The Oasis (still) Sucks: Talking About VR Gaming

[Felicia]

So, uh, well:

Palmer Luckey Made a VR Headset That Kills the User If They Die in the Game

The man who created the Oculus Rift has invented a virtual reality headset that will explode the forebrain of a user who dies in a video game.

www.vice.com

I guess this is the most blatant real-life example of this tweet:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1457842724128833538

 

[Troa11]

I have no words for how much this actually terrifies me.

 

[FelixSH]

There are so many things wrong with that inventor, like him not wanting to use it at the moment, because it might kill you at the wrong time (so he would play with that thing, if a game over meant death for him?).

I also don't get why people want games to be perfectly realistic, even including the possibility of dying. I like abstraction. Also, I want games to be less stressful than real life, not more. This whole thing is beyond insane.

 

[estragon]

I guess this is the most blatant real-life example of this tweet:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1457842724128833538

This honestly makes the tweet seem optimistic, because at least in that they're presumably misreading like a Philip K Dick story or something good.

Palmer Lucky was inspired by Sword Art Online.

 

[Felicia]

There are so many things wrong with that inventor, like him not wanting to use it at the moment, because it might kill you at the wrong time (so he would play with that thing, if a game over meant death for him?).

I can only imagine what the patch notes for the game would look like.

"Due to an unforseen programming error, enemies could sometimes clip through walls and attack unaware players. This is now fixed, and we will refund any funeral costs for those affected by the bug."

 

[FelixSH]

I can only imagine what the patch notes for the game would look like.

"Due to an unforseen programming error, enemies could sometimes clip through walls and attack unaware players. This is now fixed, and we will refund any funeral costs for those affected by the bug."

I find it pretty depressing, that the most unrealistic thing her, to me, is the idea that these clowns would pay the funeral costs.

 

[MetManMas]

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ALL THESE STUPID EVIL RICH PEOPLE

Why would you ever see stuff like this in fantasy:

.hack//G.U. Last Recode is a tetralogy where a young man seeks out some player-killing asshole who's come close to figuring out how to actually kill people through the Internet game everybody plays.

and think "Hey that's actually a pretty good idea for a real product to make actually"?!

 

[MetManMas]

I also don't get why people want games to be perfectly realistic, even including the possibility of dying. I like abstraction. Also, I want games to be less stressful than real life, not more. This whole thing is beyond insane.

Seriously, I just don't get these people. They always act like the V.R. bullshit that loads of sci-fi media over decades made a big deal about is going to be a big thing, but the things that have taken off did so largely because they are convenient.

Pressing dedicated buttons on a controller is convenient. Touching a screen is convenient. Wearing a headset over your face and having to move stuff around so you don't go crashing through the TV set or that glass coffee table you think looks so cool is never going to be convenient.

There's already plenty of ways to die IRL in V.R. without some stupid asshole inventing a headset that kills you.

 

[Purple]

Honestly between being down hard with the Gator crowd despite being financially well off, dedicated so hard to the VR thing so early on, and doing this messed up thing out of love for a notorious isekai thing, I would... legitimately believe he's built up some weird sort of personal religion where if he does kill himself in this particularly elaborate fashion he'll be reincarnated on the game grid or whatever.

 

[John]

I've got two kids, age 6 and 9. The younger one is extremely into the idea of VR gaming, having tried out some of the ride simulator experiences that they have at arcades. I know they don't have a ton of studies on the effects of VR helmets and developing eyes, and the manufacturers go with minimum age of 13 for legal reasons. Our town optometrist lives down the road from us, and his response was "it's probably fine, just limit it to 15-30 minutes at a time".

If I was to get them something as a Christmas gift, I'm waffling between a Meta Quest 2 and the PSVR2. Both are expensive, one won't even be out by Christmas, and has a cord which I worry about. Neither of them are made for smaller heads, so will be loose fitting.

Quest 2 - $400-500, no cord, stuck with Facebook, available now. No chance of an Astro Bot game (my 6yo's request).
PSVR2 - $550, corded, available maybe in February if you luck into a preorder, has potential of getting an Astro Bot game.

On paper it looks like the Quest 2 is the winner, but I don't love the idea of giving Meta money, and I would like to try some of the PSVR2 stuff myself. I would want to limit them on both time of use and content, does anyone know (based on the first PSVR) if the same type of youtube static experiences like riding a rollercoaster are doable on the Sony platform?

 

[Becksworth]

Pimax Portal is a combination Android Handheld/Standalone VR Headset/Switch Like handheld.

Looks cool, but I'm really skeptical on the VR side of things, as Pimax can't just lean on another companies storefront on the VR side of things. Plus assuming some delays are inevitable it will likely launch close to whenever Quest 3 comes out and the XR2 chip will feel outdated by then.

Might make a good Ayn Odin competitor on the Android Handheld end at least.

 

[Positronic Brain]

So there was another clearance earlier this weekyon Quests 2 and I jumped on it - hey, I have two weeks if I want to refund.

First impressions are mixed. I want to like them but I'm having trouble finding the right spot so the text at the Oculus desktop and Steam VR menus is not blurry - I think my astigmatism is screwing me up. I did manage to find the sweet spot once and never again.

That said, gaming itself is fine and having my PC run the VR makes this smoother than the PSVR. I am trying to make Star Wars Squadrons run with this, let's see if they are keepers. If only the blurriness didn't annoy me so.

 

[John]

I bought my son a Japanese version of the Nintendo Labo VR bundle with all the toys, since the NA version isn’t available anymore. With all the Labo sets, the true fun is with the building, and the games themselves are “fine”. The JP game card autodetects it’s playing on an English language switch, so other than some Japanese writing on the box, it’s identical.

Trying to play regular games with a VR component like Mario Odyssey isn’t great. The lower resolution and screen door effect are noticeable, and since there’s no head strap, you’re stuck using joycons at a weird angle.

If you like doing Lego sets (or have someone who likes to do those with you) I recommend it, but it’s not going to have staying power in my house, especially because I got in on the preorder for PSVR2. I’ll give some impressions of that sometime in February.

 

[Sprite]

Labo is absolutely magical but it has a veeery limited shelf life, especially for how much space the Toycons take up. The rubber bands have all dried out on mine leaving only the headset usable. I haven’t looked into how easy they are to repair, hopefully there’s a video showing how to replace the rubber bands.

The build, though, I was entranced. Leave it to Nintendo to turn Lego instructions into a charming romp. It can’t just go “put tab A into tab B,” it needs you to know that those tabs are sisters, and you’re helping bring the family back together.

 

[John]

Hah, my son just pulled out the Labo vehicle set after a couple years, and we had to do surgery to replace most of the bands in the wheel. We had enough extras in the old boxes to fix it, and they were smart on designing it that it didn’t require a full tear down to repair.

 

[Becksworth]

I don't think Meta knows it's a Game Company

I feel you Verge article.

 

[John]

My son's birthday just passed, so our home now has a PSVR 2. I only tried it out for about 2 minutes to set it up, so the majority of this is coming from watching the kids play.

Comfort is pretty good. We're limiting them to 15 minutes of play sessions to help stave off motion sickness and headaches. Kids haven't complained, but my brother in law was trying the Star Wars game for about half an hour, and felt off after that. Our kids are still under the Sony recommended age of 12yo (they're 7 and 9), but we asked our optometrist who said just to time limit and have long breaks in between.

Fav games have been Cosmonious High and Synth Riders. Both our kids like the sandbox style of Cosmonious, but our 7yo really likes Synth Riders. He's just biding his time until Beat Saber gets ported.

REZ and Tetris Effect have PSVR2 upgrades, which I've bought, but haven't personally tried. I'm going to try those out tonight after work, if there's time.

SW: Tales from Galaxy's Edge looked fine, but fiddly. Teleport mode for travel seems to be the way to go.

Drums Rock is a "air drum" Rock Band game. Fine, but doesn't compare with actual drum kit games.

The cable has both been a hindrance and a non-issue. We found out early on that pets need to be controlled, or they'll get in the way and be a hazard. I bought a USB-C extension cable, which is only rated for 5Gbps vs the port's standard 10Gbps, but I don't think it has caused any issues. I also didn't opt for the official $50 controller charging station, and went with a third party one for $20. Works well, and has a stand for the headset.

Overall, it's very expensive, but the tech is cool. We're only playing mostly stationary games, so no need to fully dedicate a room to the thing. We've also been keeping a handler in the room whenever the kids play, both for time and for safety, but they haven't been going wild when it's on.

 

[Becksworth]

So my son was standing on my Quest 1 carrying case and broke a controller ring in the process, and xmas time was around the corner, so I'm upgrading to a Quest 3 now. I'll have to give y'all my impressions once I get it later this week.

Also no one told me Yupitergrad 2 was coming out this year and it's a Metroidvania now.

 

[Becksworth]

Quest 3

Pros

Resolution: Finally no more screen door effect (Okay, I can still kind of see it if I'm actively looking for it, but not when actually focused on the game).

Graphics/Processor: To give an idea of how much horsepower VR takes, a chip that supposedly can run Switch emulation is needed to run native VR games with Switch like graphics. Still that seems like a good middle ground for the smaller indie dev teams that usually work on VR titles. Want to see how Wii emulation will work on here, but still need to setup sideloading.

Mixed Reality: ...is good enough! Like the passthrough clarity could be better, but I ain't paying $3,000 to get that (cough... Apple... cough...). Being able to see my surroundings still when playing something that isn't a total first person immersive experience is great. A good example is Demeo, which is a game that simulates a tabletop D&D like RPG session. Before it had the game table in a simulated goth chick DM's basement, but now you can just have the table projected in front of you and still see everything else going on in the room your in.

Bad

Cost: $650 for the 512GB model. There is a $500 128GB model, but yeah 128 GB was already being strained on my Quest 1 before factoring in bigger Quest 2/3 only titles.

Battery Life: Around 2 hours max without a battery accessory. With the extra battery I'm getting like 4 hours, which is more reasonable, but that's added expense.

Edit: LCD Screen: Forgot to mention this part. The resolution bump more than makes up for it, but I do miss the OLED blacks.

 

[Becksworth]

Stop everything! The brightness levels are off on the Virtual Boy emulator after the Quest OS being updated to a new version of Android earlier this year, leading games to look too dark.

This is important and needs addressed now!

 

[Toad64]

Stop everything! The brightness levels are off on the Virtual Boy emulator after the Quest OS being updated to a new version of Android earlier this year, leading games to look too dark.

This is important and needs addressed now!

This is really interesting that you mentioned this, because I was playing some Virtual Boy on my Quest 2 a couple weeks ago, and noticed that the colors (or...shades of one color) were way off, and i didn't remember that being the case before. Huh. Hope this gets fixed soon. Maybe we can contact the developer of the app?

 

[Becksworth]

I know there are at least a few VR peeps here, so just wanted to share: 3DS emulation on Quest!

GitHub - amwatson/CitraVR: Port of the leading 3DS emulator, Citra — designed for playing 3DS homebrew and personal game backups in 3D on the go with your Quest.

Port of the leading 3DS emulator, Citra — designed for playing 3DS homebrew and personal game backups in 3D on the go with your Quest. - GitHub - amwatson/CitraVR: Port of the leading 3DS emulator,...

github.com

It's still early (even the Quest 3 struggles with it, and there is no rhyme or reason as to which games run well and which don't so it's likely more software than hardware related) but still a good use of AR passthrough/3D display.

 

[Becksworth]

Stop everything! The brightness levels are off on the Virtual Boy emulator after the Quest OS being updated to a new version of Android earlier this year, leading games to look too dark.

This is important and needs addressed now!

Oh and apparently this was fixed. I'll have to double check that...