@“beets”#p88327 I don’t think VR will ever become ubiquitous.
I get in a back and forth about this with my cousin fairly often. They are just getting into the game dev industry and they've also been working on a VR game on their own time. Well, actually, I think we more get into a back and forth about whether or not VR is kind of, here to stay and/or if it will grow to something more substantial than it is within gaming, rather than become ubiquitous.
They're at least a relatively dedicated convert, so they're pretty convinced that VR is going to stick around, and grow, potentially overtaking consoles (but only if consoles meaningfully start to die out). I'm not so convinced, I think VR will grow more, but unless something really catastrophic happens to consoles, it will stay as a niche; a pretty substantial niche but a niche nonetheless.
I can't remember who brought this up on the podcast, so I'll attribute it to Brandon just for simplicity's sake (to make up for it, I'll probably also misquote them, not on purpose, I just don't remember exactly what was said). I think I agree that VR is not "big" until Nintendo does it.
The Zuckerberg/Ernest Kline-ian aspirational expectations for VR are insane, I think. I don't think I'd ever actually use this word in such a straightforward way, but at this point it feels downright utopian.
I got that PSVR and I had a good old time for a while, but all the interesting games came out a few years ago and now it's relegated to storage.
WIPEOUT VR is a peak gaming experience, honestly. So is SUPERHOT. Must-play!
ASTRO BOT is also an absolute delight - I heard Brandon praising the PS5 version and I think he'd definitely dig the PSVR game - which doesn't require standing or moving.
the secret about the PSVR games I really like is that they are really _videogames_ - they aren't trying to be some transcendent experience beyond that. they're just games, fundamentally. in some ways the hardware limitations force the developers to have more fun.
SPRINT VECTOR is being inside of a 90s arcade gimmick racer. it's a workout.
I have a PSVR, the only game I have really spent a bunch of time in (~30 hours or so?) is Beat Saber - I quite enjoy rhythm games anyway, and Beat Saber is a really great time. Beat Saber is the only game where I wasn‘t constantly aware I had a stupid thing on my head - not sure if it’s the high activity level or the focus required to play. I have played a few other PSVR games through to completion. Moss, Static, Blood & Truth and I‘m sure some others I can’t remember! I reckon I will get a PSVR2 eventually.
My biggest issue with VR is locomotion, like conceptually you would think exploring huge immersive worlds would be the number one thing to do in VR - but the illusion breaks immediately when you have to walk around. I think we are decades away from a satisfying solution to that problem. So the best VR games tend to have you standing in one spot.
Motion sickness was a bit of a problem for me initially, but not so much anymore. Unfortunately, it seems my brain resolved the issue by just being like "well this isn't really happening though". It's really hard to explain, but essentially when I am in VR I am never truly immersed, but rather sort of aware that I am just looking at a screen.. I think I am just framing it like I am playing any first person game just with a novel screen/control method rather than actually inhabiting the space. Possibly because I have so much gaming experience anyway, I just kinda tapped into existing neurons when I started playing VR and enter the same headspace as playing any other game. I wonder if better quality visuals/tracking and lighter headgear would help with this, but I may just be stuck with it forever!
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@“Gaagaagiins”#p88152 I’ve got a big fat head
I have a big fat head (like, whenever I try on hats they are uncomfortably tight even adjusted to the largest size. My school nickname was Fathead - kids used to be like "hey can you move your head I can't see the board" while they were sitting in front of me) and I have had no issues with multiple VR headsets (Vive, PSVR, GearVR). It shouldn't be too hard to try on a VR headset if you're not sure. Look for VR events or art installations near you, I bet one will show up at some point!
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@“connrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”#p87913 I thought maybe one day I’d pick up a PSVR2 before they announced it wouldn’t be backward compatible. Moss sounded cool.
The lack of BC is a shame but I think due to how different the two setups are it makes sense. Some devs have already said they are working on PSVR2 versions/patches for their PSVR games - any controller-based game like Moss should be super easy to port over (and they are working on a sequel I think?) so I would be surprised if it isn't playable on it before too long.
I just remembered I played PSVR before it came out, back in January 2016. I joined this market research mailing list and there was a “Virtual Reality Headset & Game Test”, got £50 to play it for half an hour. The game was RIGS. They told us it was in singleplayer mode and got us all hooked up, there was a brief tutorial and then we played a match. I found the game to be trivially easy and was just scoring repeatedly.
Afterwards I talked to another guy and he was like "Yeah I didn't get it at all, I got absolutely destroyed", and that got me thinking maybe they were lying about it being singleplayer. The number of people in the room was the same as the number of people in a match. I'll never know for sure because it occurred to me too late to ask that dude the obvious question: _What was the score in your match?_
I have a VR headset and use it somewhat regularly believe it or not. It‘s a nice thing which offers an unique enough experience for me wanting to keep going back at it. For me it’s something that occupies the same mind space as the peripheral based games of the late 00's, the light-gun games, beatmania, DDR or Guitar Hero. And with VR there is the advantage of the thing itself being a platform where you can play a variety of games, as opposed to a specific game that requires to be played with some special controller.
It's never going to have universal appeal, nor is it going to substitute conventional gaming (not until 2080 or something like that at least), but it's a niche well established enough that I think it's going to keep having continuity from this point onwards.
I have a VR headset and I don‘t use it all that often because it makes me pretty motion sick to play like No Man’s Sky or something. The one thing that does work really well imo is pinball, but Pinball FX3 doesn‘t support VR so you can’t easily play Bally/Midway/Williams tables easily
My kids have an Oculus. I like Swarm, but I've only played it perhaps 3 times in 10 months, and I can only play it for about 15 minutes before I get motion sickness.
I hate that I have no idea what's going on around me. The only way I would truly play VR is if I had a big enough room where I wouldn't run into anything or smash my hands on a ceiling fan or something, as well as I had blinds on the windows and locks on the door. I don't need someone recording me flailing my arms around and uploading it to facebook.
This thread obviously planted a seed in my brain that spouted pretty quickly, as I went out and bought an Oculus Rift S (checks notes…) on October 17th 2022. Got it cheap on Facebook. I mostly just carried on playing Beat Saber - it's way better on PC with all the mods and have put a lot of time into it since then.
I also picked up _Half Life: Alyx_ in a sale and have been playing that. I've gotta say, that game is really something else. I feel like when I heard about VR as a concept, I had these grand ideas about what sorts of games you could make, and what sort of ideas you could explore in VR that don't work in ordinary games. Then I played some VR games, and they completely failed to live up to the fantasies I had created.
_Half Life: Alyx_, though, almost completely delivers on those fantasies. It's orders of magnitude better than any other VR game I have played (specifically immersive, action/exploration style games). It has so many great ideas, incredible production value and - crucially - it just feels so good to be in that space. The "gravity glove" mechanic where you can sort of gesture at objects, flick your wrist and they come flying toward you is infinitely satisfying and cool feeling, it just never gets old. When you throw stuff - it goes _exactly_ where you threw it. I can't even imagine how much tuning it must have taken to get that right. There are mechanics where you have to snatch stuff quickly, or a stealth bit where you might like open a door and need to catch an object before it falls over and makes a sound.
It's totally understandable why more games like this don't exist though, there aren't many companies in a position to put so many development resources into a game and then ship it on a platform with a fraction of the normal install base. Obviously Valve wanted a killer app for the Index, and also just are like printing money anyway. I think we're a long way from VR having many more games like this. So, if anyone here does get a chance to play HL: Alyx, I strongly recommend it!
So I thought VR would never be for me. But I got a free PSVR recently.
Doom VFR was a trip to nausea town, but I played the first world of Astro Bot's Playroom today and it is mind blowing. The most jaw dropping platformer since Mario 64.
So the question is then, what are the low impact VR games? I like lightly moving my head and arms around, but mostly sticking to the controller. Any recommendations?
@“robinhoodie”#p116619Statik on PSVR is a fairly short puzzle game that I had a decent time with. You are pretty much just sitting in one place, your virtual hands are in a box and pressing buttons on the controller makes things happen on the box.
@“yeso”#p116628 I haven't played it in vr, but the other recent game, obduction, is pretty good too, and I hear the vr implementation is also pretty good
When will VR headsets stop creeping me out? Why is wearing headphones not as creepy as wearing a VR headset? Is it because it obscures the eyes? Is the solution to throw up a video of your eyes onto the front of the goggles or will that just drag the experience into the uncanny valley?
Apple revealed their AR goggles today and the only interesting thing to me about it is the hand-tracking in place of physical controllers, which is very Apple. It reminded me of how the kids interact with their glasses and the environment in the extremely cool and heartbreakingly underappreciated 2007 sci-fi anime series *Dennou Coil* but with less whimsy (no flipping out your thumb and pinky and pressing the modified fist to your cheekbone to make a phonecall can be seen in the reveal for Vision Pro, just unsettling AI avatars).
Very little game-related content was demonstrated with the headset but I guess that could change? They made the very strange choice to use a sports game played with a regular dualsense to demo how a game could be played with the thing on. The one influence I could see this thing having on VR gaming is the hand-tracking as the unit is set to cost many times what even the Index goes for. But what do I know!!!
@“connrrr”#p118537 I feel like we‘re going on a decade (at least) of incredibly underwhelming VR headset related stuff, which tells me that no one is ever going to give up on continuing to push wildly expensive VR equipment to market. Don’t get me wrong! I‘ve bought and occasionally regretted buying a whole bunch of poorly considered hardware over the years! I just still don’t get VR at all. I‘ve played a handful of games made by gamedev buddies of mine and they were fine, they just never for a second convinced me adopt any of the various platforms. I’ve also got at least a few friends who are super excited about VR/AR and buy just about every game that comes out for it. Me though, I just don't get it and I probably never will!
I think the surprising thing here is that it took Apple so long to bring something like this to market! But yes I agree, it will sell a gazillion units, further convincing investor class dipshits that VR/AR is a good bet.
(Also I want to note that I am so cut off from the Apple news cycle and social media that I learned about this thing here on IC, haha)
(Also also: I feel like another part of my VR dislike comes from going to a conference in 2017 and seeing a person get wildly nauseous and subsequently be sick while using a VR headset to play a game being demoed. I think we don't talk about that stuff enough!)
@“connrrr”#p118537 Why is wearing headphones not as creepy as wearing a VR headset?
That's a really good question. I think it's because VR demands your full attention. Like, when you're in VR you aren't really present in corporeal reality and the person in VR can't observe you back. It's the same kind of awkwardness as dropping off some donuts at a meditation studio while everyone else is chanting their Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō mantras.
I would never do this or advocate it because it's probably technically a crime, but can you imagine how funny it would be to give someone wearing a $3,500 Apple Vision Pro Augmented Reality Headset a wedgie
