henke on 24/3/2016 at 17:47
Well well! Seems I picked the right 4-day weekend to borrow the office Oculus Rift!
Matthew on 24/3/2016 at 22:25
Do it for TTLG henke old son, we expect a full report
demagogue on 25/3/2016 at 03:15
I totally heard Corey Price's quote in Jacky Treehorn's voice in my mental reading.
henke on 25/3/2016 at 14:13
Yeah well, I still jerk off manually. That is to say I didn't actually try the pornhub thing. I did try a bunch of other new VR demos tho, here's a video and mini-reviews:
[video=youtube;5rZKLtdJOAM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rZKLtdJOAM[/video]
Flying Aces VR - pretty fun, arcadey, WW1 flight combat game, with some really nice cinematic moments. Makes me hope someone makes a Crimson Skies reboot soon. With how well-suited VR is for flight sims, now would be the time for it.
VRbloX - The gamepad controls really are too in-delicate for this. Will work better with touchcontrollers.
Star Wars: The Battle of Endor - eh, kinda janky. Also the thumbstick controls are opposite the ones in Flying Aces so I had a hard time adjusting. As with most of these small VR prototypes, controller-options are sparse, if they're included at all.
Mythos of the World Axis - Good looking UE4-powered platformer. Basically the world is built around your sitting position, so you just swivel in your officechair to follow your character as he makes his way through the world. A bit wonky, but it works well enough that I think a sidescrolling VR platformer might just work, with some clever design.
I Expect You To Die - this one is great, tho short. I included it in it's entirety in the video.
I also tried getting SteamVR to work, but no luck. I did get Virtual Desktop up and running though. It turns my monitor into a big curved display floating in space in front of me, in fact I'm using it right now while typing this! Even though this virtual monitor is so big I can't see the entire width of it at once without leaning back, it's not as sharp as my regular 24" monitor. The screendoor effect is very noticable. Doesn't seem you can run games in fullscreen with this thing, but I did manage to start FTL and Undertale in Windowed mode.
Also, I just played through Distance's Adventure Mode in VR, and it is so next-level-crazy-bonkers it deserves it's own post. More on that later.
icemann on 25/3/2016 at 17:11
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Ironically, people (or is it just icemann?) keep saying VR is only for first person, but actually it's poorly suited to first person (due to acceleration related nausea) and much better at other perspectives.
That's just me judging it based off what I've always envisioned it to be used as, I guess. As VR is or was (I should say) about looking through the eyes of the player avatar and then acting accordingly in the simulated reality you are within. Hence Virtual Reality. I never factor in the nausea factor, as I've always seen that as something that will be overcome over time.
Though if it's more in an augmented reality sense, then I guess first person isn't so much an issue. By augmented I'm more meaning where you use your hands in your view to perform actions which then affect the game environment. Something like a VR Populous would be interesting in that, since you could reach your hands out and elevate the terrain etc.
Thirith on 25/3/2016 at 17:34
Henke, it's kinda sad we're not getting any VR porn reviews from you... One thing I wanted to ask, since you mentioned swivelling around in your chair: have you ever had any problems with the cable, e.g. becoming wound up in it?
henke on 25/3/2016 at 19:02
With the aforementioned platforming game it was indeed a hindrance. I had to look forward and hit the recenter key to center the camera on the character a few times when I just couldn't turn any further.
Shadowcat on 25/3/2016 at 22:52
So which existing sims support this stuff?
There are tons which support TrackIR (and many more with mouse-based virtual-cockpits), so the environmental/head-movement stuff has been fully-implemented all over the place for <em>years</em>. Making the <em>other</em> changes would seem relatively simple by comparison?!
If these VR companies pooled some resources to fund the upgrading of current sims, they would get themselves some <em>kick-ass</em> demos to sell the hardware with.
TannisRoot on 28/3/2016 at 15:02
Quote Posted by henke
Workarounds for getting Thief and Stalker working with it does exist, but in my experience games that do not have
native VR support have been disappointing. Definitely don't buy a VR headset hoping to mainly play games not designed for it, you'll be disapponted.
Mech games on the other hand! Check out (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tD546ZkUmo) Vox Machinae! The demo for Oculus Rift DK2 is one of the most satisfying (and least nasuea inducing) action games I've played with the Rift. The full version is still in development, but this one will be a real killer app I think.
Vox Machinae looks awesome! Definitely a ton of potential fun there.
Also I have to say, Elite Dangerous looks like an awesome game to play with VR.
henke on 14/4/2016 at 06:32
The good folks at Tested made this very comprehensive Vive vs Rift video, finding plenty to praise/lament with each HMD.
[video=youtube;EBieKwa2ID0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBieKwa2ID0[/video]
I don't know, at this point I kinda feel like waiting to see how the Rift's touch controllers turn out before deciding, even if it means I'll wait for another half year.
