Much-loved rhythm action game headed to PS5

As part of its 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) offerings, Sony has announced that rhythm action title Beat Saber and stylish, road-rippin' racer Gran Turismo 7 are both headed to the PSVR2 platform.

Speaking in the publisher's press conference, PlayStation president Jim Ryan singled out the titles as two of "over 30 games" that are currently in development for the PS5's virtual reality hardware, which is currently set to launch in February of this year. Little more was offered in the way of information, though Gran Turismo 7 owners will be able to upgrade to the PSVR2 edition of the t?itle for free.

No release date was offered for the PSVR2 port of Beat Games' Beat Saber, which stands proud today as one of the most loved and recognized rhythm action titles for the modern gaming era. The colorful and exciting game is currently available on PS4 (via PSVR) and PC via HTC V??ive, Oculus Quest, and Valve Index.

PSVR 2 will launch worldwide on February 22, priced at a princely $550. The current PSVR catalogue will not be compatible with the new hardware. You can ?watch Sony's CES 2023 conference, including the PSVR2 update and details of the PS5's recent sales figures, in the video embedded below.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVMc??jxW6??8Bc&ab_channel=Sony-Global

The post CES 2023: Beat Saber & Gran Turismo 7 coming to PSVR2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Groove to the beat

When you ask a rhythm game fan to list their favorite titles, good money says that they'll start rattling off a bunch of games you can't actually play. Many of the "best" rhythm games are available only to those with access to a halfway-decent arcade or expensive peripherals. Most of those expensive and inaccessible games are excellent, but what are the odds that you'll actually play Dance Dance Revolution A20 or Rock Band 3 in the near future?

If you're like me and only have a couple of modern consoles and a halfway decent PC, it can be hard to break into rhythm gaming. Thankfully, there are plenty of top-tier titles readily available on modern platforms. They might not be quite as good as the finest offerings at a Round1, but they do have the undeniable benefi?t of being playable.

10. UNBEATABLE [white label]

[caption id="attachment_356563" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via D-CELL GAMES[/caption]

UNBEATABLE, a rhythm game with the panache and style of an anime fighting game, probably won't be out until the end of 2023. Its "demo," UNBEATABLE [white label], is out right now, and beyond being an impressive taste of what's to come, it's also one of the best r??hythm game?s on PC.

UNBEATABLE [white label] is less of a demo and more of a companion piece to UNBEATABLE. The game has its own story, which is currently incomplete (per developer D-CELL GAMES, it will be completed with a series of episodic releases). More importantly, it's got a killer soundtrack and truly engaging visuals. It's a real treat, especially at the low low price of free. While I'm pretty excited for UNBEATABLE, I'm more than happy to spend more time with [white label].

9. Incredibox

[caption id="attachment_356565" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via So Far So Good[/caption]

I'm not sure if Incredibox counts as a "rhythm game," but it has the "rhythm" tag on Steam and it rocks, so I'm including it. Incredibox is a kind of music production? toy which involves layering different loops over on??e another to create awesome music. It's almost impossible to make something that sounds bad.

Incredibox doesn't have a lose state and it doesn't involve tapping anything to the beat, so it might not be a rhythm game in the same way the other titles on this list are. Still, I have often felt that the joy of rhythm games comes from the imitation of "creating" music, and Incredibox is a pretty natural evolution of that concept. If you love music, it's at leas??t worth checking out.

8. Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

[caption id="attachment_356567" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Square Enix[/caption]

I really wanted to put a Theatrhythm game on this list. Unfortunately, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy and its sequel, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call are both trapped on the 3DS, and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy All-Star Carnival is an arcade exclusive. So, while we wait for the Theatrhythm series to return to modern home platforms in February, I'll give this spot to another Square Enix/indieszero collaboration: Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.

This isn't just a consolation prize - Melody of Memory is great. It's probably the easiest game on this list, but it's got nearly every song from one of the best franchise soundtracks in video game history. Rhythmic "combat" is an idea that's been tried before, and it's not at its deepest here, but it's undeniably very satisfying. There are plenty of games that can rigorously test your dexterity and sense of rhythm, but when you just want to feel good tapping away at some beautiful music, it's tough to do better than Melody of Memory. It's one of my favorite Kingdom Hearts games, and i??t's also an excellent rhyth??m game in its own right.

7. Trombone Champ

[caption id="attachment_356568" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Nothing in Trombone Champ sounds "good," but that's not really the point. This uproariously funny title places you in control of a "tromboner" (the gam??e's word, not mine) and gives you free rein to play whatever music you want. There is a beatmap here, but the game absolutely will not help you hew to it at all, which means that most of your tromboning will consist of playing a note that's either just barely wrong or entirely wrong.

There might be a way to get good at Trombone Champ. I've never seen it happen, and I've never tried to do?? it. I'm happy to be the world's worst tromboner. It's funnier this way.

6. Metal: Hellsinger

[caption id="attachment_356104" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Funcom[/caption]

Metal: Hellsinger recently found its way onto my list of personal favorites from 2022, and with good reason. This rhythmic first-person shooter actually feels like both a rhythm game and a first-person shooter. What's more, it feels like a good rhythm game and a good first-person shooter.

If you enjoy heavy metal, DOOM (2016), and rhythm gaming, then this game is pretty narrowly targeted at you. Even if you don't like any of those things, though, you probably won't be able to resist falling for Metal: Hellsinger's charms??????????????????????????. How many games feature Troy Baker as a talking skull narrating over a Matt Heafy?? solo?

5. Rhythm Doctor

[caption id="attachment_356569" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Rhythm Doctor is phenomenal. This charming early access rhythm game is deeper and more interesting than most fully released games of the past several years. Rhythm Doctor is set in a struggling cardiac hospital that makes the de??cision to employ a remote intern. Your job is to restart patients' hearts by tapping one button to the beat.

It's not as heavy as it sounds - in fact, Rhythm Doctor is quite goofy. The game's world is vibrant and zany, populated by really interesting characters (not exactly a common thread in rhythm games). It also wrings a ??very impressive amount of mechanical complexity out of j??ust one button, and, of course, the music is amazing.

4. Crypt of the Necrodancer

[caption id="attachment_356570" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Crypt of the Necrodancer is so simple that it hurts my brain. Literally all you do is move around a dungeon to the beat, attacking enemies simply by bumping into them. There are some basic buffs and item pickups, but at its heart, it's exactly what it looks like. It's all about reading and responding to patterns in the most simple manner possible, and it's wildly addictive. Every time I start playing Necrodancer, I lose hours to it.

On its face, Crypt of the Necrodancer is very basic. And yet, there's nothing else quite like it. Necrodancer uses its simplicity t??o its advantage to create one of the ?most enjoyable rhythm experiences out there.

3. Beat Saber

[caption id="attachment_356571" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Beat Games[/caption]

Alright, this might be stretching the boundaries of what you can actually play. You do need a virtual reality headset and a decent amount of space to play Beat Saber, which will immediately make it a tough sell for many. But a Meta Quest 2 costs less than most current-generation consoles, and once you're past that (admittedly tall) hurdle, it's tough to do better than Beat Saber.

Beat Saber is a game about hitting blocks with lightsabers to the beat, and it feels great. It's the kind of motion control magic that lights up something primal in the human brain. It's fun to hit stuff, it's fun to feel the beat, and it's fun to ply Beat Saber.

2. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone

[caption id="attachment_356573" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Sega[/caption]

When you hear the words "rhythm game," you probably instantly picture something that looks like a Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA game. Colorful button prompts float across the screen in front of a video of anime girls dancing. You tap the right button when the prompts line up. Occasionally, you hold those buttons, or you slide the analog stick. Yes, this is rhythm gaming perfected.

Every Project DIVA game is pretty similar and pretty great. If you've only got a Switch or a PC, Mega Mix is a fine option, too. I've included Future Tone on this list simply because it's the one I play the most, but it's hard to go wrong with any Project DIVA game. These are the rhythm game-iest rhythm games around, and they're good for scratching any musical ga?ming itch.

1. Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun!

[caption id="attachment_356574" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Bandai Namco[/caption]

Like Project DIVA, you can pretty much insert any Taiko no Tatsujin game into this spot. The series hasn't changed a bit in over twenty years. You press one button when the note is blue and another button when the note is red. Mindlessness becomes meditation becomes mastery. This is Taiko no Tatsujin.

The secret to picking your favorite Taiko no Tatsujin game is simply looking at the tracklist. I like Drum 'n' Fun because it's got the best One Piece opening and the best Super Mario Odyssey track, but you can really pick whichever game has your personal favorite songs. This one gets bonus points for being one of the few rhythm games that you can play with just about a??nybody. The barrier to entry is very low thanks to incredibly simple controls, but true mastery can be extremely difficult.

The post 10 best rhythm video games you c??an actually buy, ra?nked appeared first on Destructoid.

It's like I'm really there.

The Oculus Quest line of standalone virtual reality head-mounted displays has been around for three years now. As one of the only people in my friend group who has a Quest 2, I still get the same exact question every time I bring it up: "Are there any good games on there?" The answer, of course, is yes. There are plenty of great games on the Quest 2. However, there are also plenty of bad games on the Quest?? 2, and?? separating the wheat from the chaff can be a bit of a challenge.

Virtual reality is still a bit of a niche market, so it's tough to get a sense of which VR games are actually worth playing. Since so much discussion is centered on PC VR, it can be even tougher to figure out which Quest 2 games deserve your attention. I've been tooling with this thing for a couple of years now, and I'm pretty happy with this list of five, but it's by no means definitive. There are a lot of great games on Quest 2, and I've excluded some for reasons that are, quite honestly, a little silly. That's the cost of whittling a list down to five, but it's also a good reason to explore other corners of the platform's library. After you've played these five, ?of course.

5. Beat Saber

This one is kind of a free space. If you've played one game on Quest 2, it's probably Beat Saber. It's the game that Quest 2 owners love to bring out to demonstrate the potential of the hardware to neophytes, and it's the game that most non-VR people I've talked to mention as soon as I bring up VR. There's a good reason for that: Beat Saber rules.

Beat Saber is a fairly simple rhythm game. You simply stand in place and swing two copyright-proof things that look like lightsabers but definitely aren't lightsabers to the beat. Beat Saber's simplicity is its secret sauce - it's readable and immediately playable for everyone, regardless of their level of VR literacy, and it makes?? excellent use of the Quest 2's limited hardware.

4. Superhot VR

Superhot has been a favorite game of mine ever since the original Game Jam prototype was released in 2013. It's got a pretty straightforward conceit: it's a first-person shooter where time only moves when you move. That means moving slowly allows you to pull off incredibly slick bullet-time stunts, ??while moving quickly turns the game into a hectic first-person bullet hell.

Superhot is always great, but it's at its greatest in VR. Having full control over your body makes the game feel even more like an incredible action movie. Like Beat Saber, the simplistic graphics and ?limited use of color provide full immersion withou??t pushing the hardware beyond its limits.

3. Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted

Listen, I get it. It's 2022. You're tired of Five Nights at Freddy's. But I really need you to hear me out on this one - Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted is great. The Five Nights at Freddy's formula is kind of perfect for virtual reality. The first three g??ames in the series are all about sitting still in an unsettling environment. The control scheme is incredibly simple and the scares are ultra-effective.

Help Wanted lovingly recreates all three of those original games, and it also includes some neat mini games based on later entries in the series. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by any means, but it's still a pretty scary wheel, and it's made even scarier when you're right in the middle of it. If nothing else, Help Wanted is a great way to remember why everyone was so entranced by FNaF in the first place.

2. VRChat

Is VRChat a game? Kind of! It's more like a virtual reality Roblox, a platform for hobby developers to deliver a whole bunch of miniature games of their own. It's also a virtual reality social media platform, and one of the only places where you can watch Rei Ayanami and Pickle Rick furiously debate over the best Shrek movie. It's an outlet for creative expression in the absolute rawest sense. Everyone is exactly who they want to be in VRChat, for better and for worse.

For some people, VRChat will be unbearably annoying. It doesn't look very good, and its player base is roughly 75% youn?g children who haven't learned mic etiquette just yet. Still, there's nothing else quite like it, and it's absolutely worth trying at least? once. Who knows? maybe you'll find that SSJ3 Goku avatar that makes the whole thing click.

1. Resident Evil 4

What is there to say about Resident Evil 4? It's Resident Evil 4. It's one of the greatest games ever made, and absolutely nothing has been lost in the transition to virtual reality. In fact, there's a very real case to be made that Resident Evil 4 in virtual reality is the best version of Resident Evil 4 ever made.

Resident Evil 4 fans have extolled the virtues of the Nintendo Wii version of the game for years. RE4 just feels right with a light gun. Now imagine, if you will, playing the Wii version of Resident Evil 4... but in virtual reality. It's honestly a pretty breathtaking experience. For me, as a devout Resident Evil 4 enjoyer who owns the game four times over, it's an incredible way to recontextualize an experience I've had more times? than I can count.

For a newcomer, it's probably the most accessible and immediately enjoyable version of the game. If I could install one game on every single Quest 2, it would? be this one. It's the perfect version of an already perfect game, and it's hands down the best?? experience you can have on the platform.

The post Top 5 Best Games for Oculus Quest 2, Ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Turns out I'm 100% a gamer

Lizzo has been one of the most prolific pop artists of the last few years, releasing bop after endlessly catchy bop. She made news recently by elegantly playing the former president James Madison's cryst??al flute in the Library of Congress, reminding us that she's not just a great performer, but also a highly trained musician. Lizzo has brought fresh, bright sounds to pop that have been missing for a while, and she's also done a lot to give back after all of her success. If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of hers, so it's cool to see her influence cross over into the games space. Considering Lizzo's contributions to modern pop music, it was only a matter of time that she was immortalized by one of the highest honors in the land -- her own Beat Saber DLC pack.

As something of a Beat Saber aficionado myself, I can say with confidence that Lizzo's upbeat, bubbly, and groovy pop songs are nothing short of perfect for the VR rhythm game. The pack will also a include special environment that is themed after Lizzo's newest album, Special, featuring purpl??e ??and yellow blocks, a rainbow, and Lizzo's name spelled out in lights.

The pack's full track list includes:

• "Be Loved (Am I Ready)"
• "About Damn Time"
• "Cuz I Love You"
• "Everybody's Gay"
• "Good as Hell"
• "Juice"
• "Tempo (ft. Missy Elliot)"
• "Truth Hurts"
• "Worship"

The new song pack is out today, and goes for $11.99, or $1.99 per individual song. It's been a minute since I've played because of how annoying it is to redownload my Beat Saber mods every time the game updates, but considering this is an o??fficially released song pack that won't give me that same issue, it might b?e time for me to dust off the Oculus after a few months away.

The post Beat Saber’s newest DLC pack features Lizzo’s most iconic songs appeared first on Destructoid.

The truest form of Choose Your Own Adventure

I think by this point it's pretty clear that my favorite thing about games is how they can tell stories in whole new ways. Usually that means games that put nar??rative design at the forefront, with cinematic cutscenes or branching storylines that let you choose how the characters move forward through the plot. One type of narrative design I don't think about as often as I should, though, is the idea? of emergent storytelling in games, which has been around for years.

What is emergent narrative?

It's a bit of a complex topic, mostly because emergent storytelling has a ton of crossov??er with the design of gameplay systems. The idea is that emergent stories aren't plotlines that were pl??aced there by the devs for you to find, but instead, they're the stories that you create on your own based on how you play.

These narratives come about in just about every game genre, with the only real criteria being that they're stories that the devs didn't put there intentionally. They may have put the tools in place for you to be able to create a narrative of your own, but?? you're the? one who has to put the pieces together.

//www.reddit.com/r/Breath_of_th??e_Wild/comments/u43s6h/totally_didnt_just_run_across_a_half_of_hyrule/

One of the best ways I've heard to know if something has an emergent narrative is if you tell your friends stories of your time playing the game. You know, the classic "you had to be there" story. It's like trying to tell someone about something awesome that happened in your Dungeons & Dragons game, or a really cool dream that you had?. We love to share these stories regardless �you see them all over Reddit and Twitter.

The stories write themselves

I recently started playing Pokémon for the first ti??me ever as an adult, and the way the gameplay is designed, it's so perfect for making you feel like you're on ?your very own adventure. I had one of those classic narrow escapes where I was about to be team-wiped, but then one of my benchwarmers swooped in to triumphantly save the day, and it was awesome.

The list of video games with these types of stories is endless, from open-world games like Breath of the Wild to rhythm games like Beat Saber. While I find conversations about more structured, traditional kinds of stories in games can be equally as gratifying, there's something so special, so electric about creating your own stories from the pieces the developers gave you. When we give in to the fantasy of the game we're playing, whatever that might look like, it gives us the autonomy to make-believe in ways that we haven't done since we were kids. I also ?love that no one sets out in a game thinking "I'm going to make a really cool story happen." Instead, these meaningful moments come about as a direct result of us just playing and trying to have ?a good time.

//www.reddit.??com/r/AnimalCrossing/comments/u3ih7k/gayle_thievery_is_wrong/

Trying to tell other people about our endeavors may feel a bit like an attempt to relay something that happened in a dream �you kind of had to be there, but that's kind of what makes it feel significant. It was a singular moment that only you were there for, where you truly felt something based on how you chose to interact with a virtual world. Sometimes it's thrilling, other times it's somber and moving, and some of the most enjoyable moments of emergent gameplay are when you've accidentally launched yourself off a cliff, and suddenly you're busting a gut at what a ridiculous,?? futile end the hero of the game has just suffered.

The freedom to explore

There's some really great literature out there that discusses how we can use games to explore new ways of seeing the world. It's a super low-stakes environment, because whatever happens, you can always restart the level, or create a whole new save file, or just shut the game off for good. Even with the heaviest of in-game consequences, there will never be any real-world consequences for what we do in a video game, withholding obvious exceptions. In a world that demands perpetual perfection from us, being able to enter a space where we can just throw ourselves at the wall to see what sticks without any fear of judgment, I think, is one of the most freeing things we can do. It's why I love picking the mean dialogue choices in ga?mes �that's not som??ething I do in the real world (or at least I try not to).

//www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/com??ments/u45yj1/i_invaded_som?eones_swamp/

Then there's the world of multiplayer, which allows for a whole new slew of emergent narrative possibilities. The Soulsborne games are an amazing example of emergent multiplayer gameplay, and if you need convincing, go and watch any Bloodborne invasion compilation on YouTube. Epic sagas of betrayal, humiliating moments of crushing defeat, genuinely touching moments of unspoken friendship �it's all there, and it's all because those situations arise organically from players i?nteracting with each other online. It's amazing, and it's so unique to games.

I thin??k that's what really gets me about this whole thing. Games can do their best to replicate film or TV, or even carve their own path by taking well-known story conventions and reimagining them for the interactive medium, but the kinds of stories that ??come from the act of play itself? Only games can do that, and at risk of sounding so cheesy, I think that's beautiful.

That sentiment is one of the hardest things to get non-gamer??s to understand, and yet it's one of the most important things to telegraph if you want them to see why we love not only the art of games themselves, but the art that comes from playing them. Try as I might, there will always be important people in my life who will never be able to understand the gratification and artistic autonomy that comes along with the act of play, and honestly, that makes me really sad for them.

Story Beat is a weekly column discussing anything and everything to do with storytelling in video games.

The post The ?art of make believe: emergent narrative in games appeared first on Destructoid.

PS VR owners can't compete against PC VR or Oculus Quest players in online multiplayer

Thanks to a better-late-than-never update, the PlayStation VR version of Beat Saber now has multiplayer. The online mode rolled out for free on PS4 today, which is?? just in time to help offset all of that pre-Halloween candy-jar snacking some of us have been enjoying.

//youtu.be/ZMBqlCRwCg8

In online multiplayer, up to five Beat Saber players can compete with cartoonish avatars slashing the night away to the rhythm of the music. Private and public matc??hes are supported, and players can earn multiplayer badges ??for their feats. If you're matching via Quick Play, for instance, you can set it to Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, or Expert+ difficulty.

It's been a full year since SteamVR and Oculus players were able to try out Beat Saber multiplayer, so some PS VR owners were starting to lose faith in developer Beat G?ames. This was one of those frustrating situations where in-the-know fans had to constantly keep tabs, and every time they looked into it, the release date was still up in the air.

Speaking of which, PlayStation VR players can compete in Beat Saber multiplayer, but not against other platforms �as the developer confirmed today, "cross-play for PS VR is currently not supported." Additionally, you'll need a P??layStation Plus membership.

Beyond the stylized trailer, here's some actual PS VR footage from PSVR ZEST.

//youtu.be/4VPyP95Si84

This song, "Spooky Beat," is a new drop. The track is out now for free.

In September, Beat Games said it was "exploring ways" to implement cross-play for PlayStation VR, which may or may not open the door just a crack for another update in the future. Cross-play can be a major boon, but considering that Beat Saber is a top-five most-played PS VR game (per Sony), there should be a decent-sized audience to play agains??t.

"It was a complex feature to develop and we’re so happy we can finally share this with all of you and welcome new players online," head of marketing Michaela Dvorak said on the PlayStation Blog.

I wonder if Beat Saber wi?ll be one of the "bo??nus" PlayStation Plus games in November.

The post Beat Saber for Pla??ySt?ation VR just got multiplayer, minus cross-play appeared first on Destructoid.

Working out can be fun, who knew?

Exercise and I haven't always agreed. In high school, while my brother and twin sister were out winning state track titles, I was taking naps in my car during practice. I just find it difficult to enjoy something that makes me feel like my heart is going to explode, but I think the biggest problem with runni?ng is that there's nothing distracting me from h??ow much pain I'm in.

Growing up, I was constantly being told that exercise was something that I needed to do, and I hated it, and then I woul??d fe??el guilty about hating it. It became a vicious shame cycle I couldn't escape.

As I got older and gaming became a bigger part of my life, fitness games became a more attractive option. I tried many of the classics over the years �Just Dance, Dance Central, Zumba Fitness, Wii Fit, more recently Ring Fit Adventure �/i> but the cycle was always the same. I would play for a few days, maybe even a few weeks if I was feeling extra motivated. But eventually it would fall to the wayside, and whichever relevant plastic fitness gaming accesso??ry would be left collecting dust.