Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 384

"Virtual reality is an antisocial tech,” Grand Theft Auto publisher says

Obviously, virtual reality is a pretty hot topic in games these days. We dedicated an entire issue to it. But now the head honcho at Take-Two, publisher of GTA and a whole stable of quality games, has put a bit of a damper on the optimism. 

Speaking to Bloomberg, CEO Strauss Zelnick said that donning an Oculus Rift virtual reality mask to explore virtual worlds is being isolationist. And I quote: “It is an antisocial technology.”

“A lot of people who play videogames, for example my kids, they play with their friends sitting next to them, and so that technology is not going to appeal to them,” he elaborated, although his firm’s games will still support the tech, depending on viability. 

In his defense, he does have a point. From one vantage the fantasy of VR rings of escapism and fleeing. Just yesterday, for example, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey spoke of how people can escape their existences into the “metaverse.” But as Facebook’s recent big investment in VR suggests, this tech has a lot of potential for bringing people together. Right now, it’s undecided.

Image via: this guy

In our favorite Obama story yet, the President shouts out The Witcher

Say what you will about President Obama, he is currently the world’s most prominent ambassador for the cultural legitimacy of videogames. That’s because on his recent visit to Poland, motherland of Witcher dev house CD Projekt RED, he gave a tip of the hat to everyone’s favorite action-heavy, decision-making RPG about a horse-riding warlock with a silver ponytail.

“I’ve been told that it is a great example of Poland’s place in the new global economy,” said the President during his address, referring to the copy of The Witcher 2 the Polish Prime Minister Donal Tusk gave him on a previous visit in 2011. What’s impressive, aside from Obama mentioning any videogame, is that this praise is going to a truly great sleeper game like Witcher 2, which shows some savvy on the part of his administration. It doesn’t sound like he made it too far into the game, blaming poor videogame skills, but given the busy and important duty of running a country, I suppose we can let him off the hook. Also that game was pretty hard. 

You can see a snippet from the speech here, with Polish translation.

Here is a metroidvania that lets you explore the gnarled passageways of adolescence

Occasionally as gross as it seems. 

DUCK GAME aims for Towerfall, ends up more like Mouse Trap

Goofiness, writ large.

Watch Dogs and Kanye West’s Chicago

Fast times in the unreal city.

The NYU MFA Showcase was not your average student art show

Simulated Russian Roulette, ho!

The perfect videogames to play with your old man this Father’s Day

This post was written as part of our collaboration with eBay.

We were about to write your typical glib Father’s Day card sentiments to convince you that you should buy dad some of these fine videogames to celebrate his day in the sun. After all, games are fun and valuable life experiences and can create unforgettable bonds. But then we had a better idea.

You may know our founder Jamin Warren is the host of PBS Game/Show. In a thread for a recent episode, we received a very poignant and Dad Day-related comment.

00WARTHERAPY00 wrote the story of how he loved playing Xbox with his pop as a kid, until his father passed away. When he came back to the game Rally Sports Challenge ten years later, he met his father’s ghost. Not his spiritual, wispy, immaterial soul, but the ghost of his car from the time trials. The son was able to relive those good memories of gaming with dad by racing against his cyber-spirit. The story culminates touchingly—you should find out how it ends. And that’s the best argument we can think of for playing videogames with you old man.

So if you're looking for a few good ideas while there's still time to pick something up, check out our curated collections.

Games to Play with Your Pop on Father's Day is exactly what it sounds like. Sports games, shooters, even Mario Golf: World Tour. Games for all kinds of dad and kids to enjoy on the big day.

Our roundup of games that Give Dad a Father Figure to Sympathize With is a bit more existential, featuring fathers and father-figures from games like The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, BioShock and more.

And if you’re feeling lucky, you can create your own #eBayDad collections of gifts for a chance to win $500 to shop on eBay.

Maybe you'll find some inspiration for this year's gift in our collections, or in eBay's sitewide gift guide. After all, how many sets of barbecue tools can one dad own?

Palmer Luckey says VR will save us from our covetous consumerist lifestyles

At present, consumer-grade virtual reality is largely focused on putting you in a game space and blowing shit up, but it may one day be used to sate our appetite for luxury goods like Dior handbags and Audi R8s. That’s what Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said at an expo in California recently, getting all futurist about how widespread VR entertainment has the potential to make the world a better, less consumerist place. 

The gist of his idea is that while there is a scarcity of stuff in the real world, in VR anyone can drive a Porsche. “If virtual reality was perfect, then it’d be easy to say, ‘oh well it’s absolutely identical to real life,’ then you’d be able to save a lot of these problems,” he reasons, going on to say that especially people in less privileged countries would prefer VR to their otherwise drab and impoverished lives.

Hmm… not too sure about that.

Via Road to VR

First Dwarf Fortress update in 2 years will be cataclysmic to leagues of dwarfs

With its first update in two years coming later this month, Dwarf Fortress continues to burrow through the confusing, inhospitable, and endlessly fascinating mantle of middle earth. 

Among the new features are a long awaited update to the Adventure Mode, the game’s more accessible built-in roguelike, where you control a single dwarf rather than a whole monastery of them. The irony of calling an ASCII-based roguelike accessible is not lost on us. Still, it may be a way for the uninitiated to ease into this notoriously hard-to-learn game, which requires about the same amount of bookwork as a higher level physics course. 

Undoubtably the brunt of the focus will be on the tried-and-true Fortress Mode, where you lead an expedition of hard-working, hard-drinking little miners deep underground towards certain death. For ten years, this mega-important game has been the full-time art project of Tarn and Zach Adams, who are hailed among game programmers for their ability to spin epic yarns with incredibly unpredictable outcomes that are unscripted, or generated by code. So, this is pretty huge. 

Still curious? You can read more about designing the land of myth in our profile last month.

Rockstar might be planning an alien invasion in Grand Theft Auto Online

Conclusive video evidence. Maybe.