~Beyond the Border~ > Akyu's Arcade
What do you think of VR?
commandercool:
I have a buddy who loves VR and has been talking about it a lot recently. I have this impression that it's unnecessary gimmick technology and all of the games are just two-dimensional tech demos or weird ports, but before today I hadn't experienced it much.
I'm at a con right now and I promised my buddy who loves it that I would try VR if there were any demos available. I just tried a Playstation VR demo. The game I played was some kind of ultra-generic science fiction FPS and I hated it. It looked like a 3DS game, it was brutally slow, and it made me so motion sick that I've been sitting down for the last half hour trying to regain my equilibrium. This was a gimped tech demo for sure. I get that I definitely didn't get an optimal experience though.
So does anyone have any VR experience who can weigh in on whether it's a useful design tool or an expensive pointless gimmick? Apparently several other VR products are doing demos this weekend, I'm going to try to plan on going to each of them just for thoroughness, but I'm bailing instantly if I start to get motion sick again.
Jq1790:
There was this one I played on an Oculus once that had you on a train and then you got into firefights and stuff, it was actually pretty cool and I'm normally bored by the aesthetic of playing shooters that don't have Metroid in the title somewhere.
OverlordChirei:
Only having used an Oculus for a class final project, I can say that I personally think it would be better if we just made stuff that focused around the headset, rather than requiring you to move your full body.
The headset alone feels like the next step in improved immersion. Imagine trying to play an FPS but it looks like you're actually there, and it feels like the sounds are right there in your ears. You start to forget you have a headset on after a while.
Consider that a decent amount of "I was playing an mmo but got stuck in the game" shows/plots use this as a medium of playing the game, rather than full motion controls. I can't imagine how wacky it would be trying to play anything intense without like, a gymnasium's worth of space around you to prevent unfortunate collision. This option also likely won't give anyone motion sickness.
Ionasal kkll Solciel:
I've had... varying experiences with PSVR. Some games, like Statik: Institute of Retention and I Expect You to Die; they were immersive experiences I really enjoyed playing in VR. On the other hand, I get medium motion sickness playing RIGS and light sickness playing EVE: Valkyrie (which might be a bad portent considering I'm hype for Ace Combat 7); and games like Farpoint and Archangel kind of feel like the VR was tacked on, even though both of them are basically made for VR.
--- Quote from: OverlordChirei on March 24, 2018, 07:34:05 AM ---Consider that a decent amount of "I was playing an mmo but got stuck in the game" shows/plots use this as a medium of playing the game, rather than full motion controls. I can't imagine how wacky it would be trying to play anything intense without like, a gymnasium's worth of space around you to prevent unfortunate collision. This option also likely won't give anyone motion sickness.
--- End quote ---
I know movement rigs exist for full-body motion; I remember seeing one a while back used to play TF2 and I've seen a couple on Kickstarter years ago.
Ghaleon:
I never got to try vr. once it had a demo display thing at Best buy... and it didn't work. sigh.
Anyway, just based on my intuition, I imagine it's not a gimmick in of itself, but most of its content will be like that. However, racing games that support it likely benefit greatly, as do horror games I imagine (real horror games, not vr-specific horror games).
I think VR is still something that can greatly improve with new generations, kinda like digital cameras.
At the very least I think they are just plain practical once they become 'easy' technology to make of decent quality. There will be no need for you to get some big fancy 28 inch monitor for your gaming computer when you can have the same field of view (better actually) by sticking a smaller screen on your face, not to mention I imagine the cost of materials for making a smaller on your face OLED display or whatever the new hotness will be will cost less than making a giant OLED panel or whatever.
Last time I went to shoppers drug mart I saw one of those cheap phone-vr th ings for 10 bucks. I'm thinking about getting it next time I stop by. 10 bucks! (Not google cardboard, but one that's compatible with it apparently, I forgot the name)