War for the Planet of the Apes wrapped up the story of the genetically modified chimpanzee Caesar in 2017, and it was followed by a short adventure game, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier later that year. Now, the talking apes are making their way to virtual reality, and you’ll be able to become one very soon. Crisis on the Planet of the Apes hits virtual reality platforms this April.
Launching for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes takes place five years after the outbreak of the Simian Flu we first saw at the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This places it in between that film and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and it addresses the large gap in time between the two. Half of humanity has already been wiped out, and you play as an ape captured and held in a “guarded scientific facility” in California as they search for a cure. Your goal is to escape the facility and make it back to Caesar.
It won’t be a lengthy game, with FoxNext director of VR production and design Ben Miller calling it “an exciting couple of hours” in a post on the PlayStation Blog.
“When you walk, you won’t do it by just holding a button or warping through the world,” Miller continued. “You’ll have to learn how to move like an ape — swinging your arms in the real world as an ape might move.”
By using the VR headset — and the Move controllers with PlayStation VR — you’ll be able to climb nearly any obstacle, and a combat system built from the ground up for virtual reality promises to make you feel like an ape. To draw your weapon, you’ll have to physically pull it off of your back with motion controls.
Over the course of three films, the new Planet of the Apes made us question the role of humanity in the future of Earth, and whether or not we do more harm than good. Luckily, the world isn’t being annihilated by a pandemic just yet, so we have some more time for self-reflection.
Crisis on the Planet of the Apes will be available for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive on April 3.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.