I was hoping to spend all day with the VR today, as it was my day off, but I didn't start playing again until after 8:30. I was really hoping to get some endurance time in because I was interested in seeing how I'd feel after long play sessions. Maybe I can do that tomorrow.
Anyway, the evening started with my daily play of Here They Lie, and I was right near the end! After about a five minute walk, I come to a lake and realize that I can walk on it, so I do. I'm nearing a building on an island and as I walk towards it, Mr. Flaming Man rises out of the water and towers over me. It was quite the imposing sensation. Then, a blinding light occurs and when it goes away, the lake is littered with charred bodies, glowing embers dotting their surfaces.
Dana, the woman in yellow that I've been chasing the entire time, appears and begins to tell me a bit of what's been going on. She said she lost me and when she found me, all there was left of me was ash. She somehow constructed a world to keep me in, which sort of suggests that it's this world, and as I reach the building and enter, I'm taken on another ride. As I become airborne, she continues to move away from me, growing in size until she's several stories high. She tells me that I have a choice to make, that my decision will determine if he lives or dies.
When I land, I approach a mirror, and I'm met with my reflection. Last night, I discovered this guy is a separate entity, a literal mirror version of myself and now I'm met with my decision. My reflection says that I can save him, save everyone on his side if I just reach out for his hand and pull him through, or I can end it all by taking a sledgehammer to the mirror. Usually, I'm for the destructive side when it comes to games presenting me with ending choices, but I decide to reach for his hand and pull him through. His world bleeds through the mirror and envelops mine and we're on an asteroid looking down on Earth. He thanks me for helping him, then walks off through space towards Earth saying, "I can't wait to get started."
Well.. I couldn't wait to get finished with this game. My thoughts about the game was that it was more of an experience, an experiment of what it would be like to be in a hellish and twisted world, then it was an actual game. It didn't just lack gameplay, it also lacked cohesive story telling. I have somewhat of a better understanding what was going on in this world, but for the most part, I'm still quite clueless. I don't regret playing it, though, just paying for it. It also helped me appreciate the other VR demos I've been playing, the ones that actually use graphics well. My god, after seeing what other VR games look like, especially REVII, this is just unforgivably ugly.
With Here They Lie out of the way, I decided I was going to watch the short film that I downloaded last night, Alumette. It was my first experience of a VR film, so I put my controller down and just watched. There was no way I could fast forward, though, so I had to watch the demo part again. I didn't really mind. The rest of the film was just as touching, and even depressing at one point, and when it concluded, I found myself wanting more films in VR. It was really cool to be able to get up and watch the characters from different angles and inspect the scenery free from director-assigned point of views.
Ready for more demo games, I decided to let the demo disc choose for me at random, which it does every time it boots. It landed on Hustle Kings VR, and although I'm not much of a pool guy, I decided what the hell? WHAT THE HELL?! There is no option to play this demo, only to buy the game! What's the point of putting a demo on a demo disc if the only option is to buy the game! Screw that!
Next, I selected RIGS: Mechanized Combat League. For starters, the graphics are pretty impressive, one of the best looking games on the demo disc. I love how there's a virtual HUD in the cockpit of my mech. The game's an arena combat game where the object is to score goals by going into overdrive and you go into overdrive by destroying three opponent mechs. The game runs very smooth, and it was a lot of fun jumping all over the place running around shooting and punching mechs. I'm not a competitive gamer, though, so I know I would grow bored of it pretty quickly, but I can easily see how competitive gamers would love to play this one in VR.
Apparently, Hustle Kings VR wasn't the only not a demo on the demo disc. Superhypercube, a game I really wanted to try out, had no demo option either. Just a buy option. And with that... moving on.
The next demo, Within, is not a game demo at all. Within appears to be a VR app that hosts a bunch of VR short films. All but three on the menu were locked, and the first one I saw was called Verse. It started off in the middle of a lake, surrounded by the mountains. Beautiful scenery, a sun rising, mosquitos flying, and then a steam locomotive barrels out of nowhere, skis the surface of the water and as it plows into me, it breaks up into a flock of birds that twist and turn and regroup into clouds all around me. Ribbons begin materializing, falling down and suspending themselves on the surface of the water, then begin to twist together into a tunnel sucking me into it where I emerge in a womb with a fetus watching me. It was as impressive as it was freaky, seeing this huge fetus hand reach out to me and enclose on me.
The next movie was a computer animated short called Invasion about two aliens that came to earth. It was unclear what character I was, but whatever I was attracted the attention of a cut little bunny. We watched with great interest and caution as an alien space ship landed on the frozen lake we were standing on. Two aliens emerged via tractor beam, which abruptly cut out on them, having them land on their faces. I laughed. When they got up, they began to speak a language that was eerily similar to Minionese. Each alien was adorned with an antennae, and they wielded them at me, charging up, suddenly distracted by an eagle of which they obliterated leaving nothing but floating feathers. They turned back to me, charged again and sensing my peril, the bunny hopped in between us, drawing their fire and circling around them. The ice they stood upon tipped over depositing both aliens into the freezing water below. One reemerged in the background while the bunny gave me a sly look. Shocked to be taken by surprise by such an innocent looking creature, the alien retrieved his partner, now frozen in a block of ice, and promptly boarded their ship and left earth. I really enjoyed this film, and it sounds like another one is coming. The aliens' names are Mac and Cheze, and I'll be looking forward to their next film.
The third film was a documentary called Venim's Reef about an ocean conservationist in the islands of Indonesia. Although there was a lot of pretty footage, there just wasn't anything that illustrated depth. I then went to see how much the price was for the app, and it turned out that it was free, so I downloaded it. The app has a variety of things on it, such as music videos, a couple of SNL specials, a scene from Mr. Robot. and a lot more. I checked out several things, and although it was cool to feel like you were there at the taping of a show, because these videos are streamed, they're very poor quality. I can't see this app being used that much because of it.
Back to games, I found that there was another demo you couldn't play called Bound. I wish there was a demo, because the game looked really intriguing. I moved on to Eve Valkyrie, a space shooter. I have to say, it was pretty damn impressive. It felt like you were right in the cockpit of a space fighter. Excellent graphics lent to a great feeling of immersion and it was fun flying around trying to shoot down targets. But it was another damn demo that was over before I could really get settled in.
Although I wouldn't really call it a game, I tried out Harmonix Music VR. This seems more like an app. There are four different environments and Harmonix says Music VR will work on any song. One world is a beach, and you can change the visual stimulation by looking at different objects. There's the Easel, which is pretty cool. You can paint with all sorts of different lines and colors and even put shapes into space and fling them up in the air. Then there's Dance Party, which has these animal pinata looking things that you can make dance by manipulating their body parts. It was pretty easy and intuitive to get them to dance. Then there was the non-interactive trip where you watched the game generate graphics to the sound of the music. It's a cool "game", but I'd never think of paying for it.
Next I played an unusual puzzle game by Tim Schaeffer's studio Double Fine called GNOG. It seems to be a game about opening lunch box shaped puzzles. Weird, yes, I know, but this IS Tim Schaeffer we're talking about. The demo gave me two puzzles to open, and I got the first one right away, but the second one took a bit more time. It involves a lot of observation and experimentation. I can see future puzzles being real brain benders. Would be a nice 10 dollar game.
Battle Zone was up next. Wow, it was fun! Bright, futuristic, smooth. It's a modern update to the old tank game of the same name, but it puts you right into the cockpit of a tank where you scuttle around the battlefield blowing up enemies. It's pretty cool looking over your shoulder and seeing the tank changing weapons, looking side to side for the next target, and even feeling the ooomph when you hit the turbos. This would be another nice 10 dollar game.
The final and last demo I played (there were also demos for Here They Lie and Playstation VR Worlds, but I own those) was a kooky game called Headmaster. You're a soccer player and for some reason, you're inside a prison yard. A voice comes over the loudspeaker and begins giving you instructions on how to hit a ball with your head. You then hit targets for points, and the scenarios change up regularly. It has some pretty funny dialogue as well, and I was smirking a good deal near the end. The problem with the game, though, is that it requires a high level of precision and lots of head jerking motions so ultimately, I didn't find it much fun.
That's it for the demo disc. It's getting rather late because I ended up making up for lost time today, and I just bucked down and decided to play all the remaining demos tonight. I actually feel pretty good right now, but I was feeling a bit of eye strain towards the end of the demo run. Tomorrow, I'll start playing Playstation VR Worlds. Oh, and I'll say that I love the 3D sound. You can actually here things from the left and right and even behind you. Great stuff.
As always, thanks for reading.
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