A Discussion of my Current Experience With VR — Immortallium’s Blog
By: Eoghan O'Connell
Tags: Games, VR, Videogames

I’ve spoken before about my thoughts on VR and a very limited encounter with VR when I had the opportunity to play “Don’t Let Go!” at a con. Since then, I have picked up a VR headset and, while I would still consider myself quite the novice when it comes to VR, I believe that I’ve gained enough experience to at least have a discussion of my current views on VR.

First of all, I would like to share the story of how I got my VR headset. Around the time I wrote my previous article discussing VR, I decided to begin saving money to acquire a VR headset. My target was the Valve Index, a headset developed by the Valve Corporation, primarily because of the controllers. However, the high price tag and lack of availability gave me cause to believe that it would be a few years until I got the chance to experience VR again. However, the release of the Oculus Quest 2 changed that. With higher resolution than even the Valve Index and a much more affordable price tag, I decided that it was enough to begin my VR journey.

The process of setting up the headset was relatively simple, requiring me to download the Oculus app to my phone and PC. Getting it to work with Steam was also simple enough although it’s worth noting that, even at this point, Oculus lists SteamVR as an unknown app, requiring you to activate visibility of such apps. The first two games I decided to play were The Lab, what is essentially a free demo created by Valve to show off the capabilities of VR, and Subnautica. The Lab was an enjoyable experience, albeit very short, while Subnautica proved to be much less enjoyable. I’m not a particularly big fan of survival games and it didn’t help that the VR port of Subnautica proved lacking with numerous glitches (I finally gave up on the game when it turned out I couldn’t use door keypads in VR).

Thankfully, the next game disproved the doubts about VR that I had developed during my experience with Subnautica. Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is set between the original Psychonauts (which I recently played and completed to 100%) and its upcoming sequel Psychonauts 2. As a fan of the original game, it’s hard to understate how much I enjoyed existing in the world of Psychonauts (the opening shot revealing Milla really surprised me as it really made me feel how much taller she was than Raz) and, while the gameplay shifted from a platformer to something resembling a point and click adventure game, I still found the game satisfying and the humour as wonderfully bizarre as ever.

After completing Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, I decided to tackle a title that I had picked up in the Humble VR Bundle, Budget Cuts. I’ve spoken about this game before but, to reiterate, I was under the impression that the game would be an action game and, as you might imagine, I was quite surprised to find out that the game was, in fact, a stealth game. While I was initially frustrated as I missed key mechanics such as how to fill up my inventory and that I could take down guard robots with sharp objects such as knives, darts, etc., I eventually came to admire the game and had fun hiding, observing and eliminating the guards. However, it’s worth noting one of the limitations of VR that I encountered while playing Budget Cuts which is real world space. It is generally recommended that a minimum playing space for VR is 1 metre by 1 metre although something approaching 2 metres by 1.5 metres is more ideal. The space I’m currently using falls below that 1 metre by 1 metre minimum and Budget Cuts, which requires you to stand up, crouch down, throw objects etc., really demonstrated the effect that this has on some VR games. I even attempted to play Space Pirate Trainer but found the lack of space too detrimental to my experience to continue playing.

Afterwards, I played the VR version of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which proved to be a very interesting experience, although I confess that I still prefer the regular version of the game since the VR version featured more graphical glitches than the regular version and, for the first time, gave me motion sickness. Finally, the most recent VR game that I’ve completed is Moss. The game is best described as a 3D platformer where you control a mouse named Quill. However, you also take on the role of “The Reader”, an entity linked to Quill who can interact with the environment, moving obstacles so that Quill can proceed and assisting her with puzzles. The game proved to be a very good testament for how VR can enhance platforming games and, overall, I really enjoyed it. However, it’s worth noting that completing the game gives you the message that you have completed “Book 1” and leaves you on a cliffhanger. I was completely unaware that the game had a cliffhanger and, as of this article, Book 2 has yet to be released with little news on its development. As you might imagine, I was a little disappointed by this lack of finality but I’ll be very interested to see what the sequel is like, assuming that it’s still being developed.

While my current experience with VR is still quite limited, I hope that this discussion has proven interesting and I remain quite excited to continue to explore the world of VR. Let me know your thoughts on my VR discussion, VR as a whole, any experience you might have with VR, whether you are interested in any current VR headsets or games and any additional information you might have on the topic.

Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!