A.R.S.E.

Thought this was the best spot to post this.

Virtual reality's driving force: How one genre stands above all others in VR's new frontiers.

I've been toying around with VR for a short while now, and I haven't been wholly convinced just yet. There are too many barriers in place at present, from the expense to the space required and through to the fact that so much of it still feels like shallow novelty that can be too easily tossed aside as a faddish distraction. The biggest challenge right now, though, is that VR's still not convincingly figured out the controller problem. PlayStation VR's appropriation of Move and the imminent (and expensive) release of Oculus Touch will help, while Vive's full-body immersion works well enough if you've the space, but there's still an abstraction present in both.

Driving games, though, are enabled by the best controllers around: 1:1 recreations of steering wheels and pedals and, if you're dorky enough, beautiful H-pattern gate shifters. A good force feedback wheel solves VR's control problem with a blunt simplicity. Match a Thrustmaster T500 with an Oculus Rift and you've got one of the best VR experiences around, and you don't have to clear out an entire room to achieve it.

I do think that cockpit games like car racing and flight are the best use of VR that I've experienced. I can't wait for the day that the field of view gets wider so that it doesn't feel like I have a scuba mask on.

Accounting - Rick & Morty meets VR

This hasn't been released but it would be pretty cool.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthr ... ake-for-VR

Anyone got some touch/vive games to recommend?

Arizona Sunshine
After trying a few demos and the free stuff I needed a full game so I bought this on steam. I'm really enjoying it so far, but I'm still undecided on the teleport system for movement. I also need to clear out a bit more space. I've whacked my hand on the furniture a couple times. Blowing zombie heads off with the revolver is quite satisfying and it can get pretty hectic when a large group rushes you

Pool Nation VR/Sports Bar VR
I played a few games and it worked quite nicely. The steam version doesn't have proper touch support yet so it was a bit fiddly figuring out the controls. Not sure if the multiplayer is cross platform. The steam version doesn't have all the content yet so it's missing a few games.

Nvidia VR Funhouse
Good fun. Probably the best showcase for demoing it. There's a bunch of stuff for it in the steam workshop including a couple more mini-games but I haven't had time to try them yet. (I've now tried some of the workshop items. They're terrible)

The Unspoken
Only did the tutorial part but it didn't do it for me. Throwing fireballs could be fun but I'll need to see if there's much of a single player campaign. Looked like it might be geared for multiplayer.

Dead and Buried
Only tried this briefly because it's multiplayer focused. The shooting and reloading felt good.

Bullet Train
Fun demo with nice feeling guns. AI seemed a bit stupid though.

Toybox
Bit meh. It's set up for multiplayer but there isn't much you can do.

VR Sports Challenge
Only gave this a quick go so far. The hockey game was pretty good and almost gave me a feeling of presence. The NFL game seemed to not be working right but maybe it just takes practice. Haven't tried the other sports yet.


I'm DarrenM on oculus home if anyone wants to try the multiplayer games out.

Darren, I might add you to my Friends list if I think of it next time I'm in. I'm NobodyImportant

So far I have all the games you listed, except I got Arizona Sunshine through the Humble Bundle Store. It is/was on sale for 4 days at the Steam price and you can redeem a Steam or Oculus Home key. I went the OH route. I found the aiming in Arizona Sunshine was quite difficult to get right. It's a work in progress. I'm stuck at the mine entrance horde presently. Mind you, I mustn't have paid enough attention or tried enough options because I was unaware that you could equip grenades to yourself. I was trying to use them by putting them close by so I could grab them when the baddies come.

My biggest limitation so far is my available space. I really don't have much. I am going to have to have a hard think about how to arrange things. I have a 3m USB 3.0 extension cable coming in the mail so I can try their 360-with-2-cams solution. Right now I just have to take lulls in the action to readjust my position. I gently punched a window on Friday night while playing around with The Lab - it made me work out how to set up the boundary system. Now I'm so close to the boundaries all the time, I only have to move a smidge and they start to fade in on me.

I did get into a multiplayer group on Dead and Buried on the weekend. That was fun, but my limited space meant I was often obstructed from getting in a good position to hide. The horde mode and shooting range aren't too negatively affected by my space issues, at least.

I'm at the same point in Arizona Sunshine. I tried three times, completely forgetting about the grenades. Need to see if you can close the door to the gift shop and shoot them through the windows or something because I get flustered and screw up the reloading.

It doesn't look like you can store the grenades for later use. Just have to carry them in your hand.

I've also been thinking about the extra camera or a diagonal setup. I have my cameras about 2m apart and the controllers sometimes lose tracking even when only turning 90 degrees to the sides. Need to check the led's with the phone camera. There's some reports on reddit where not all the led's in the controller were working which makes it prone to losing tracking.

Took me about 5 hours to finish Arizona Sunshine which ended up being a pretty good length for what's there.

A lot of people want Black and White in VR. Super Island God looks pretty close. Early access on Steam and Home.

Finished Arizona Sunshine on the weekend. There were some tracking issues which I'll put down to my setup, but other than that it was a very satisfying experience. Twin SMG's FTW!

I also picked up Special Delivery. It's based on the 80's classic Paperboy. It's still quite buggy but I reckon it has some potential.

Since I spent some money on Special Delivery, I received Ripcoil for free. I tried to get into a multiplayer game a few times, but no luck. I gave the practice arena a bit of a go. The game might have some promise if you can get your head around the control method (lean left or right to move the platform).

Oculus is having their Winter Sale until Jan 4th. There's daily bargains occurring as well.

Of course they did this a matter of hours after I decided to spring full-price for Kingspray. No regrets, though.

Here's the full sale list. I haven't had time to look through it yet. Seems they've discounted almost everything to some degree. Going to wait until the steam sale starts then get spending.

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/sect ... 944340785/

Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter (full original serious sam game with vr support) also released on steam today. From what I saw on reddit it's not so great for Oculus unless you have a working 360 tracking setup as you have to physically turn to turn in game. They're going to add turning with the stick but that causes motion sickness for me.

I'm going to have to try the cameras in opposing corners now. If I can get it working then I'll have Serious Sam, Vanishing Realms and Doom 3 to add to the play list.

Also trying to find a replacement desk to free up a bit of space but I think I'm going to have to make my own. I'm using an 1800x900mm table at the moment. 1200x900 would be ideal but everything with that width seems to be only 600mm deep which isn't great with large monitors.

Steam sale is on. Here's a nice list of vr the better titles

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5jsnrk/steam_vr_sale_deal_highlights_crosspost/

Switched to an opposing corner camera setup for 360 tracking and it's passable. There are some directions where controllers go wonky but I had the same issue with the front facing setup when aiming the controllers to the sides. I can't see a 3rd camera fixing the issue. You'd probably need 4, or a Vive.

Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter.
Only did a short session in this and couldn't handle it. I need to play around with the movement options but it made me feel sick pretty quickly. It didn't help that I'd had a beer not long before playing. Alcohol seems to make me a lot more prone to motion sickness in VR.

Doom 3 BFG.
Looks promising but it keeps crashing for me. Not sure if it's my headset dropping out or the game as I've been having a lot of issues with the headset lately. The movement wasn't as bad as Serious Sam but it still made me slightly queasy.

Vanishing Realms
Fun but fairly short. I ended up doing it all in one session and it took me about 2-2.5 hours. It was a bit like playing a first person Chronos, though not as hardcore and with more basic combat. I think I only died once and that was from accidentally setting myself on fire.

Super Island God
Cool way to play a god game, but I'm finding the controls a little janky. Especially the zoom and pan controls.

Starting to get into DCS World as well. Flight sims normally aren't my kind of thing but as with racing sims, VR makes it a lot more compelling

I've picked up Cronos and Super Island God. I agree on the controls with Super Island God - hopefully they improve them.

IronWolf VR looks pretty cool.

That's looking promising (hope to get Oculus this year).

Apollo 15 android game/experience for Google cardboard is awesome too!

Anyone interested in some Arizona Sunshine horde mode coop? A friend and I are looking for more people to play with for the coop stuff. I didn't like the mine map much but the new one coming out in the next day or so looks interesting.

https://www.vrandfun.com/arizona-sunshi ... ad-valley/

Also interested to try the Rec Room 4 player quests, but that game seems to be full of children.

I really liked Arizona Sunshine, but my playing space is sub-optimal. I just don't have the space to flail my arms around.

DarrenM wrote:Switched to an opposing corner camera setup for 360 tracking and it's passable. There are some directions where controllers go wonky but I had the same issue with the front facing setup when aiming the controllers to the sides. I can't see a 3rd camera fixing the issue. You'd probably need 4, or a Vive.

I have 4 sensors here at work, but 3 work perfectly. I usually setup 2 forward facing sensors about 2m apart, and one at the back of the play area.

I've gone to 3 since that post and it's a lot better. I still get minor glitches when the front cameras are occluded or if I'm right over in the corner with no camera but it's much better than 2.

Over easter I took the whole setup to my mothers place and tried to set up a larger area but it couldn't do more than around 3x3m. There were more windows in the room though.

The Rick & Morty game is out. $30USD on steam, $47AUD on Home. People are saying it's only taking 2.5-3 hours to complete which is a little disappointing but it looks fun.

Was bored so I bought it. Took me just under 2 hours to finish, but it was good fun.

Makes me want Sam and Max or something like that in VR, or a full Rick & Morty adventure game.

I'm pretty sure I got motion sick last night. I'm not certain, I could have just been feeling off anyway. But I was playing project cars in the shifter karts and got really hot and sweaty, then felt nauseous.

Those karts are pretty quick around tight tracks though so it's some pretty intense VR. I may have just found my limit. Strange though, I've played war thunder for a good hour, dog fighting people online and constantly rolling and diving etc.


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People in flight sim forums are raving at IL2 Battle of Stalingrad's recent VR implementation, for you flight simmers. I still don't have one, but a PC upgrade and Oculus purchase is scheduled this year...