Ingress, Google’s New Augmented Reality MMO Is Aimed To Always Have You Staring At Your Phone
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It looks like Google is getting into online gaming. Google has created Ingress: The Game, a fully functioning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), and they’ve brought it out of the Internet and into the real world with their augmented reality technology.
Ingress: The Game was created using the same technology as Google’s Project Glass, which immerses its users in an interactive Internet display through a pair of glasses, and it is poised to change the face of Internet gaming and modern MMORPGs. The game is an Android-based app that uses augmented reality so its players can interact with landmarks, monuments, parks, and city streets as part of the game.
The game is played when a user downloads the app and chooses a side, either the Resistance or the Enlightened. When a mysterious energy is revealed, you must choose to embrace its mind-altering powers with the Enlightened, or fight against the energy as a member of the Resistance who believes the strange power is controlling all of humanity’s minds. The fate of the world and the future is in the balance between these two factions.
It’s pretty cool! Using the Ingress app, you can play with or against other players in your neighborhood or city. Hell, you could be walking around your city’s streets while playing the game and a stranger walking next to you could be a member of the Resistance or the Enlightened. Just be careful who you interact with in real life.
Google formed the Niantic Project to develop Ingress, along with other future MMORPGs. Currently, the Ingress game and app is in a closed beta, but you can still go to the game’s website to request an invitation to play. Sorry, iOS users, this is only available on Android devices through the Google Play store.
