HTC VIVE Try Out

Today I tried one of the Virtual Reality headsets (the HTC VIVE). This was my first try of virtual reality I have ever tried. This was basically my first impressions of how it functions and how well my experience went. The game that I was able to go on was known as 'The Lab'. If you do not know what that is, it is a game that was created with the main concept of VR in mind. It is a collection of 8 mini games connected by a hub. All of the different games, use a different functionality of VR. I was able to go on 3 different mini games, Secret Shop, Postcards and Xortex. The way that it works is that the game starts in a hub that can transport you to each mini-game. The controllers represent your hands in the virtual world with a button underneath the thumb, one button controls the movement and the other controls your actions.

Secret Shop was an exploration game of where the play looks around a shop inspired by DOTA 2. The main point of this game was the interactions with the stuff in the shop. You can even activate a few spells. The responses in the game work well and nothing felt untouchable. The sound design also were able to immerse you into the world. The handheld remotes acted as your virtual hands. Although I didn't get to experience the full game of the secret shop but what I did experience was very pleasant and well put together.

Postcards was more of a virtual holiday to some country side, the main point of this was only the movement from my experience. You only see parts of the country side and only get to move to certain places with about a 12 shift movement limit. Other than that nothing else happened in the game for me so I can't give much of an opinion on this, except for the fact that it was rather boring.

The final game 'Vortex', involves using on of your hands controlling a small space ship avoiding other ships and lasers. You use the button on  This was defiantly the most fast paced game that I played. Since your hand is the ship it has major movement abilities, however the screen is filled with hostiles very quickly, and since that it is in a three dimensional space it has an auto-lock feature. This game works very well and controls well. However it is still a simple mini game, when compared to Geometry Wars it doesn't stack up as well.

Overall, this was a nice experience in VR but what I am concerned about is about the longevity of VR. This could be nothing more than a gimmick, like motion controls. The other thing is that the game made for systems like this are going to be in a really niche market, they are really going to have to push for major publicity in the mainstream median. However, in-terms of creating a virtual reality feel the system does have that in certain games and creating unique but uneventful games.