2013 is the year of the floating gun. Or it hopefully soon will be, if more games follow in the ace Receiver (opens in new tab) and HydraDeck (opens in new tab) 's lead. The latter's a sort of tech demo developed by one TeddyOk and, well, you really have to watch the video below. Using the Unreal Development Kit, he's built a first-person cover shooter that requires you to physically crouch to hide behind cover. You can download it here (opens in new tab) , but you'll obviously need a Rift and a Hydra joystick.
The control scheme comes from an earlier demo, as TeddyOk explains on the Oculus developer forums (opens in new tab) . To play the game, "you attach one Hydra wand to your chest and use the other Hydra joystick to walk forwards backwards. The camera is fully controlled by your head & body, so you literally have to turn around to walk the direction you want. [...] The chest Hydra also allows you to move around (e.g. duck down) and inspect the environment close up."
Brilliantly, the download comes with the following disclaimer. "Please be careful when playing this demo, lots of people try to support themselves on the crates when they try to stand up or when leaning up against a column, but find there is nothing there!" Oh and don't play it near any open manholes, kids.
I particularly like that you can shoot through the tiny gap between crates. HydraDeck's only a demo at the moment, but you just know someone is going to turn this into a full game, even if it's not TeddyOk himself.
Man, a Receiver sequel with this tech would really be something.
Many thanks, Reddit (opens in new tab) .
