VR - Is it really going to be a success? Or, thanks Time for starting a discussion!

Original HTC Vive here, with wireless. Been looking at the Index, but it hasn’t been available, and just hard to go back to a tether.

I just discovered Vox Machinae on Steam today, and spent my whole lunch break playing it. Its basically Mechwarrior in VR, and its as cool as it sounds. I know its not exactly a new game, but its definitely one that deserves more attention. It is implemented almost perfectly for VR, with most controls requires actual hand movements instead of just being mapped to buttons.

Even though its in early access still, its in a pretty good state now (though I dunno about the playerbase). Still, playing with bots is fun, and I imagine with a couple human players it would be even more fun.

No idea of how good it is, it’s some kind of space fleet strategy game, but it’s on sale so right now it’s around $2.

And more interesting sales
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/vr-sale/

Rocking a Rift S here… Really looking forward to Alyx.

I put my Rift back in the box with a view to selling it, but it’s still sitting here. Torn on whether to get rid of it or hang on for a month :/

Do you like Half-Life? Then hang on to it for a bit.

Who can remember?

Haha! Fair. :D

Damn Lone Echo is good. You hear a lot about VR and immersion and sense of scale, but after the typical wow moments of the first VR games, I was going to say the effect is diminished once you get accustomed to VR. But this game proves it’s all about the execution.
The moment you get out of the space station and see Saturn and all around you… holy shit. And it’s so cooI to ride a Fury and travel around space (I hope everyone says wee! when the main impulse hits), and later moving around big satellites. And of course, the huge spaceship that looks like it’s >2kms long is awesome.
The game also shows how VR can boost the immersion and character empathy, with the character of Olivia. It makes her more alive, you start reacting to her like a real person. Although that said, it’s really a synergistic effect, VR combined with several other factors: good graphics, good body and facial animations, good voice action, natural dialogue. Having something in VR alone isn’t enough.

Yeah it’s a highlight for sure. Bring on Lone Echo 2!

Possibly the most immersive, amazing, VR experience I have ever had. Truly felt like being in a big stompy jump-jetting mech. Yet I have not bought it for the reason that I read that there are too few players to enable regular play. Are you able to find matches?

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet played on a server with humans. Apparently, there is an active Discord where people organize games, but I haven’t checked it out. That said, its still fun to play with bots, and I’m trying to get a friend or two to buy the game to play coop. No real single player story or anything. Still, even as just as proof-of-concept (like many VR games are), it is incredible.

I’m more and more disappointed with Asgard’s Wrath. And it isn’t like I’m super advanced into the game, but also I don’t imagine the game improving a ton from where I stand.

-For being marketed (or at least hailed by the community) as a ''fully fledged AAA RPG VR game!" in reality is lacking in key areas. Yes, there is combat, and puzzles and some metrodvania progression and minigames, and things to collect etc. But it’s sorely missing in things like characterization, both the protagonist and the npcs, and the setting itself. So you are new god but in reality you posses a character for most of the game, and the first character is a totally flat and boring viking gal who wish vengeance for her brother. Who is she? Who was her brother? What happened? It doesn’t matter. Her personality is summarized in ‘waaagh vengeance!’. And we know the evil god of war and his follower is wrecking havoc and have destroyed her home. why? Uhh dunno, he is evil. There are also no npcs, outside of tutorial guy Loki and the npc quest givers/shoppers. Forget about visiting a normal town with normal people. And well, the setting itself is a vague ‘mmm yeah, Norse mythology thing’ thing, without any ounce of nuance, verisimilitude, or interesting twists. This isn’t an Obsidian game, not even a Bethesda one.
If someone thought this stuff won’t matter because it’s a VR game, well, he is wrong.

-Your character RPG progression is pretty poor. There is no classes, talents, skill tress, perks, nothing. You don’t even have proper armor, your armor upgrades are in reality just flat +x HP bonuses. And the weapon upgrades the same, +x damage.

-One of the few strong points of the game is, let’s admit, the pretty graphics (the AAA part), but in reality few people (rtx 2080 owners?) are going to enjoy them, the performance isn’t up to par. I had to lower the setting to Mid to not fall into constant retroprojection, and now it doesn’t look like as good as for example Lone Echo.

-The axe throwing system is maddening, I’m super bad with it in both low assistance and full assistance modes. Maybe this in onto me and it isn’t a flaw of the game, but just commenting…

-As others have said, the combat isn’t good. I think that looking at things at a high level, there are two ways to make a good combat system in a videogame: go arcade and fast, with combos, chain attacks, crazy jumps, etc, or go the slow/realistic/detailed way of doing combat. I think this is on no man’s land, in that regard: it doesn’t have a simulation like Boneworks or B&S but also it isn’t good or varied enough from the arcade point of view.

-I also noticed how maybe, the traditional RPG combat-heavy progression shouldn’t be used directly in a VR game, like AW does. It needs a more careful consideration of what’s best for VR. Even if the combat was better, don’t think I’m saying this just because the previous point.
In a normal game, the common filler combat can be surpassed lazily with just a few button presses, so it’s like, whatever. In a VR game, every time is a physical choreography of swinging, parrying, avoiding hits, etc. I’m not saying that is physically more tiring, although it is, I’m saying that in VR this is an active, engaging activity make you notice strongly how repetitive normal games can be. Reach new area, 4 enemies appears, you kill them with the sword. Enter a house, 3 new enemies, again you dispatch them. Get out, other 4 enemies in front of the street, the same actions of swinging at their undefended side and blocking their hits. Rinse, repeat.

-I guess it was technically needed, but the loading system every time you fast travel (and how the game’s structure makes you fast travel commonly) is more bothersome in VR than in traditional games. Lone Echo no-loads from start to the end spoiled me, I guess.

Hmm. Have there been any vr experiences you’ve enjoyed? I only remember you saying stuff like this…

How about the cockpit shooters? Or No Man’s Sky?

A few posts above I said I liked Lone Echo a lot !

Also Beat Saber, Super Hot, Eleven Table Tennis, Vacation Simulator, Shadow Point, and others.
edit: I forgot Moss!

Whew!

So is Kratos until the most recent game, to be fair

Boneworks has a new update with checkpoint saves, so maybe now I will play it:

Ah, good! I stopped playing that one when I realized it didn’t save after every room in the museum.

I finished Ghost Giant, I thought it was a bit meh. It has lots of problems with the audio right now, it isn’t properly 3d and the audio mix is bad. Some of the puzzles required a lil’ bit more of trial & error than ideal. But more importantly is that it doesn’t tell anything meaningful in the story and I feel the main kid personality is a irritant mix of nervous and depressed.
Spoilers So the thing is that her mom suffers of clinical depression, and he desperately tries to hide it to everyone else because he thinks they will get her away from him. He makes things hard for him because of that.
First, it isn’t even clear why he thinks that, did that happen before? abandonment issues? maybe the missing dad is a clue? we don’t know. Second, what you do during all the game and his efforts are for nothing, he never help her with the depression. It all amounts to nothing. And not only that, but the game actually skips the hard part: how the depression is dealt with, if his fears were right or not. It makes a fade out/in and next scene everyone is happy. Uh. Why even make a story about depression if you gonna cheat like that.