So it's finally time to enjoy my new toy! What do I do first? How should I start.
Well, the Mixed Reality Portal is my "home" in virtual reality and its fun to teleport around in it while fully anticipating the "real" experiences to come. The home is an open air house surrounded by a lake and mountains. There are several screens there to be used, such as the internet browser "edge" and a video player. The most useful screen I can summon is the "Desktop" screen which essentially lets you see your desktop in virtual reality.
This means that I can run games on my desktop and open netflix in a large screen right next to it. This is perfect for playing grinding games that don't require my full attention, such as Final Fantasy XI Nasomi Server. It's fun to do that, and once in a while I get the itch to play some FFXI so using my headset is definitely the best way to do it considering I only have one small screen IRL.
But I don't start there. No, I start off looking in the Steam Store for those free games/experiences that I can have with a single click. Stuff like Accounting, The Cubicle, Found, and In Cell. I loved how I used my head to control my movement in In Cell and the feeling of motion in that game was amazing.
After trying out a few free experiences, I wonder where this motion sickness that everyone always talks of is. And truth be told, I felt none whatsoever. What I did feel, though, coming out of VR, was that every once in a while in real life, I would have a moment where I'd feel like I was actually in VR. For example, since I can only move around so much in VR due to the cable length, I got used to moving quite carefully about my in game environments. One morning I woke up and for the life of me I could hardly walk past my bedroom door for fear of hitting an invisible wall.
Fortunately, most of those strange feelings are beginning to subside with continued VR usage. I think it just took a bit of time for my brain to learn how to differentiate between the two.
At any rate, back to those free experiences/games. They are usually really short and probably serve only to show off what the tech and the developers working with the tech can do. And when you first enter VR and see what can be done, you will feel at awe. The best part of VR seems to be interaction. In one such free experience I start inside a rock egg which I must break piece by piece to reveal that I am indeed in space, with meteors flying by and fragments of them flying towards me for me to smash. It all feels very real. The physics are convincing. At this early stage in my VR life I am at awe at almost anything anyone can throw at me. Particularly giving me the ability to grab things and throw them.
But enough of the free experiences. Let's see how this game I bought on sale a while ago but never played, plays in VR. It's called Subnautica and it's a survival game based on a water covered planet which my spaceship has crashed onto.
Well, to be honest, it's hard to put into words the awe I was in when I jumped out of my life-pod and into the wavy ocean. I could not believe how realistic and beautiful it felt to dive under the water on an alien planet. It was almost by itself worth the price of admission. Over my first week of VR I got to learn more about Subnautica's world, and every time I hop onto the headset for another session, I learn new and more interesting things.
Honestly I can't say enough good things about this game. It takes forever to load (a downside of VR) but when it does, my goodness does it deliver.
Anyway, nuff said. Next week I'll start paying for some actual VR games and see what they are like. And one of these posts will be about VR Social Applications/Worlds such as Altspace and Recroom.
Well, the Mixed Reality Portal is my "home" in virtual reality and its fun to teleport around in it while fully anticipating the "real" experiences to come. The home is an open air house surrounded by a lake and mountains. There are several screens there to be used, such as the internet browser "edge" and a video player. The most useful screen I can summon is the "Desktop" screen which essentially lets you see your desktop in virtual reality.
This means that I can run games on my desktop and open netflix in a large screen right next to it. This is perfect for playing grinding games that don't require my full attention, such as Final Fantasy XI Nasomi Server. It's fun to do that, and once in a while I get the itch to play some FFXI so using my headset is definitely the best way to do it considering I only have one small screen IRL.
But I don't start there. No, I start off looking in the Steam Store for those free games/experiences that I can have with a single click. Stuff like Accounting, The Cubicle, Found, and In Cell. I loved how I used my head to control my movement in In Cell and the feeling of motion in that game was amazing.
After trying out a few free experiences, I wonder where this motion sickness that everyone always talks of is. And truth be told, I felt none whatsoever. What I did feel, though, coming out of VR, was that every once in a while in real life, I would have a moment where I'd feel like I was actually in VR. For example, since I can only move around so much in VR due to the cable length, I got used to moving quite carefully about my in game environments. One morning I woke up and for the life of me I could hardly walk past my bedroom door for fear of hitting an invisible wall.
Fortunately, most of those strange feelings are beginning to subside with continued VR usage. I think it just took a bit of time for my brain to learn how to differentiate between the two.
At any rate, back to those free experiences/games. They are usually really short and probably serve only to show off what the tech and the developers working with the tech can do. And when you first enter VR and see what can be done, you will feel at awe. The best part of VR seems to be interaction. In one such free experience I start inside a rock egg which I must break piece by piece to reveal that I am indeed in space, with meteors flying by and fragments of them flying towards me for me to smash. It all feels very real. The physics are convincing. At this early stage in my VR life I am at awe at almost anything anyone can throw at me. Particularly giving me the ability to grab things and throw them.
But enough of the free experiences. Let's see how this game I bought on sale a while ago but never played, plays in VR. It's called Subnautica and it's a survival game based on a water covered planet which my spaceship has crashed onto.
Well, to be honest, it's hard to put into words the awe I was in when I jumped out of my life-pod and into the wavy ocean. I could not believe how realistic and beautiful it felt to dive under the water on an alien planet. It was almost by itself worth the price of admission. Over my first week of VR I got to learn more about Subnautica's world, and every time I hop onto the headset for another session, I learn new and more interesting things.
Honestly I can't say enough good things about this game. It takes forever to load (a downside of VR) but when it does, my goodness does it deliver.
Anyway, nuff said. Next week I'll start paying for some actual VR games and see what they are like. And one of these posts will be about VR Social Applications/Worlds such as Altspace and Recroom.
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