Five to Try: Her Story comms attention, launches VR Expeditions

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Published 1 Jul 2016

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Disclosure

It’s the 4th of ly weekend here in the States, which means many of you will spend the three-day break with family enjoying the outdoors. On the other h, if you see the long weekend as an excuse to hunker down savor some personal time with the Android device in your life, we’ve got you covered with five intriguing new apps games.

Her Story leads the lineup this week, as the celebrated indie game challenges you to piece together a twisted murder mystery by watching police interviews, it’s joined by Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, a br new role-playing quest in the legendary series. 

Otherwise, we’ve got ’s new Expeditions app for Cardboard VR, Sony’s ayStation Vue streaming television service, Red Bull’s Clashem social video-battling app. Be sure to load up your device before the holiday rolls around! 

Her Story

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Can you piece together this confusing case?

st year’s indie game sensation Her Story ($3) finally made its way to the ay Store this week, it’s one tale you shouldn’t ignore. It’s a game with minimal structure: You sit at an ancient watching short live-action clips from police interviews with Hannah (played by Viva Seifert) about her dead husb, popping in new search terms to uncover fresh videos. There’s no clear objective; you’re just trying to piece together the story of what happened.

That lack of traditional game mechanics flow might drive some players mad, but Her Story tells a compelling narrative puts the interactivity of games to good use by making you sort out the mess of half-truths confusing details. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience, one worth savoring if you like totally unique, hcrafted games.

Expeditions

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These are the menus; the expeditions themselves are 360-degree Cardboard VR experiences.

’s Expeditions program is a smart way to utilize VR for the classroom, making it possible for kids to use Cardboard viewers with Android phones to tap into a heap of virtual field trips guided by an instructor. ile the app makes perfect sense for that kind of environment, now you can download it for yourself from the ay Store go on your own little adventures.

Expeditions still isn’t meant as a solitary experience, so you’ll need at least two phones: One for the leader, who chooses the locales you view in the 360-degree VR viewer, at least one other for the explorers who can experience the selections. Use it to go on a trip with a friend from the comfort of your living room, or entertain a community group using whoever’s phones you can get your hs on. 

ayStation Vue Mobile

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ke SlingTV, ayStation Vue is an option for anyone who wants live channels anywhere—without the cable or satellite plan.

If you’ve cut the cord yet still have the urge for live TV, then ayStation Vue might be an intriguing option. Despite the gaming br, this streaming service is designed around offering packages of TV channels at a lower price than your overblown cable or satellite plan. You can get 60-plus top local national channels for $40/month or bump up to as many as 100-plus channels for $55/month with no annual contract. us, there are optional premium channels packages you can add on top of all that.

You’ll get the full experience with the new Android app, which lets you tap into all the live channels, pause rewind the action, browse the smart listings to find what you want at a glance. There is one catch: You can’t start using the mobile app until you activate your subscription via a home device, whether it’s a ayStation 4, 3, Roku, or Amazon Fire TV. But if you’ve got one of those, then Vue’s 7-day free trial may be worth a look.

Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius

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It’s Final Fantasy in spirit approach, but can Brave Exvius st tall with the classics?

Take a quick glance at the ay Store you’ll find more than a dozen official Final Fantasy games for Android, although they fall pretty clearly into two camps: ports of the classics (like Final Fantasy VI) or spinoffs (like Final Fantasy: Record Keeper). But Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius is something different: an entirely new game in the series that was designed from the ground up for touch devices.

ile I don’t have a great sense of the scope of the adventure or storyline from the little bit I’ve played, it does seem to do a nice job of utilizing classic elements while making them work better for one-hed play—such as the streamlined battle system. The graphics music are nice Brave Exvius makes a solid first impression, so hopefully the free-to-play approach doesn’t sour the experience over the long haul.

Clashem

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Cute cat or fast car? Decisions, decisions.

Sure, you’ve got a viral video that’s blowing up the Vine charts making the rounds on social media, but can it hold up against an adorable cat or extreme sports trick? Find out with Clashem, a new video-battling app from Red Bull. Two clips are stacked on your screen run in five-second loops, it’s up to you to decide which of the videos is the winner by swiping one to victory.

It’s a simple concept, but one that could kill a few minutes here or there. If you choose to upload your own clips to the service, you’ll be able to fight it out for leaderboard positions show off your Internet video prowess. Otherwise, if you just want to watch, Clashem seems to have loads of the tiny clips spread across a wide array of categories.