First Person Experience

Though Rocksteady Studios' Batman: Arkham series has already allowed us to feel how great it is to fight as Batman, Batman: Arkham VR literally puts you inside the cowl for the first time. It's so many dreams come true.

If I’m being honest, I couldn’t care less about Doom’s story. That’s not what drew me in. Instead, I loved Doom for its pitch-perfect controls, inspired level design and well of surprises I didn’t know I could expect from a first-person shooter.

Eight years is an eternity in video games, and perhaps that's why it feels like it's been longer than that since the first time we booted up Mirror's Edge. The ambitious first-person parkour experience was one of two games that defined EA's 2008 --- the other being Dead Space --- and while that survival horror franchise went on to spawn two sequels proper (and a rail shooter), a potential follow-up to Mirror's Edge has languished in development forever. It almost seemed like we would never see Faith again, but then DICE surprised the gaming world by announcing a follow-up (technically a remake) for a new generation. Now, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is here with nearly a decade of hype and hope to live up to. While it doesn't quite shatter the mold, Catalyst is a welcome return to a once-forgotten world championed by a dedicated few.

When it comes to the horror genre in the gaming industry, it’s become somewhat standard at this point that the biggest and best titles sell themselves in horrific gore and/or jump scares. Classic series like Resident Evil established a formula and more recent games like the widely praised Until Dawn and the Five Nights at Freddy’s series have carried the torch fueled by brutal monsters and intense in-your-face frights. Ape Law set out to buck against the trend with Albino Lullaby: a first-person experience that takes players on a psychological horror adventure without gore or jump scares. While Albino Lullaby’s first episode doesn’t quite succeed in keeping tension or fear all the time, it is nonetheless an engrossing and unique take on the horror genre.

The infinite blackness of space wraps around you, apathetic to your suffering. A confetti of space debris threatens to slice what little remains of your space suit as you struggle to bound your way over the shattered hull of the space station. A beeping tone in your ear tries to inform you that you’re running out of air, but your tunnel vision and gasping breaths beat the beeps to it. If you can’t get this space station at least partially up and running, you’ll be dead in hours. The spatial adventure Adr1ft would be a hell of a thrill ride… if it weren’t so boring.

Firewatch is a gorgeous game. There are breathtaking vistas around every corner, bubbling rivers flowing to crystalline lakes and sprawling meadows more verdant than any you've ever known. It's all realized with an eye that captures the majesty of the natural world, but exaggerated for effect by painting a landscape in the way a poet would sonnetize a moment in time. Being out in these Wyoming expanses is incredible, as everywhere you turn provides a different, stunning perspective of Campo Santo's vision of the world.

Bethesda released its third educational video starring Vault Boy teaching you how to survive in the wasteland. Be ready to bulk up for Endurance in Fallout 4.

Say hello to River, who will be starring in Fallout 4 as your trusty, canine companion, Dogmeat. Now, shake hands, roll over, and fetch that Nuka Cola.

Frictional's SOMA utilizes the same style of gameplay set in the gorgeous, dangerous and terrifying setting of PATHOS-II. Fortunately, SOMA's path through darkness is a gorgeous and thought-provoking one, and it's in these thoughts where its true sense of horror resides.

This new trailer for Frictional Games' first-person horror title, SOMA, left us questioning what it means to be human.