Skip to main content

Oculus Gaming Showcase provides more details on Resident Evil 4 VR and more

Oculus held its first-ever digital gaming showcase, which heavily focused on Resident Evil 4 VR. The 25-minute presentation provided updates on popular Oculus titles like Pistol Whip and announced a new game from the creator of 1080 Snowboarding.

The presentation gave another glimpse at Resident Evil 4 VR. Oculus says that the game is entirely reworked and remastered for VR. Weapons and objects are now interactive, meaning players can manually load guns or open a drawer with the Oculus Touch controls. The game will feature various tweaks to frame rate, graphics, and audio to adapt the game to a modern platform. The game will launch later this year.

Oculus Gaming Showcase

In terms of games, Nintendo 64 classic 1080 Snowboarding is getting a spiritual successor called Carve Snowboarding. The sports game is by the creators of the original franchise.

A few anticipated VR games received release windows at the showcase. Sci-fi game Lone Echo 2 is launching this summer. It’ll be playable on Oculus Rift and Quest via link cable. Star Wars Pinball VR launches on Oculus platforms April 29, and will feature a pinball table based on The Mandalorian.

A whole bunch of Oculus Quest games are getting new updates. Pistol Whip will receive a new Western-themed Smoke and Thunder update this summer. Another installment of Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge is coming later this year. The recently released The Climb 2 is getting a freestyle expansion pack that features a rhythm game mode. The first part will be available tomorrow and will be free to all players. Finally, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners will get an update called Aftershocks on May 20.

The showcase gave a fresh glimpse at previously announced games such as After The Fall and I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar. Sony recently highlighted both titles in a blog post about upcoming PSVR games.

Giovanni Colantonio
Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…
You need to try PlayStation VR2’s most psychedelic game yet
Key art for Akka Arrh shows psychedelic images.

You know that it's a busy year for gaming when a project by an industry legend launches with hardly any fanfare. That's exactly what happened in February 2023 with Akka Arrh. Created by Jeff Minter and his eccentric studio Llamasoft, the neon-tinted shooter is a remake of a 1982 Atari game that never saw the light of day after being deemed too difficult. Minter got the greenlight to revive the project, bringing it to life as a retro arcade shooter built in his unmistakable style.

While the project was exciting for game historians, it didn't exactly crack into the mainstream (it only has 37 user reviews on Steam). Thankfully, Akka Arrh getting a second chance to shine this week as its new PlayStation 5 version adds PlayStation VR2 support. While that might not be enough to make it a commercial hit, it does give PSVR2 owners a good reason to dust off their headset and check out a delightfully oddball project from one of gaming's true visionaries.
It's a trip
Akka Arrh is the rare example of a game that might be easier to explain on paper than in practice. In this throwback arcade shooter, players control a stationary ship that's tasked with protecting pods from attacking aliens. To fend off foes, players drop bombs that blow up in a different geometric pattern on each level's map. Every time an enemy touches that blast radius, it blows up in the same pattern, chaining to other enemies. The goal is to keep an uninterrupted chain going as long as possible by using a limited number of bullets to knock out foes that can't be destroyed by bombs and grabbing power-ups by hovering the cursor over them.

Read more
One year later, my PlayStation VR2 is collecting dust
The PlayStation VR2 sits on a table next to Sense controllers.

One year ago, I took my first step into virtual reality with the PlayStation VR2. One year later, I haven't walked much further.

I spent a long time watching the VR sect of the gaming medium from the sidelines, curious about this new form of interaction, but never taking the full plunge. Impressed with the PSVR2’s specs and confident in Sony’s first-party capabilities, I bought it at launch in February 2022. After a week of use, I wrote that I “anticipate it’ll be a very supplemental gaming style for me in the future, not something I’ll want to do for hours every day.”

Read more
Every key detail from Xbox’s business update: new console, multiplatform games, and more
Xbox's logo used during the Extended Games Showcase

Microsoft just released the latest episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, and it contained lots of crucial details on the future of Xbox. Microsoft addressed everything from how many games it will make multiplatform to the arrival of Activision Blizzard games on Xbox Game Pass to future Xbox hardware.

If you don't want to listen to the full 23-minute podcast and want more details than what's shared in the Xbox Wire post about the discussion, here's a quick rundown of the biggest points made during the episode.
Four Xbox games are going multiplatform
To kick things off, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, addressed the multiplatform Xbox game rumors. "We made the decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles. Just four games, not a change to our kind of fundamental exclusive strategy,” he said. “We’re making these decisions for some specific reasons. We make every decision with the long-term health of Xbox in mind, and long-term health of Xbox means a growing platform, our games performing, building the best platform for creators, reaching as many players as we can."

Read more