A shop opened here in Copenhagen a month ago that show-cases VR headsets. I found the actual store and what they have available disappointing but I did get to try VR for the first time today.
I think it was roughly what I expected. Nothing mind blowing but I could see the potential.
I tried Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and the Occulus Rift Development kit v. 2.0.
Cardboard was just a grainy low resolution video of stuff flying around over a lake. For what the headset is, basically just your phone with a some glasses overlapping, it seemed pretty cool. I think what made the simulation fascinating was when "my body" starting flying into the sky and the perspective shifted.
Then I tried Gear VR - This was a strange one. The phone obviously can't simulate VR the same way Oculus can but the stuff works. This was just canned videos as well at first. But when I was sitting in a hut somewhere in Asia, with a family laughing and eating around me, I felt like I was there.
Later on I tried the GunJack game from CCP, the people making EVE and the bigger EVE Valkyrie game. You just point the camera at drones and click a button on the side to shoot stuff. It was a pretty basic game but you could definitely see the potential for a cockpit shooter.
Now on to the OR Dev kit. This was the one I was must interested in trying. I wish they'd had the consumer version there, because the dev kit felt super rough. I finally got to experience that Screen Door effect that I'd heard about and it was definitely a distracting effect but your eyes/brain adjusts. I tried four different demo's.
One was you flying down a street as a giant robot was fighting a bunch of cops. Very basic but it was funny sort navigating through the debris and bullets flying through the air. At one point the robot launched a police car down the road and you could do that "deadpool" car tumble thing where you ducked under it and looked up into the car to see a person tumbling around inside the car. Very basic but I immediatly saw how this would be a cool experience in a first person shooting game.
Then I tried a shifting perspective demo, where you were made to constantly look around, up, down, behind you, etc. Every time you did, things outside your perspective would change. Plants would become furniture, walls would move, change color, etc. It was fascinating because it obviously played tricks on your brain but it was a but too rough to work properly. It did do a perception shift at the end where it made me think I tipped down a hole. That made me pretty dizzy.
Then there was an Astronaut mission where you got to fly to the moon with JFK speaking in the background, you witnesses the first moon landing, being in the rocket as it launched, etc. Very cool but very low resolution.
Finally I did a tour of the Solar system. The program took you to each planet, showing you their size in comparison to Earth, the sun, Jupiter, etc. Finally it shifted out and showed you all the biggest suns in the galaxy. It was basically a 3D version of that gif. Having a giant ball of plasma hanging what feels like ten meters away from you was really cool. There is a lot of stuff developers will be able to do with perspectives.
I came away a bit underwhelmed. I didn't get that revelation people speak about. But maybe I was just more realistic about the headsets. I definitely want to try a consumer grade finished product. And I want to try using a controller or gloves inside a 3D environment. I think it will be crucial. In the end, what I really just want is to play FPS games and sit back in a chair with the screen over my eyes.
This post has been edited by Apt: 29 February 2016 - 02:49 PM
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