{"id":438,"date":"2016-05-16T21:55:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T02:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/?p=438"},"modified":"2016-05-17T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T14:20:12","slug":"yeti-corner-i-experienced-oculus-and-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/2016\/05\/16\/yeti-corner-i-experienced-oculus-and-it-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Yeti Corner: I experienced Oculus, and it was\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazing.\u00a0 <\/span>It was amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went in trying to keep my expectations low.\u00a0 <\/span>I came away from it believing that VR will be an important part of the future of gaming.<\/span><\/p>\n

The setting was a Best Buy right off the interstate in Arlington, Texas.\u00a0 <\/span>About two-thirds of the way back, there was a workstation set up with an Oculus representative giving demos.\u00a0 <\/span>I arrived a little early, so I got to watch the guy in front of me take the demo.\u00a0 <\/span>They have a monitor set up so that spectators can see what the demo-er is seeing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I watched him play a climbing demo.\u00a0 <\/span>The Oculus rep stayed close behind the demo-er with his hands outstretched just in case the dude fell in real life.\u00a0 <\/span>I thought that was a little weird, but quickly understood when I was up to climb.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it was my turn, I stepped up and put the Oculus on.\u00a0 <\/span>Or at least I tried to.\u00a0 <\/span>I wear glasses – thick-rimmed, slightly wide glasses.\u00a0 <\/span>The Oculus didn\u2019t fit over them at first.\u00a0 <\/span>I actually had to put my glasses in the Oculus, then put the Oculus (with my inset glasses) on my head.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a little uncomfortable.\u00a0 <\/span>I believe that I could adjust it to be more comfortable, but that wasn\u2019t the point of this demo.<\/span><\/p>\n

The demo consisted of five \u201cexperiences\u201d and one game.\u00a0 <\/span>The experiences are just short environments that you are immersed in.\u00a0 <\/span>They are available on the Oculus in a package called Dream Deck.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ll go through each quickly, with images below.\u00a0 <\/span>Please note that these 2D images are not in any way representative of what the Oculus experience is like.\u00a0 <\/span>I cannot stress that enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Fox One:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oculus-dreamdeck-screenshots-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was the least impressive of the environments.\u00a0 <\/span>It was vivid, which was a nice starting point with Oculus.\u00a0 <\/span>As the image shows, it was polygonal.\u00a0 <\/span>The wood creatures moved around and the environment was pretty, but it didn\u2019t really show off a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

The City Tower One:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oculus-dreamdeck-screenshots-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was standing on top of a tower in a city at night.\u00a0 <\/span>The Oculus rep asked me, \u201cAre you afraid of heights?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I said no, so he told me to step forward and look down.\u00a0 <\/span>I was right at the edge of this tower looking down to a street many stories below.\u00a0 <\/span>It was the first giddy moment I had with Oculus on.\u00a0 <\/span>The depth created by the 3D was incredibly immersive.\u00a0 <\/span>I wish I could have spent more time in this scene.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Alien One:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oculus-dreamdeck-screenshots-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next experience had me standing face-to-face with an alien on another planet.\u00a0 <\/span>There was a spaceship in the background and a mountainous environment, but the alien was the star.\u00a0 <\/span>It was bizarre looking at a sentient character through Oculus, in a really cool way.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve obviously had characters look at me through my TV before, but the immersion of Oculus makes it different.\u00a0 <\/span>It was like the alien was sizing me up at the same time I was sizing him up.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Little City One:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oculus-dreamdeck-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was my favorite of the experiences.\u00a0 <\/span>There is a miniature city floating in front of you.\u00a0 <\/span>You can lean in and see details of the city like traffic.\u00a0 <\/span>I immediately pictured a game like Civilization or SimCity.\u00a0 <\/span>It would be amazing in any kind of board game or RTS-style game.\u00a0 <\/span>VR controllers would be absolutely necessary, which is something that was sorely lacking from my demo.<\/span><\/p>\n

The T-Rex One:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oculus-dreamdeck-screenshots-5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the most visceral of the experiences.\u00a0 <\/span>You start standing in a long corridor in what looks like a museum.\u00a0 <\/span>Looking around, there\u2019s a dinosaur skull sitting in the window.\u00a0 <\/span>Soon, a very large T-Rex comes around the corner at the end of the hall.\u00a0 <\/span>It turns slowly, then charges toward you.\u00a0 <\/span>When it gets close, it lets out a roar that includes saliva particulate flying everywhere in 3D.\u00a0 <\/span>It looks you over, then continues on, walking directly over you.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Climbing Game:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"The-Climb-Oculus-Rift-Game-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last experience was the only really interactive one.\u00a0 <\/span>All the others were just looking around and leaning.\u00a0 <\/span>The Climb actually put a controller in my hand –\u00a0a<\/span>n Xbox One controller, not any type of VR controls, which is a bit of a bummer.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see two floating hands in front of you and are tasked with climbing up the facade of a cliff.\u00a0 <\/span>You use the triggers on the controller to grab where you are looking.\u00a0 <\/span>It was fun\u00a0but incredibly gimmicky.<\/span><\/p>\n

The environment was immersive, but the gameplay was not.\u00a0 <\/span>I wanted to use my hands to climb, not my head.\u00a0 <\/span>I was reaching with the controller when in reality I need to look at and lean toward the hand-holds that I wanted to grab.\u00a0 <\/span>It had a bit of a learning curve, but I was able to cover some ground in the brief time I had.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was incredibly cool to look around while climbing.\u00a0 <\/span>You could look down or behind you.\u00a0 <\/span>Or you could just focus on what was ahead.\u00a0 <\/span>It was encouraging to see what VR could offer and I wish I could have spent more time with it, even if it was gimmicky.<\/span><\/p>\n

So here are a few takeaways I had from the experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, I now fear lots of injuries around VR.\u00a0 <\/span>The immersion is incredibly disorienting.\u00a0 <\/span>I never almost fell over (at least I don\u2019t think I did) but I was very aware of the fact that the world I was looking into was not the world around me.\u00a0 <\/span>People are going to fall on their faces.\u00a0 <\/span>A lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, a truly immersive experience will require VR controllers.\u00a0 T<\/span>here can be great experiences based around tradition controllers or mouse and keyboard, and I’m pumped for those, but some games must have VR controllers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, VR will be an additional component of gaming.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not going to be the only way to play games in the future.\u00a0 <\/span>I will look forward, one day, to both VR games and traditional games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth, the audio leaves a lot to be desired. \u00a0To be fair, I only experienced the built-in, Sony Walkman-esque foam headphones. \u00a0But they suck. \u00a0While the visuals were amazing, the audio was atrocious. \u00a0The roar of the T-Rex, while visually striking, was sad, muffled, and distorted audio-wise. \u00a0I think better headphones would help, but I’m still skeptical about the ability to create audio immersion at this point.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I\u2019m still not buying into the VR revolution yet.\u00a0 <\/span>While I truly enjoyed the experience, and I\u2019m itching for more of it, there\u2019s just not enough out there yet to justify the price point.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve waited years, decades even, for this.\u00a0 <\/span>I can wait until it gets a bit cheaper and more fleshed out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazing.\u00a0 It was amazing. I went in trying to keep my expectations low.\u00a0 I came away from it believing that VR will be an important part of the future of gaming. The setting was a Best Buy right off the interstate in Arlington, Texas.\u00a0 About two-thirds of the way back, there was a workstation set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaminguncensored.com\/gu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}