Oculus Rift

Today we're going to take another look at the emerging technology that is virtual reality.

I found two of Angry Joe's videos for you to look at. The first is an unboxing and setup/review of the Oculus Rift and the second is a game review for Dreadhalls, a horror game for the Oculus.

Not only do I find this tremendously interesting in itself, but the one point that really stood out in the Dreadhalls video, is the point Joe makes about the games graphics.

See, the graphics are “old-school” if I'm being polite. I could be rude and call them dated and clunky, but I am nothing if not polite. That's not the point either way. The point is what I have been saying for years, namely that graphics mean nothing if the game isn't good.

With the immersion the VR goggles creates, you'll forget about the graphics in no time, and your survival is all that becomes important. By today's standards, Skyrim's graphics are old, but that doesn't matter when I play it, since the game is so good.

For years now, people have complained that the AAA studios are churning out bland garbage. Not all the time, sure, but too often considering the price tags. Then the studios complain that the games aren't selling well enough, even though they turn out a healthy profit.

Of course, if you invest $250 million on a game and the players can't even begin to guess what you actually managed to spend the money on, you have a problem. Yes, the game looks awesome, but with barely any story, and dull repetitive gameplay, your game is not going to break any records, and then it does not matter how pretty the game is. No way, and never.

Case in point: The Order 1886. Amazingly beautiful graphics, boring dumb gameplay. I can't find any hard numbers on it's sales, but all sources report it was garbage, and a large portion of the gamers refused to even finish the game. That alone says something considering it's about six hours long.

So what does that have to do with the Oculus Rift? Well, this:

VR is the first new thing to happen to games in decades. And I'm not talking about minor things like “Ooh, we put a touch pad on the controller. Isn't it shiny and wonderful?”

Sure that's “new” but at the end of the day it's still just a controller. VR is for-real-new, and it will hopefully teach the developers and publishers to think outside the box and make them reevaluate what makes a good game, not just for VR but for all gaming.

That's it for me today, so until next time, have a cool week!

Backup video links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87IJU1AtcAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvooIcET8k