During last year’s Summer of Rift, I decided to take the plunge into Virtual Reality with pricing approaching the consumer market. The available games have varied in terms of polish and replayability. Some are still fairly gimmicky VR experiences, while others leave you wanting for more content. One of the games I keep coming back to is From Other Suns.
A first person shooter roguelike in space, with the structure of FTL, the shooting feel of a laser-based Robo Recall (with the robot recall missions to boot!), and the impending danger of the Aliens franchise, From Other Suns has been a barrel of fun. The multiple free movement locomotion options make it easy to get immersed in the universe and find yourself ducking behind cover as you move through occupied stations, derelict ships, and infested space hulks.
The best part of this experience is had when playing with friends, as I had a regular group of spacemans to join up with on our race to reach Earth before the impending alien death machine that was on our heels. Taking advantage of the tactical map I was able to function as a scout for our party, alerting us to upcoming danger or to flanking enemies. We had our fair share of failures, close calls, and victories along the way, and so far it has been one of the most engaging and rewarding experiences I have had in VR, a few technical issues here and there aside.
To showcase some of what we experienced along with introducing others to the game or technology, I decided to create a gameplay trailer from the hours of footage I recorded of our play sessions, picking out some of the memorable events along the way to tell the story of our time in this game and what it has to offer. Everything shown is recorded in-game, including the audio (the Rift has a pretty good microphone), with the exception of one small soundbyte I added in for comedic effect.