Lost Inside a VR World
It’s not often that a video game columnist in Hawaii gets “out in the field” for an article, but this past weekend I headed over to Lost Inside VR in Kaimuki (next to Himalayan Kitchen) for some “research.”
Namely, I wanted to test out the HTC Vive at a rate slightly more affordable than $799 for a rig. Lost Inside (lostinsidevr.com) charges $20 per half-hour session, which is, in comparison, a steal. So I spent one hour running through eight different demos to absorb as much of the VR experience as possible for a two-week series here, beginning with hardware.
I’ll be honest with you: I was skeptical. How many times have we been told “this changes everything” in this industry over the last 10 years? So I didn’t think I was going to like VR.
Well, there’s egg on my face because I absolutely did.
I was in doubt while they suited me up, strapping the unwieldy headset on (with a cord that trailed on the ground behind me), slapping headphones over that, sticking two large, ungainly controllers in my hands. It’s real ugly, if we’re being honest. The system needs work in that area, for sure.
(A note on graphics: They are serviceable, on par with the early PS3/360 era, I’d say. That is all they need to be right now.)
But once I started rolling through the different titles they had, I was thoroughly impressed with how … real it all was. I forgot the heavy headset was there. The 10-by-10-foot space was more than enough room to duck, dodge and weave around in-game obstacles. The controllers hit the 1:1 sweet spot that I’ve never experienced on a console. I felt like I was in a game — not just immersed in a game, but actually, really in it. And it was amazing.
It needs streamlining, but this is tech with a huge amount of potential.
Next week: the software situation is … bumpy.
