One of the slickest titles on the Rift right now, Epic Games’ arcade shooter Robo Recall has received an update which addresses one of the bigger criticisms the title received at launch, 360 degree tracking for the Oculus Touch.
Update (4/6/17, 10:33PM PT): Today Epic released a new update to Robo Recall which brings additional improvements to 360 degree tracking. With the 180 degree tracking, players could use the thumbstick to decide which direction they wanted to be facing after the teleport, however this option wasn’t available to players using the newly added 360 degree tracking feature. Thanks to feedback from the community, Epic has updated the game to add this option to 360 degree tracking, along with a few other improvements, as noted by their patch notes:
- Based on feedback, we’ve added support for directional teleporting with 360 tracking.
- Added a “tracking settings” prompt that should show up one time, on the main menu, for people who have 3 trackers, or have 2 trackers pointing towards each other.
- Re-enabled some optimizations in the physical animation code that had been disabled during development.
- Removed half-finished text localization from the build, as it was accidentally being activated for some users.
- Improved the feedback for players who’ve stepped away from their “center” position.
Original Article (4/1/2017): Robo Recall is a rare example in VR, a title that represents what can be achieved with the right funding, technology and developers behind it – one of the few titles on VR which comes close to the polish and production values expected of Triple-A titles in the traditional gaming world. It’s also bloody good fun too!
However, one sore point which was highlighted in our review of the game and vocally by the VR community at large, was the emphasis the game put on a front-facing experience – one that’s seen as optimal for those with a standard ‘out of the box’ Oculus Touch tracking set up (i.e. two Oculus Sensors). Thanks to the game’s built-in mod support, the community tackled that issue in no time at all, along with a full-locomotion version of the title to boot. However, Epic acknowledged that there was an issue to address and promised to tackle it in a future update.
That update is now here and the new version of Robo Recall now offers a new 360 tracking mode, which is selectable within the game’s settings menu. We’ve not yet had a chance to give this a try, but the hope if that those with a more robust Oculus Sensor (i.e. 3 or more) can now benefit from their investment.
The update also includes a raft of bug fixes and improvements, all of which are listed below, with one curious item a new music track which accompanies the end credits. The poignant sounding “Shooty Shooty Gun Hands” didn’t quite make it into the initial release of Robo Recall, and if you’re curious what this musical masterpiece sounds like, you can check it out below.
Robo Recall Update Release Notes:
- Added support for 360 tracking mode. Available in Settings->Tracking Options.
- Replaced ending credits music with “Shooty Shooty Gun Hands”, the masterpiece that came in too hot for launch.
- Improved and stabilized teleporting up onto ledges.
- Fixed a bug that caused crawlers to be wiggidy-wack when you grabbed them during one part of their “get up” sequence.
- Added more unique colors for high multiplier numbers. People are tearing it up on Youtube!
- Fixed a bug that caused flickering between LODs in a very narrow window.
- Some improvements for spectator leaderboard functionality.
- Fixed a small bug on the Holo-table that caused weapon dangly bits to misbehave when weapon was dropped.
- Fixed “Whip Slam” damage scoring events and made damage scale with impact velocity.
- Some audio performance improvements.
- Fixes for font caching that wasn’t working properly. Players should now experience fewer small hitches the first time unique text is rendered.
- Fix bug where Boss VO wasn’t being affected by VO volume settings.
- Misc audio bug fixes.
- Spectator leaderboard now correctly states when player is in “All Star Mode”.