I used to consider myself a pretty good judge of technological revolutions, and whether or not something was destined to change life as we knew it, or fizzle and die as a footnote in fad history. I had many a long argument with friends and strangers on the evolution of social media platforms regarding whether or not something would 'make it' or not. For example, I:
- Judged that the winner of the digital disk format wars would be Blu-Ray, rather than HD-DVD, while following the news of which major companies pulled out or backed what. The decision for Sony to bung a Blu-Ray player in the PS3 was a death knell.
- Determined that the humble mp3 player would be yuge, while urging people to keep their eyes peeled for music being able to be played on their phones.
- Told people that, yes, the smart phone would be what people would be getting from now on, and the Apple iPhone was just the beginning.
- Defended touch-screen tablets as being useful, and that they would slot neatly between the desktop PC and the smart phone, and that we would soon see dockable keyboards or hybrid tablets with the power of the laptop.
- That Sony would not dominate the handheld market with the PSP.
- That everyone who replaced all their DVDs with Blu-Rays were wasting their money, because everything would be digital before long anyway.
- That the DSLR market would be dominated and likely even surpassed by the growing MILC, M4/3, and even Advanced Compact markets.
There might be others, but those are the ones I remember.
I considered VR to be a fad. Following a number of tech blogs, reading the level of public interest, it seemed to be that - based on the tech demos - it wasn't something that we would see as prevalently as consoles were, or tablets, or smart phones. It would be a unique thing, mostly the domain of enthusiasts, but would never dominate the landscape and thoroughly as expected.
It seems, however, that my track record has been ended.
I was at a mate's place with a couple of other friends. I'd had a beer and some fucking delicious home-made sliders, and found myself sitting in an office chair, with a contraption strapped over my head - a couple of low-quality screens pressed up against my eyes. The game was Playstation Worlds - a small collection of mini-games - I was smashing a floating ball with the controller in the main menu, and I felt totally immersed.
Ze goggles! Zey do everytink!
The game - Playstation VR Worlds - contains a small number of immersive games, including a rail-shooter like game, a deep-sea adventure, shooting ranges, and a Tron-like tennis game.
Every little detail fascinated me. The way the Playstation controller was visible in my virtual space, but not just visible - actually responding to my movements in the real world in a way that totally matched my sense of proprioception between the real and virtual worlds. The way the ball you could hit responded so flawlessly. The way my brain was so quickly absorbed and fooled, that I would forget that my feet, which went to kick the ball on numerous occasions, weren't able to make any contact.
I tried to find a decent image of the balls, but came up empty. This is the best I can do.
As I went to different parts of the menu, the ball took different forms - a ball of water you could splash and dip your head into, a rocky D-class planet that gathered miniature asteroids around it, which you could gently brush about, and more. Curious point about the immersion here - on a couple of occasions, I even felt convinced that the small asteroid particles that were so close to my face could be breathed in, and I nearly felt like I was about to, engaging in a physical reaction to pull away and prevent myself from breathing particles in.
I must have spent a good five minutes just playing around in the menu. One of my friends, I can't remember who, commented on it, but the other, who owned the rig, said "To his credit, everyone does that." I'm not surprised.
Into the game itself, though - I first played a series of shooting galleries. They involved you using the Playstation wands to pick up a hand gun in one hand, load clips in another, and shoot targets. I missed the start of the game because I was so busy marvelling at the quality in the virtual hands and the gun itself, and just how fluid and responsive the whole thing was. When I actually started the game proper, despite the occasional glitches, I found myself trying to hold the gun in the stance I was trained to each time I visited the indoor range, but kept realising I couldn't do that with the device I held.
The desk and gun in question. Like every good virtual reality setting, I looked at my VR hands and said "... whoa.."
The actions of reaching out and picking up each new clip and loading it into the gun seemed as fluid as you could expect, and even though there was a lack of tactile specificity, my brain found itself being tricked into accepting it in a way that no mouse and keyboard could match. I even went to put my controller down on the virtual table, only remembering at the last moment that there wasn't anything there.
The Tron-like, Pong-like minigame. The key to winning is adding spin!
The rail-shooter game where you shoot bad guys with a finite amount of ammo, while being shouted at by Vinnie Jones
Watching my mate, Shaun, playing the VR mission in Star Wars: Battlefront can't possibly prepare you for what you see when you get into that X-Wing, either. On screen, it looks okay, I guess, but with the VR headset, everything looks like you're really there. The sense of 3D space around you. The level of detail etched into the cockpit. And when you look down, you see a body that isn't yours, positioned automatically in the seat as if it is your own body. And that's only the start - once you're flying around, the bodies of giant ships roaring around you, the crackle of lightning as your ship takes damage, even the shifting glow that moves through the cockpit as lasers fire around you - is utterly awesome, in the original definition of the word.
This honestly doesn't even start to do the cockpit justice. Everything is so valid within the 3D virtual space that you feel like you can touch it.
It does come with its shortcomings, though; the resolution could be improved a bit, as could the comfort. It's a bit hard to find yourself lost in a world when you've got a pinching sensation above your eyes. Also annoying was the cabling, which frequently got in the way, even seated. A move towards a wireless option might be the ticket, but I don't know enough about the technology to know if the signal could be done wirelessly without losing quality.
Honestly, though, were they to sort these things out, I could quite happily find myself lost in Elder Scrolls: VR, or Grand Theft Auto: VR. I might take up flight sims, which could would make great use of the technology, or even in some of the 'walking sims' like The Stanley Parable, or Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist.
Ask a lot of my friends who have known me for a while, and some might tell you that I'm stubborn, and not prone to admitting when I'm wrong. I certainly can be wrong on things, and in this case, I couldn't be happier.
