film would come out glamorizing it. The 90's had a whole tech movement around it that fizzled due to the tech not being there yet as well as the expenses involved. When NA got their hands on an Oculus dev kit, suddenly the fantasy was within reach. VR was handed to us on a silver platter, we locked ourselves in a room, got as much equipment as we could, and spent the time figuring how can we do this.

We figured it out and published our first scene in July of 2015! 

We now have around 40 scenes!

We support Gear VR! We support Rift! We support every device out there!

Me: Why 180° videos over 360° videos?

Ian: Who wants to turn their neck around while watching porn?

Me: I Do and I think I could make some very visually interesting stuff.

Me: What is the difference between NA vs any other VRP provider? Lets say Pornhub. Cause you know people like VS. comparisons. I blame Street Fighter.

Ian: We get thousands of sign ups every day from a class of consumers that is different from Pornhub's. Our customers are the ultimate fan, they want to make sure they are supporting the performers that are enriching their lives. The ads on tube sites do not go back to the performer. With NA you are getting a high quality product that looks good on a 4K TV, a VR headset, and a mobile device. Plus you are giving back to the performers. Pornhub is sort of the default setting for people looking for adult content. Naughty America is looking to bring adult content out of the small box in your browser.

Me: How are the performers reaction to VR porn?

Ian: All of the performers we work with are ecstatic by VR. When you show them their own scenes they get to see how much the VR experience shows off their body in ways 2D just can't. They end up being enamored by it. Most of the performers are clamoring to get a VR scene done. We are looking to see how we can develop the methods to accommodate them.

Me: Will the AVN's have a VR award for their next show?

Ian: They should have had one this year! The show this year had VR everywhere, just not the awards.

Me: What techniques and innovations is NA bringing to the VRP world?

Ian: We were very conservative in our first videos and now that we have an understanding of the product we want to try some new things. We just put out Randy's Roadstop, this is our first experience in seeing if the avatar you are talks does it break the immersive experience. We want to see if this adds or detracts from the experience. The next step is seeing how we can bring 3rd person perspectives into it. 

The big innovation is here already with VR! Now it is down to who will take the creative and artistic challenge to push the medium to the best of it's ability. We want to constantly be innovating on shooting and delivering the content.

In reality VR brings us to a future retro situation. It brings us to almost a 70's era where the technicality, the execution, and the story suddenly become very important. You are not watching some amateur content in a 2x2 box, instead it is immersive and capturing you.

Me: I agree. I watched the Santa Claus scene and though I have seen something like this is 2D, it created a very different feeling and I had to giggle. Things that have been done before some how feel like they have not.

Ian then proceed to show me an assortment of VR adult content that Naughty America has available. One of the things that was very interesting was watching VR from the women's perspective. I have to say that was an experience I will never forget and opens up a lot of questions.

Me: How do you feel about VR's potential to humanize porn and create a more intimate perspective. (Disclaimer: CatsAndVR nor Ian look at the current state of adult content as inhumane, this just questions a perspective shift that could potentially be created towards the industry)

Ian: Look when your business model is based on people looking at your ads you are gonna try to produce the most extreme, attention getting content to get clicks on those ads. Content that might have a sensual erotic context is just not going to get the clicks on the ads.

With VR you see that the intimacy is very apparent, you feel the intimacy that you don't feel when you look at a little 2x2 screen. This is going to affect the nature of the content. It is very easy to depersonalize performers when you watch them abstractly. When you are viscerally felling a VR experience you may not be ready for the same things that you are for on a tube site. It may change what types of content you may want. 

Founder Of CatsAndVR.com with sex positive feminist, performer, director, author, and inspiration Nina Hartley.

While developing our own content we asked women how they felt while watching the women's perspective scene. Some of the feedback we received were woman wanting to make sure the performer was actually in pleasure during the scene. Being able to convey that feeling through VR content is something we are striving to create. We are taking into consideration feedback from all members of our community as we work on creating a real intimate and visceral VR experience. 

Me: I want to thank you for your time Ian. If anyone wants more information on Naughty America's VR offerings:  http://www.vrandcats.com/naughtyamerica/