Oculus Rift Touch

Last Friday, I visited a friend. My friend who owns an Oculus Rift to be precise.

I've talked before about my very first VR experience, and how amazing it was, but what I didn't know was that my friend has now gotten his hands on the Oculus Rift Touch, the virtual room experience.

For those who are not in the know, this means that you stand in the middle of the room, the VR headset on, and motion controllers in each hand. You become completely immersed in the world of your choosing, able to look around, including behind you and it's all there.

The first game I got to try out was Robo Recall, a sci-fi game where hordes of robots attack you and you get to shoot them. Or grab them and toss them around at will. This was incredibly cool as you actually have to physically aim your guns in order to hit anything. A far cry from using a mouse or normal controller. The robots run at you from all sides, they jump down from ledges allowing you to shoot them out of the air if you can.

Sure, at first the whole thing felt a bit alien, but soon enough I got the hang of it. You don't walk in the game, since that would either give you motion sickness (or you would fall over) or you'd crash into something. Instead you teleport around at will, destroying robots like the action hero we've all dreamed about being at some point in our lives.

Without a doubt one of the coolest action sci-fi experiences I have ever played.

The other game I tried is Wilson's Heart. A horror/thriller game set in the 1940's. It's interestingly done in black and white, with a Noir art style that invokes the films of the era.

Here, you are an inmate or patient in a very messed up sanitarium where evil occult stuff has gone down. Again, as with Robo Recall you can't walk around, but there are spots you can warp to in order to gather clues and items. This was actually even cooler. To be able to stand in a huge reception area and look around at the vaulted ceiling and all the little details made it feel as if I was actually there. You could also pick up things, twist them around, throw them away, or toss them up and catch them with your other hand. Likewise, you actually had to grab door handles and turn them to open doors.

This may sound simple, but these tiny details truly sell the experience. And it makes it a thousand times worse when a nurse suddenly appear behind you...

Also, at one point I came to a room where the outer wall had a huge gaping hole in it. I stood at the edge of the aperture and looked down. I'm not sure I could have stepped off even if the game had let me, it felt that real.

This meas that a game like Assassin's Creed would be on every level absolutely terrifying to play in VR, but museum tours would totally work. Someone needs to do a virtual tour of the great castles of the world, starting with Neuschwanstein Castle.

I could go on, gushing about how amazing this was, bu I think you get the point. If you get a chance to try out VR or room VR, try it. Maybe something easy first, it's new way of doing things after all.

Until next time, have a great week!

Virtual Virginity

Last Friday was the first time I tried Virtual Reality gaming. A good friend of mine finally got his Oculus Rift, and I was stoked to give it a shot.

I requested to start off nice and slow and he fired up Adrift, a game where an astronaut (you) is stranded in space amongst the ruins of a broken space station. The sensation was incredible, I got a mild feeling of floating around, gently grabbing oxygen canisters and avoiding floating debris. It has to be said though that I felt a mild sensation of nausea with this game. I think a part of it is the problem that I was sitting down while my brain thought I was moving, which can cause an imbalance in the inner ear. The strongest feeling of realism was interestingly enough my virtual arm. My real arm was holding the controller, but when the character grabbed a canister, it felt so real. Very cool.

The second game I got to try was DiRT Rally. Even though I'm not a racing gamer, with the exception of GTA, it felt bloody amazing! I was in that car hurtling down the dirt road, while my map reader yelled directions and angles at me that made no sense. When I hit a tree, I really flinched. All in all, the coolest driving experience I've ever had in a game. And no nausea! Probably because my brain understands what sitting in a car should feel like.

The third game on the list was EVE: Valkyrie, a space sim/shooter. My fighter launching from the mother ship was totally bad-ass, but boy did I suck at the game itself. Partially because I have no practice using a controller in 3D, so I flailed around a lot and then got shot to pieces. EVE is a very fast paced game, and that was the other problem. I mostly just rotated around, but the sensation was incredible. And like with DiRT, no nausea.

Finally I tried War Thunder. This isn't a VR game in itself, but it works just fine as one. I test flew a Spitfire, and talk about realistic. I got mild vertigo! The sensation of moving forward was no problem at all, but when I turned my head and looked down, I felt the altitude in a way no screen can ever hope to achieve. Gently steering my plane around felt so natural and smooth, I have a hard time expressing it. Just don't look down.

All in all, the entire experience was awesome. Sure I felt some nausea, but I have to wonder if that wasn't my brain being new to the entire sensation. That said, the technology is definitely in it's infancy, but this will only get better. I can't await for it to truly bloom and take it's rightful place in tech history. If you get the chance to try it, do it. You can always close your eyes if it becomes too much, but do try it!

Until next time, have a great week!

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