Virtual Reality

[charlesr]

"New tech will probably kill people" shocker claim. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...st-death-in-vr

[charlesr]

Half Life 2 VR mod video is among a lot of good Oculus Rift 2 videos on the web now the DK2 has been in peoples hands for up to a month.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...onise-shooters

you can run in one direction while throwing a grenade in another. You can't do that with a dual analogue setup now, can you?

Er.... Yes. You can strafe and throw.

[Yakumo]

I used an Oculus Rift the other week in conjunction with a horse seat exercise thing. Anyway, I sat on this exercise thing that moves like a horse while wearing the rift in a horse racing sim. Holly sh!t, I felt as if I was really on the horse. So much so that I thought I was going to fall off. Seriously, I was so impressed by the experience.

[Neon Ignition]

Despite my previous experience with OR, I'd like to try it with HL2 with the motion gloves also. Seems like that would make the experience that bit more unique. I'd never play like that at home though

[EvilBoris]

Er.... Yes. You can strafe and throw.

But the strafe is always relative to the direction you are looking.

[eastyy]

really tempted to get this for the main release one thing i wanted to know though was ...can it replace a 3d tv so i can use it to play 3d bluray ?

[speedlolita]

I'll be buying one for Black Desert Online. SAO type experience get!

[wakka]

OR doesn't have **** on Nerve Gear

[speedlolita]

Well hopefully I won't die using it. That's one perk!

[Brad]

Half Life 2 VR mod video is among a lot of good Oculus Rift 2 videos on the web now the DK2 has been in peoples hands for up to a month.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...onise-shooters

If you can do the magic eye thing you can watch this in 3d. Cool!

[charlesr]

But the strafe is always relative to the direction you are looking.

Good to see you matching my level of pickiness

[H-Man]

I spent most of saturday playing DK2 with a friend and came away very impressed. Negatives wise - the pixel structure is in your face, clear to see and everything is a little blurry. Detailed textures look muddy. We dicked about with lenses and settings for a while and got things to an acceptable level, but if you're expecting the crisp experience you get with a current tv/monitor, then it's not there yet. Once you get caught up in the experience this isn't a massive issue, but I wouldn't be happy if this was a finished product. 1080p isn't enough - which means we'll need monster pcs!

Positives wise - I was inside video games! The first thing that struck me was how 3D everything looked. It really isn't comparable with 3D cinema - it's as 3D as real life. The other thing was how good simple 3D maps/models looked and how much more effective they were than something more detailed. HL2 looked soft and blurry and wasn't as believable as some of the simpler demos that looked clear and weighty. It was like some kind of reverse uncanny valley. Lack of detail wasn't an issue either as it's all you can see - everything is consistent. You can't look away from the screen and see the real world, everything is the game and in that sense looks real. Once your brain is convinced, that's it, you're immersed. I expect, at least in early days, the most effective uses of VR will make use of relatively spartan and stylised looking maps. Suddenly finding yourself in a virtual world was enough for me and the greatest joy was in simply moving around and looking at stuff. If the Tuscany demo had a few simple puzzles and/or went on further I could have explored and played for hours. If someone doesn't recreate the Knightmare tv show for use with Oculus it will be a crime.

The highlight of the day for me wasn't flying around in Elite and dodging asteroids - although that was pretty epic, especially looking around in the cockpit and seeing all the gadgets and menus - nor being inside City 17, going on a virtual roller coaster or any of the other 20 demos - it was meeting Mr Totoro. I explored the road a bit, found a shrine amongst the trees, saw the bustop round a bend and an umbrella hanging on the sign to keep the rain off. Then I heard a noise behind me and out he came, walking from the woods with a big grin. He looked at me, made different faces and I then stood next to him and waited for the catbus, which turned up and took him away. It was great

[VR46]

Thanks for the impressions, you seem to be of the same opinion of 90% of people who have tried the DK2 unit.

I've only tried the unit released last year and this latest unit sounds so much better in every way.

I follow a lot of posts on the Developers part of the official forums. Opinions seems to think 1440 resolution is needed as a minimum for the proper retail release (which in theory should be next year). And as you say a pretty high spec PC is going to be needed to run things at a good detail level, ie an i5 processor at least and ideally a GTX 770/R9 280 GPU.

The Elite beta does sound great as long as your PC is up to it and the bus stop demo/cat car never fail to amuse.

Was this a friend of yours who had a unit or one for public test somewhere etc?

[Brad]

Based on these impressions Sony's offering is going to be pretty poor isn't it?

[VR46]

Have to wait and see, the latest Oculus Rift uses a Note 3 screen, which is 1080p but everyone says you can see each pixel pretty clearly when it's that close to your eyes. Again it's a step up from the 720p original from last year but still isn't enough for a proper retail release which may need a dedicated screen manufactured for them. But again serious PC power is probably going to be needed. And a big wallet.