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HTC Vive: the Digital Foundry verdict
Valve and HTC have worked together to provide the most comprehensive virtual reality solution on the market today, capable of astonishing results that pave the way in revolutionising the way we play games. However, living with the device for the past week has highlighted that as brilliant as it is, it is a first-gen product that demands a zero compromise approach that may cause issues for the average user.
You don't set up Vive so much as install it, the amount of space you'll need to get a satisfying experience is almost certain to require a fair amount of your living space, and the combined weight of headset, headphones and the constant presence of the intrusive cabling does feel a little onerous. On top of that, the system's credentials for seated experiences can't be fully tested right now because the vast majority of the available titles designed for that configuration reside on Oculus Home. Eventually, the exclusives on each platform will converge, but right now, the best Vive experiences are smaller, bite-sized chunks of gaming - brilliant to play in many respects and an irresistible taster of what is to come, but perhaps somewhat slight factoring in the money, time and space invested into putting a state-of-the-art VR system together.
And yet there's nothing quite like this. Load up any of the key Vive titles and it's like nothing you've experienced before. Gaming feels fresh, exciting, renewed - a giddy feeling after years of variations on the same themes. This is more than just a gimmick: it's an entirely new, blank canvas for developers to work with and it's already delivering some unique experiences. Clearly, it's not quite the finished article, but I can't wait to see how it develops.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-htc-vive-review
Comments
They have to still support non vr gamers so they could make Half Life 3 VR exclusive to Vive but still release the non vr version of Half Life 3 on STEAM for all pc users. Can you imagine Left For Dead 3 VR?
Personally I don't think any headset alone is so significant, it's just another way of displaying information. A working way to use 3D space and our body for controlling the games would be far more important.
Wii tried it with its controller and faded into oblivion. Kinect tried it and failed. I wish good luck to Vive's controllers.
Still find it shocking when i see people question if the vive can do sit down...you know the simplest version of VR...using a system that can track you in a 15x15foot room with1:1 motion controls... but gosh darn can it track you sitting still in a chair with a controller? /s
I figure at least 5+ years before we see anything meaningful with VR.First wave will be to streamline the bulky ridiculous looking head units down to smaller applications ,eventually to a pair of glasses.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
http://fortune.com/2016/03/16/htc-vive-will-launch-with-50-virtual-reality-games/
They seem more in it to win it for VR overall
I dont think it will be glasses size by design. It needs to block out and envelop your perifieral vision to be at its best, it also needs magnifying lenses and a high resolution screen for it to work. Will it slim down and get higher rez...for sure, but VR only works because its magnifying a screen which can only slim down so much
I think Oculus is technically more in it or at least seems so since they are purely VR and have been building the brand as the VR go to, but they are doing it in a way a lot of people dont like: aka pushing a walled garden store and going for exclusives. Those reasons alone got me to order the Vive over the Rift.
I suppose if someone watches you "dive in" it negates the creepiness factor of walking in on someone using Virtual Reality. That's going to be something we'll have to figure out as a society in terms of etiquette.
As far as seated versus full-body-movement experiences, I can see benefits to both. The latter would probably be more natural to our nervous/vestibular system, making it easier to suspend disbelief while reducing the likelihood of motion sickness. The former I suppose lends itself to more traditional gaming experiences and for longer periods.
Really excited to see this thing taking shape.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Car and flight game certainly should have you seated and strategy games you see a battle from above as well. FPS games and first person RPGs (including MMOs) should be better when you move, at least if you make a combat system using that movement.
Heck, it would be awesome to make a MMO where you cast spells by a certain movement (and maybe a word). Yeah, there would be a learning curve if you have many spells but it would be really cool once you get things right.