Where is VR going?

[drewthmsn]

34 minutes ago, mexos said:

Since I've pushed the button, what would be the essential games / experiences you'd recommend to a new Quest owner? I want to see the best stuff across categories. (don't have a PC)

 

It's been a long time since I used my PSVR, I'm pretty out of touch with it all, I am curious to see where it's all evolved in the past few years.

 

If you've ever played table tennis irl, then Eleven Table Tennis is pretty outstanding as a sim. Playing online with randoms across the table (world) hasn't gotten old yet. I've only had it a couple of days but you know what I mean.

[Valver]

52 minutes ago, mexos said:

Since I've pushed the button, what would be the essential games / experiences you'd recommend to a new Quest owner? I want to see the best stuff across categories. (don't have a PC)

As I wrote earlier in the thread, I'd recommend Ultrawings 2 (a flying game with some sim-ish features.  Multiplayer dogfighting was recently added) 

 

I love Demeo too. (table top miniatures style RPG/dungeon crawler). Also has great multiplayer and a lovely community.

 

Investigate getting SideQuest installed. Loads of free content there.  Pavlov Shack is worth a look if you like CounterStrike. Gorilla Tag became super popular via SideQuest too.

 

Everyone loves Walkabout Mini Golf.  Thats very chill.  And there's a sort of game within a game in it to hunt for hidden golf balls.

 

BeatSaber is a given, it's much the same as the PSVR version, except you can load in custom songs on the Quest version now.

 

PokerStarsVR is free and very slick. A great place to hang out and play card in a private room with mates. 

 

There's a variety of Star Wars games too. They're quite short content wise, but very polished.  The Oculus store app frequently has them on sale, so maybe wait for one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Valver]

@mexos Has anyone you know given you a referral code?  I think they're still live inthe app. Both the new user and the invitee get a loads of app store credit for free!  You just need the code for when you register the headset...  PM me if you need one.

[dumpster]

4 hours ago, Valver said:

www.vrpopcorn.com 

 

You can thank me later 😂

Please can this post be amended to warn the user that it's not got Rogue One, Titanic, Last Jedi or any of the 3D movies I was hoping to see whilst browsing at work.

[dumpster]

34 minutes ago, Valver said:

@mexos Has anyone you know given you a referral code?  I think they're still live inthe app. Both the new user and the invitee get a loads of app store credit for free!  You just need the code for when you register the headset...  PM me if you need one.

I have a referral code that gives you 23 quid off if you want it.

[dumpster]

Having owned the PSVR since launch and got a Quest 2 at the weekend, I have to stamp down the hype just a little.... Because someone earlier said they might sell the PSVR and get a quest and this thread needs some balance.

 

PSVR then.  Most of the best games can be played perfectly with the regular controller. Astrobot is still one of the best games ever made.  The Quest has better controllers than the move but how often do you use the moves really?

 

The Quest is better than the PSVR in pretty much every way bar one and it's a big one.  Many of the best games on Quest you may already own on PSVR.  Today I was browsing the Quest Store and after the Stunning Resident Evil 4, I'm not sure what to try next. There's a lot of games to choose from but only a few major standouts.   Some games seems expensive for what they are (didn't see that coming) and the stand out titles to me are things I already have on PSVR (Beat Sabre etc).   Browsing the store, you see the same handful of games everyone goes on about, and loads of shovelware. PSVR. Has a better choice of games.

 

Netflix and 3D movies are amazing on the quest, but you'll need a PS4 to watch your 3D Blurays.  

 

Of course, a Quest 2 can be connected to a PC (not mine, not powerful enough) and you can play loads of PCVR titles, so there's that.  But a standalone Quest 2... I personally have found the store a bit lacking.

 

I think, for the amount you'd get for a second hand PSVR, it's worthwhile keeping it for the best stuff it has to offer. The range of games on PS seems way better and stronger than Quest.  The benefits of the Quest (social stuff, exclusives, wireless, lighter, better screen, better controllers) make it the better device, but I'd say the hardware of the Quest is 10/10, but software availability takes it down to an 8/10. The better hardware of the quest does devalue the PSVR from 9/10 to 6/10.  But then Astrobot, Blood and Truth, Resident Evil 7 push it back up to a 9/10.  Someone on Facebook will probably take your move controllers, camera and headset and give you £100 or something and that will disappear into your wallet and disappear in a few days.  And then you can't play Resident Evil 7 any more.

 

Both formats have their strengths and weaknesses, but not many of these are shared. PSVR is still great.  I don't have the wires issue because the PS4 works with my setup with the breakout box permanently connected , so it only needs one wire (admittedly with two connectors) and nothing on the Quest has been as good as Astrobot yet. 

[Fletch]

Man I’ve just had a great idea for a multiplayer OQ2 game, Knightmare one person is the dungeoneer with the limited viewpoint the others are the questers shouting sidestep right and all that as you make your way through the castle with a virtual Tregard patronising you all the way through. It would sell 10’s of copies. 

[mexos]

42 minutes ago, dumpster said:

I have a referral code that gives you 23 quid off if you want it.

 

Ooh yes pls dm!

[papalazarou]

3 hours ago, Fletch said:

Man I’ve just had a great idea for a multiplayer OQ2 game, Knightmare one person is the dungeoneer with the limited viewpoint the others are the questers shouting sidestep right and all that as you make your way through the castle with a virtual Tregard patronising you all the way through. It would sell 10’s of copies. 

There are a couple of games like this, do you copy? is played with one person in vr who is trying to rob a bank while the rest of your team are on a phone / tablet app - they cant see what you see only an over head map but they can see puzzle layouts (ie wire cutting etc ) that they have to relay to you etc..  

 

keep talking and nobody explodes is another similar game - one person faced with a bomb in vr while your team mates have a printed of pdf schematics that they need to use to help you defuse the bomb (which they can’t see) 

 

[DarhkFox]

4 hours ago, Fletch said:

Man I’ve just had a great idea for a multiplayer OQ2 game, Knightmare one person is the dungeoneer with the limited viewpoint the others are the questers shouting sidestep right and all that as you make your way through the castle with a virtual Tregard patronising you all the way through. It would sell 10’s of copies. 

 

I've had this thought before. But the dungeoneer isn't supposed to see anything so seems a bit pointless. 

 

Had some good fun on VRchat playing a diner game. Work with friends to make burgers, pizza etc. Gets pretty chaotic but I expect if we had at least one more person concentrating on cleaning the dishes we would have done better.

 

I guess it's a bit like  VR overcooked. 

[b00dles]

Keep talking and nobody explodes is great fun with another few people. Me and some mates ended up printing out all the defuse instructions to make it quicker 🤓

[Qazimod]

4 hours ago, Fletch said:

Man I’ve just had a great idea for a multiplayer OQ2 game, Knightmare one person is the dungeoneer with the limited viewpoint the others are the questers shouting sidestep right and all that as you make your way through the castle with a virtual Tregard patronising you all the way through. It would sell 10’s of copies. 

 

9 minutes ago, DarhkFox said:

I've had this thought before. But the dungeoneer isn't supposed to see anything so seems a bit pointless. 

 

Perhaps instead of not seeing anything, the headset player would just be missing vital visual information; they see an empty corridor whilst people watching the TV/monitor can see a swinging axe in the middle of the corridor.

 

The Playroom VR had some nice ideas for TV/headset co-op, like the Wanted and Ghost House games.  

[SeanR]

 

10 minutes ago, b00dles said:

Keep talking and nobody explodes is great fun with another few people. Me and some mates ended up printing out all the defuse instructions to make it quicker 🤓

 

Yeah, I’ve got five copies in these

 

Rapesco 0786 A4 Pivot Clip File, Transparent with Coloured Clips - Pack of 5 https://amzn.eu/d/9LTX5vA

 

if they ever do a sequel I’ll get two

or three leather personalised binders instead.

 

 

[CheekyMonkey]

10 hours ago, mexos said:

Since I've pushed the button, what would be the essential games / experiences you'd recommend to a new Quest owner? I want to see the best stuff across categories. (don't have a PC)

 

It's been a long time since I used my PSVR, I'm pretty out of touch with it all, I am curious to see where it's all evolved in the past few years.

Has to be Resident Evil 4 - by some distance the best standalone game I've played on it.

The usual suspects: Beat Saber, Superhot, Pistol Whip - and if you think you'd like a ping pong game - Eleven VR really is pretty special.

[Jarik]

Walkabout Mini Golf is notable not only for being a solid Miniature Golf game with some great courses, but also for all the free updates and support its received post-launch.  The Lost Ball and Treasure Hunt minigames each course has are great fun and encourage you to really explore the environments, and the paid DLC "Lost City" courses are well worth it not only to expand the game but also reward the developers that little bit more.

 

I'm looking forward to the DLC courses based on the Film Labyrinth and the Game Myst.

[metallicfrodo]

16 hours ago, mexos said:

Since I've pushed the button, what would be the essential games / experiences you'd recommend to a new Quest owner? I want to see the best stuff across categories. (don't have a PC)

 

Walkabout Mini Golf - Golf Game!

Beat Saber - Rhythm Action

Pistol Whip - Rhythm Action/Scrolling shooter

Rez Inifinite - Scrolling shooter

Superhot - Matrix style time controlling action game

Moss - Third person platform/puzzle game

Red Matter - First person sci fi horror adventure puzzle game

Shadowpoint - First person adventrue puzzle game

Through the looking glass - Third person adventure game

Walking Dead Saints and Sinner - First person horror adventure/survival game

Resident Evil 4 - I think you know what that is!

Tetris Effect - Tetris on acid.

 

Having previously had a PSVR you might already have played some of those admittedly.

 

When you say you don't have a PC, do you mean at all or just not one powerful enough to run VR. If you do have a PC then you should also look at side loading Dr Beef's conversions of:

Half Life

Return to Castle Wolfenstien 

Doom 3

 

[robdood]

17 hours ago, Angles Morts said:

 

My room isn't big enough to be ducking and weaving miming a firefight.

Then don't get VR, basically.  Being 'in' it and moving around is part of the magic, dude! 

[dumpster]

Doom 3 sideloaded, fucking hell, it's great.

[EuroVapeSim2]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet in this thread but derail valley is a great VR train simulator, it's not perfect and can be a bit grindy to unlock everything. To play it on a Quest 2 you need the Oculus link and half decent PC. I played it on a friends HTC Vive and wished it had a better resolution. There's just something about sticking your head out the side of the cabin as you barrel through the countryside in a train.

 

 

[spatular]

1 hour ago, robdood said:

Then don't get VR, basically.  Being 'in' it and moving around is part of the magic, dude! 

im sure its better if you can move around, well depending what games you want to play, but theres loads of great stuff you can play with limited room. Stuff like beat saber and pistol whip, thumper, rez, racing games, can be played while barely moving, well you might wave your arms around a lot but dont need to move from the spot. I played alyx in a confined space too, can definitely see how that would be better being able to move around more but it was still good teleporting around.

[partious]

4 hours ago, robdood said:

Then don't get VR, basically.  Being 'in' it and moving around is part of the magic, dude! 

 

For me, the visual immersion and 3D is 90% of the appeal. 

I wonder if we might have seen more ports etc if there wasn't a vocal part of the VR community ready to absolutely trash anything that doesn't fit their idea of the full VR experience, full interaction using motion controls etc. 

They insist on the full VR experience and nothing less will do, so nearly a decade into this VR cycle we're still dealing mainly with low budget minigames built from the ground up for VR, despite the fact that AAA games can be modded for "acceptable" VR by a single modder. I'd say "If one modder can do it, would it kill these big  companies to just get one or two devs to do it officially" but I guess the companies know that if they released anything less than the full VR treatment they'd be trashed and review bombed, so they're better off just ignoring VR. 

 

As an aside, the Quest 2 price increase is shocking. Going from 37000 yen to 59000 yen in Japan. Disc drive PS5 is 55000. Series S is 32000. I'd really strongly discourage anyone I know from spending that much on a Quest, it's just not remotely worth that price for anyone but the biggest vr fans, who I assume already have one. 

[Garwoofoo]

1 hour ago, spatular said:

I played alyx in a confined space too, can definitely see how that would be better being able to move around more but it was still good teleporting around.

 

I prefer teleportation controls anyway, not just due to limited space or VR queasiness but because (perhaps counter-intuively) I find them more immersive.

 

Full motion controls in VR feel like I'm playing a roller-skates simulator, and using the right stick to turn removes a lot of the immersion. Also with full-motion controls I tend to play like I would a regular game - run up to something, if I'm not in the right place I'll back up a bit, slide left and right, rotate using the stick... it's not very "VR". I kind of forget to use my actual body outside of pointing and shooting..

 

With teleport, I jump directly in front of where I want to go then manually move and interact with my whole body. Take a step or two in each direction, turn to face the right direction, lean in to what I want to do... it's much more immersive.

[dumpster]

I'd be very surprised to see the price increase happen.  But I've seen loads of people "finally" taking the plunge and buying one now before this supposed price increase.  Got to be marketing. After all, when has a piece of tech ever gone up in price... Ever?

[Angles Morts]

3 hours ago, partious said:

For me, the visual immersion and 3D is 90% of the appeal. 

I wonder if we might have seen more ports etc if there wasn't a vocal part of the VR community ready to absolutely trash anything that doesn't fit their idea of the full VR experience, full interaction using motion controls etc.

Yeah, I would have thought there would be loads more adoption if VR headset was just a display option in 'normal' games rather than having to shoe-horn in waggle and teleport.

[Qazimod]

4 hours ago, spatular said:

im sure its better if you can move around, well depending what games you want to play, but theres loads of great stuff you can play with limited room. Stuff like beat saber and pistol whip, thumper, rez, racing games, can be played while barely moving, well you might wave your arms around a lot but dont need to move from the spot. I played alyx in a confined space too, can definitely see how that would be better being able to move around more but it was still good teleporting around.

 

Yeah - we've since moved house (and I've passed on my PSVR headset) but I remember showing off Fruit Ninja and Superhot in a relatively small room - it always helps to clear floor space anyway, but they definitely weren't unplayable. And I think that there are a decent number of controller-based games out there to recommend it even if you're struggling for space. (Dirt Rally, Wipeout, Rez, Astro, Tumble, Tetris Effect...)

[Jarik]

I’ve always thought more traditional 3D games could work in VR with the floating camera replaced by your VR perspective on the action, so you can feel more immersed in the world the character you’re controlling is navigating.

 

Moss is probably the closest to this idea I’ve seen so far.

[dumpster]

I think that Resident Evil 4 VR, especially for those who haven't played it, sets an unrealistic precendent that you can mod older games and stick them in VR and more companies should do it.  Resident Evil VR works for two reasons.  First, it's the best Resident Evil game.  It's a cracker.  If I could have asked for any game from my youth to be converted that would probably be my first choice. But the second reason is that they have done a good job of it.  I've never seen the homebrew VR conversions of Resi2Remake etc but what makes Resi4 work is what I call the millennium bug scenario.

 

What am I droning on about now, you ask?  Well the millennium bug involved thousands of people and a tonne of money to make sure that planes didn't fall out of the sky and the world's banking systems wouldn't all crash as the clock hit the year 2000.  Loads of people went crackers at the man hours, the money spent, the sheer hype of the whole thing and when, at the stroke of midnight, nothing at all happened.  A massive waste of everyone's time.  Except... That wasn't the issue.  The perfect outcome of the work that was done would have been a seamless transition.  Nothing happening was exactly what we wanted to happen. The people who did all the work might have been better off if a couple of planes fell out of the sky, they could have said, "look! Our hard work paid off! Only two planes crashed, hundreds remained airbourne thanks to our hard work" . Sometimes you have to do a shitload of work, to make a situation right, and if you do it well enough it's invisible. 

 

So that's my second point.  Resident Evil 4 in VR is absolutely fantastic, and that's because they didn't just port it over, they spent weeks working out exactly the best way to deal with all the issues VR would present.  The result is instinctive, intuitive.  You're being overwhelmed by people so you look down, grab a grenade off your chest and throw it.  Then you run away.  They must have put in so much effort with the development and research, and that's what is making the difference here.  Much as I'd love a VR Burnout 2 or whatever they would have to make the experience with as much care and commitment to VR as Capcom have.  Hey @CrashedAlex , are you up for a VR Burnout ? I'll contribute to any Kickstarter. You could call it Burn-in-and-out-and-all-around.

[metallicfrodo]

1 hour ago, Jarik said:

I’ve always thought more traditional 3D games could work in VR with the floating camera replaced by your VR perspective on the action, so you can feel more immersed in the world the character you’re controlling is navigating.

 

Moss is probably the closest to this idea I’ve seen so far.

 

This is pretty much what Astobot does and is amazing for it. Through the Looking Glass is along these lines as well, as is something like Ghost Giant. But yes it's not necessary for you to be first person at all, it's amazing what a joy controlling a character in 3rd person is. I've said it many times but it's the closest you can get to being a child again and playing with your toys, except in this circumstance it's not just the ones you happen to have in your hands that are 'alive'.

 

I can't even begin to imagine how good one of the TT Lego games would be in VR.

[Thor]

Astrobot VR is the absolute best example of how traditional Mario 3D style platformers can work in VR. Astrobot completely blows Moss out of the water. 

[CheekyMonkey]

10 hours ago, Thor said:

Astrobot VR is the absolute best example of how traditional Mario 3D style platformers can work in VR. Astrobit completely blows Moss out of the water. 

This is 100% true - Astrobot was so surprisingly great. Dare I say it, but actually has that little bit of magic that Mario always has - when you play it, you smile. Even the bite sized PS5 offering (Astro's Playroom) is brilliant. 🙂