Happy New Year, one and all, as we tumble at ever-increasing speed into the crazy world of the future with flying cars, hoverboards, robot butlers, and better-than-life virtual reality. More or less. I got an Oculus Quest for Christmas which is pretty darned impressive, if not quite the total immersion of Red Dwarf and other sci-fi. Home VR seems to be really taking off with the Quest, Rift, Vive, Playstation VR and such hitting that “pricey but not completely ludicrous” price-point, but then VR seemed to be taking off in the early 90s and didn’t get very much further than Lawnmower Man and Craig Charles shouting “Awooogah!” in Cyber-Swindon.
I’d tinkered a bit with Google Cardboard, which was fun and all, but with only rotational movement tracking and limited interactivity it was a bit ‘updated View-Master‘. The six degrees of freedom of the Quest plus its Touch controllers are quite literal game-changers; with my fondness for rhythm games I dove straight into Beat Saber and have been having a whale of a time flailing away at flying coloured blocks. I poked a nose into a demo of Dance Central – funny how dance pad games like Dance Dance Revolution just used feet, giving everything a slightly Riverdance feel, while Dance Central is all about the hands. I’m sure cyber-shoes can’t be too far off, though. Slightly more my speed is the rail-shooter with extra beats Pistol Whip, most enjoyable and not a bad workout with plenty of ducking and diving to avoid incoming fire. Superhot VR is amazing, a real demonstration of the power of VR; its “time moves when you move” mechanism gives it something of a yoga flavour, holding a pose while considering your actions. I haven’t bought the full version, though, as it’s also the most dangerous of the games I’ve tried so far, requiring reaching, grabbing, throwing and punching around you. Even in a recommended 2m by 2m space (which was only clear due to kitchen refurbishment, there’ll be a fridge taking up a chunk of that space shortly) I’ve had slight knuckle bruising, in more confined spaces there’ve been close calls with a lamp and ornaments.
I think the last “classic” adventure game I really enjoyed was Discworld: Noir, before the combination of increasingly stretched Use Random Thing From Inventory With Other Random Thing From Inventory (And/Or Random Bit Of Environment) logic and ease of looking up solutions on the internet put a bit of a crimp on things. VR offers an opportunity to bring some physicality to puzzles: levers to throw, wheels to turn and such, almost Escape Room-type elements; I’ve picked up Shadow Point for the Quest as it sounds intriguing (and features voice work from Patrick Stewart) but haven’t had a chance to give it a proper try. The Quest streams to phones or suitably equipped televisions, I’m hoping it might work for some collaborative puzzle solving.
The Android-based Quest is wireless, which is a big plus, but is locked in to software available in the Quest store (unless you sideload applications in developer mode, which proved pretty straightforward and useful for a wider library of Beat Saber tracks), though that’s a pretty good selection. Another big plus is that Oculus introduced Link, whereby the Quest can be hooked up to a PC with a USB-C cable to work with Steam VR and Rift software, expanding the catalogue and taking advantage of heftier PC graphics (with suitable specs). I haven’t delved too deeply into that side of things, but a quick jaunt in War Thunder was most impressive.
Overall I’m not sure it’s going to become my main gaming device by any means, but it’s great for something different and a way of being a bit more active, particularly handy as the aforementioned kitchen refurbishment has resulted in a significant increase in takeaways and eating out, not terribly conducive to resolutions to eat more healthily.