CCP Shows Off 'Gunjack' Mobile VR Arcade Space Shooter, Will Launch Alongside Samsung Gear VR
VR was a huge thing at Gamescom 2015, and one of the demos we got to see was CCP's new "Gunjack."
Gunjack is a mobile VR game, an arcade-style space shooter, that works with the Samsung Gear VR platform. Like all of CCP's games, Gunjack is based in the Eve universe.
Putting on the Gear VR headset was quite straightforward, while the CCP representative configured the game on the phone, and slotted it into the headset. The controls were simple: To aim, you simply look around (the reticle is in the middle of your view), and to shoot you touch the touchpad on the side of the headset. Switching weapons is accomplished by swiping forward, and you can reload by swiping backward. That's all there is to it.
Playing the game, therefore, was surprisingly simple. As the gunner, I was strapped into a turret on the side of a spaceship, with an open view. Various enemy ships, big and small, would try to attack me, and I'd have to shoot them down in order to protect the big ship that I was mounted to. Each kill scored points, and the number of points would go up with the difficulty of each kill.
There were also various powerups you could use. To obtain these, you simply had to look at them and shoot at them, the turret would draw them in, and they'd be yours. These included powerups such as a laser weapon, an artillery cannon that made it surprisingly easy to hit multiple targets at once, missiles and more. You could also use the same trick on debris floating around space.
Shooting the debris scared me for a second, as it was drawn towards me at high speed (you can guess why that's scary in a VR environment). I felt a bit better when I realized that it was then strapped to the turret on the outside, acting as a shield.
Overall, I really enjoyed the demo. For something that runs on a mobile phone, the graphics were surprisingly sharp, and the entire experience was smooth, with no noticeable framerate drops or latency that could make me sick. I should also note that the gameplay was downright fun and entertaining.
The only gripe I had with the demo was the controls. Although they did make sense while playing the game, having to hold the headset in order to play the game does take you out of the experience a bit. The other demos where I had a controller in my hand were more immersive, so I would prefer to see Samsung's Gear VR ship with an external controller. Even so, that isn't so much a criticism of CCP's Gunjack, but rather a criticism of Samsung's Gear VR.
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You cannot play Gunjack just yet. The mobile VR game will be launching alongside the Samsung Gear VR, with a handful of other games.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.