Schlagwort: pistol whip

Imagine the most badass pistol-wielding action hero ever. Now, become them. That’s it. That’s the game. At least, that’s the aim when developing Pistol Whip: for you to experience each level, or “scene,” as cinematically as possible, as though you’re the action hero yourself. Most design decisions — from game modifiers to art direction to future plans — are made with this goal in mind.

Before we get into examples of those decisions, and the films that inspire them, I’d like to take a moment to mention how over-the-moon excited everyone at Cloudhead Games is about Pistol Whip launching today on PlayStation VR. Not only is this a huge milestone for the studio, it’s also a personal dream come true for many PlayStation fans who work here, myself included. Fun fact: my pseudonym is inspired by an old-school PlayStation RPG, Vagrant Story.

Modify and Play Your Way

Default

With default settings, you’re equipped with a single pistol and a dash of aim assist. This helps with landing shots, allowing more freedom to focus on rhythm and survival — no easy feat. At its toughest, Pistol Whip uses your whole body to dodge, duck, and weave away from projectiles and obstacles, which is great for those of us who use VR to workout at home. The choice to go single pistol default, is intentionally meant to reinforce the classic cinematic feeling of being virtual versions of some of our favourite unstoppable action heroes.

Here are some examples of other ways to play, and the films that inspired them.

Dual Wield

Always wanted to master the art of Gun Kata? Turn on dual wield and go nuts. In this mode you get another pistol, but your final score is reduced.

Deadeye

Anyone hire a hitman? This mode turns off aim assist and deducts points if you miss. The benefit? Your final score is increased along with your ability to aim.

God Mode

Want to feel like the Terminator? Turn on No Fail and Infinite Ammo for a maniacally good time mowing down everything in your path.

No Ammo

What if I told you, you could be the One? Enter the Matrix and turn on No Ammo to show off your bullet dodging skills. This modifier is also great if you want to up the fitness level of your favourite scenes.

Behind the Scenes

The scene selection menu in Pistol Whip is a collection of movie posters representing each experience. Shooting the scene poster you want to play starts the game, but this isn’t how it always was. In early days scene selection was a text-dominated list. The only art displayed was album art, meaning scenes with songs from the same albums also displayed the same art.

This wouldn’t work. The Neo Tokyo streets highlighting Akuma’s intermittent, angelically-haunting Japanese vocals were crafted with inspiration from cyberpunk classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Revelations, on the other hand, gets its slick vibe and colour palette from films like Reservoir Dogs and Ocean’s 11. Each scene is a unique cinematic experience with its own very distinct identity.

The light bulb went off for Art Lead Jonathan Hackett during a meeting on how to best solve this issue: Movie posters.

Eureka. The type of movie poster that Black Magic (the game’s first scene) would need was immediately clear to Jonathan, and he got to work right away. The first iteration created that day is nearly indistinguishable from the final version in the game now.

Every Great Action Film Deserves a Sequel

While the first 15 tracks released for Pistol Whip were a collection of face-melting musical scenes, our next free content update — the Heartbreaker Trilogy — is a chilled out, more pop-inspired take on all things action hero. Heartbreaker will launch later this year with three colourful new scenes, and new ways to play via new modifiers. There’s also a new water gun collection making a splash that we’re really excited to share with you!

Pistol Whip is a truly unique blend of action, rhythm, FPS, and fitness that we hope PlayStation fans will really enjoy. If you do, we would love to hear about it on our Discord or on Twitter.

Virtually yours,
Cloudhead Games

Website: LINK

Let’s get straight to the good news: We’re excited to announce today that Pistol Whip will launch on PS VR July 28 with its current 15-scene soundtrack, including fan-favourite DLC scenes like Full Throttle and the brand-spanking new Religion. 

As we built out the earliest prototypes for Pistol Whip, our first-of-its-kind action/rhythm FPS, we imagined the game timed entirely to the John Wick soundtrack. So when we found Kannibalen Records, a music label (and Canadian indie like us) known for their hardcore but cinematic electronic sound, it was love at first listen. This is the music of action movies — the music of Pistol Whip.

Black Magic

Make sure to turn sound ON for the gifs below!

Black Magic was the first Kannibalen track we put in the game, and we instantly knew it fit our John Wick vibe. A hard, driving bassline and an Army of Darkness “Come Get Some” sample hits you in the face with the energy of an unstoppable action hero.

For most Pistol Whip tracks, we made some custom edits to better suit the song to the game, cutting out slower tempos, dead zones, and anything we didn’t feel fit the action hero style. For Black Magic, we edited the beginning to start with an instrumental thrumming that gave us the atmosphere of a sprawling Chinatown — what would become our first Pistol Whip scene setting.

Once we had the song and setting, the design team would listen on repeat and begin to map out the structure and motifs of the music, creating the building blocks of the level. Different sounds in the music would infer different types of enemy engagements and region sizes; quieter zones translated to alleyways with long-range engagements, while busier areas of the music encouraged flurries of enemies in all directions.

From there, the music was brought into the game engine and designers could begin adding additional flourishes to the map, such as obstacles or animations. Everything is hand-placed and synced to each beat of the music, with enemy behaviours and pathing manually set for that Time Crisis-inspired arcade style. Obstacles can be used to force you to dodge, weave, and dance; to guide you in a certain direction; or to simply introduce more distractions during a gunfight. 

As the music builds in Black Magic, we layer in more enemies on each beat, increasing the pacing of their spawns until a pre-drop climax challenges you with a wall of death. Finally, on the moment before the drop, an armoured enemy appears that can be pistol whipped perfectly to the beat.

And that’s only some of what goes into just a single Pistol Whip scene. We’ll be launching on PS VR with 15 handcrafted scenes and even more to come in the months to follow. Not just a rhythm game, Pistol Whip is an action FPS driven by music, with elaborate scenes and unique environments for you to fight your way through. Sync up to the music and become the ultimate action hero badass when Pistol Whip launches on PlayStation VR July 28.

Website: LINK

You know how in action movie trailers they sync all the gunfire and fisticuff sounds to match up with the music — that’s what it feels like to play Pistol Whip, our first-of-its-kind action-rhythm FPS for PlayStation VR. You’ll become the hero of your own action movie scenes, with hand-crafted enemy engagements and environments synchronized to a breakneck soundtrack.

Since we launched on PC late last year, Pistol Whip has rocketed to become one of the highest-rated VR games available, even becoming recipient of Immersive Reality Game of the Year at the 2020 DICE Awards. We’re extremely excited to bring Pistol Whip to the PS VR family at long last this summer, so you can become the ultimate action hero badass you were meant to be. 

For Pistol Whip, we took divine inspiration from the tone and stylings of god-mode action movies like John Wick and Equilibrium, as well as PS VR classics like Beat Saber and Superhot. Built for pick-up-and-play with dead simple, single-button controls, Pistol Whip is easy to play but tough to master. By default, you’ll use a single PlayStation Move controller to aim and shoot, encouraging you to brace your weapon with your offhand like a real action movie badass.

Unlike traditional rhythm games, Pistol Whip features dynamic levels instead of a static void. Comfortable, constant momentum journeys you through a variety of “scenes” inspired by action movie settings, from bank heists to airship raids. Each scene comes with three difficulties, and we have a suite of weapon personalization options and gameplay modifiers, including dual wield akimbo, to mix up the flow, challenge you, and encourage new playstyles as you chase friends and global leaderboards.

Also unlike traditional rhythm games, Pistol Whip has no line in the sand; you have complete freedom to shoot, dodge, and melee targets (pistol whip) to the rhythm you feel is right, in no specific order. You’ll earn bonus points if you take out baddies to the beat of the music, but you can play Pistol Whip entirely rhythmless like a classic arcade shooter. Whether you play tactically or musically, Pistol Whip offers unprecedented player agency.

Pistol Whip was built for virtual reality by our team of veteran VR developers to take advantage of the physicality of the tech. With Pistol Whip on PlayStation VR, you’ll use the breadth of your space to dodge bullets, avoid obstacles, and land some mean pistol whips. For the fitness-minded, Pistol Whip can also be used as a workout tool perfect for maintaining your best quarantine bod. Plus, it’s fun to watch and you look pretty cool playing it.

As a veteran VR team, we also have a keen focus on comfort. For Pistol Whip, we came up with a comfort-first locomotion design that prevents motion sickness while you play, even during the most hectic movements. With this design, you’re able to experience non-stop motion without the fear of nausea, allowing you to focus on the action and stay in rhythm. If you’re motion sensitive and have been holding out on VR action games for that reason, Pistol Whip may be right for you. 

When Pistol Whip launches on PS VR this summer, the story does not end there. We’ll be continuing to support the game with content updates over the months to follow, introducing new scenes, customization options, and more to be revealed.

Website: LINK