@“safety_lite”#p118822 sooo many reasons but the battery life was like an hour, you looked like an idiot, everyone running around SF with them was a grade-F no-social skills person wearing unstylish clothing and a tech backpack, and being recorded in public was wayyyy less normalised than it is now in 2023, and there was literally not a single killer app for the thing. i'm still not convinced there is a killer app even if the technology was magical and battery life was 24 hours.
@“穴”#p120881 I was shopping for a new bed frame and noticed the design firm used by this one I was looking at had already done work for a familiar brand of e-ink vr slob goggles I'd seen before.
Can I use this thread for Virtual Boy discussion? Can you add a Virtual Boy option to the poll?
My virtual boy flash cart may arrive today and I am so excited to play anything besides RED ALARM for the first time!!! …Of course mainly WARIO LAND!!!!!
Good bye reality, I’m escaping to the virtual world of 1994!!! I’ll be in my pod if you need me!
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Of course there’s very little “VR” about the “VB”, since it’s just sprite based stereoscopic 3D games of the 32-bit era, but it’s on your dang head, and I’m enjoying the irony!!
i‘m sure it’s super complicated and there‘s a whole mess of reasons why it hasn’t been done yet, but i'm still holding out for a virtual boy emulator on the 3ds that fully uses the 3d of it all
@“phylaxis”#p128944 me too dude, me too!!! I can’t wait to sell this virtual boy, it’s such a frivolous use of money lol!
Got it running, and I’ve decided the only thing that sucks about Virtual Boy is that it costs $250-$500 to play these awesome games.
My favorite thing about virtual boy since the first time I touched one in 2011 is the stereo sound. These games have really fun sound and the way the speakers are placed makes unique stereo separation in front of your head combined with a really loud post-DMG sound chip.
Virtual Boy Wario Land should have been ported to 3DS and it’s criminal that it wasn’t. It’s met my expectations exactly. A sequel to Wario Land 1 that had a lot of Wario Land 4 in it already.
I’m glad to be playing on this stupid weird whirring extremely specific piece of technology I’m balancing on my head while laying down because it saved me like $50 and a ton of space in my van not buying it with a stand.
I bought a barebones unit, just the console, new visor and a controller, with no power module included. I spliced in my own power supply and ordered a flash cart. I had a box+manual for Mario’s tennis and Vintex sells games along with flash carts, so I got Mario’s tennis for like $25.
But, it’s definitely not worth the investment for most people to get one just to play these games. Not worth it to me either. I’m gonna resell this eventually, but I saw my current situation as a chance to experience this and I took it!
Virtual Boy does indeed suck to play, makes my eyes water, and is generally not very fun! the best part is the PCM audio and the 32bit graphics… Not worth it!
In the hypothetical world where 3DS had a VB emulator, I don't think you'd be missing out on much if you just played it that way.
@“treefroggy”#p129452 Its a one of kind thing, but like, comparing PSVR to VB, it such an obvious parlor trick. THAT SAID. I do have a soft spot for the catalog, but all of them could probably just have been like the launch line up for a mid 90‘s Ultra Gameboy. Only a couple really get anything from being in 3D. But almost all get a ton of milage from that sound chip. Just a ton of banger soundtracks. Of the mid 90’s flops. It is my favorite.
@“robinhoodie”#p129455 Impulse buy, at least now I know that I can play on emulator and not be missing much. I won‘t miss having my eyes well up in a hazy little eyeball cave. VB Wario Land was the last R&D1 game composed by kazumi totaka… If I could just have the VB sound hardware for listening to tunes, that’d be great.
I guess my small affair with Virtual Boy fits the theme of the thread after all!
With glowing red stereoscopic 3D graphics, the Virtual Boy cast a prophetic hue: Shortly after its release in 1995, Nintendo’s balance sheet for the product was “in the red” as well. Of all the innovative long shots the game industry has witnessed over the years, perhaps the most infamous and least understood was the Virtual Boy. Why the Virtual Boy failed, and where it succeeded, are questions that video game experts José Zagal and Benj Edwards explore in Seeing Red, but even more interesting to the authors is what the platform actually was: what it promised, how it worked, and where it fit into the story of gaming.
Nintendo released the Virtual Boy as a standalone table-top device in 1995—and quickly discontinued it after lackluster sales and a lukewarm critical reception. In Seeing Red, Zagal and Edwards examine the device’s technical capabilities, its games, and the cultural context in the US in the 1990s when Nintendo developed and released the unusual console. The Virtual Boy, in their account, built upon and extended an often-forgotten historical tradition of immersive layered dioramas going back 100 years that was largely unexplored in video games at the time. The authors also show how the platform’s library of games conveyed a distinct visual aesthetic style that has not been significantly explored since the Virtual Boy’s release, having been superseded by polygonal 3D graphics. The platform’s meaning, they contend, lies as much in its design and technical capabilities and affordances as it does in an audience’s perception of those capabilities.
Offering rare insight into how we think about video game platforms, Seeing Red illustrates where perception and context come, quite literally, into play.
Available in about a month from now it seems, and if I understand the MIT Press site correctly it looks like it will be available via open access.
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VR thing ✕ Press F for Fake
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Interesting look into early VR care of the CBC’s current affairs newsmagazine “The Journal”
Featuring William Gibson, Jaron Lanier, Todd Rundgren and Timothy Leary.
Little bit on arcades (Virtuality) and the military.
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I bought one of those Quest 3s a while back (terrible decision) and just about the only thing I’ve used it for is Virtual Boy emulation. Which is pretty nice, but mostly just makes me want to get an actual real-deal Virtual Boy. And also glasses, because my right eye doesn’t really pull its weight.
That Facebook VR ecosystem suuuuucks. It’s supremely miserable to actually find out what kind of games are even available to you.
I borrowed a VR headset thing from a friend cause I have a powerful PC for the first time and cause why not. Borrowing it seems like my ideal VR experience tbh. Other than half life Alyx, are there other essential VR games? Or should I just stick to what I was planning to do with it? (playing Euro Truck)
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A lot of the good VR experiences are smaller games. Superhypercube hot it’s hooks in me bad. I even had the 2nd highest global score on ps4 for a while. Moss book 1 and 2 are worth playing. Jet Island has really good traversal. It’s grappling hook snowboarding. It looks bad but is very well done. It’s extremely fast and if you feel nausea at all in vr I would avoid it. Super hot vr had me crawling on the floor and was pretty good exercise while being fun. If you have any nostalgic attachment to 7th Guest the very remake is totally fun. Same with the myst series remakes. If I think of anymore I’ll add to the list
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Can second superhot and will add pistol whip, had lots of fun with those on a friends quest or whatever.
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I hear Ace Combat 7 is good in VR that’s expensive though, but then again it’s a good game and worth playing non-vr too
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I know it’s an obvious one but it’s popular for a reason: if you have any kind of affinity for rhythm games, Beat Saber is great fun. If the supplied music doesn’t appeal to you, it’s fairly easy to get mods installed that allow downloading custom songs.
It’s quite a workout as well, especially at higher levels. Since you’re borrowing though, for any high intensity arm wavy game make sure you don’t smash the controllers together!
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