#And I don't have a vr so I can't play Alyx :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

river-taxbird · 2 months

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I always want Virtual Reality to be better than it is.

VR has been around for approaching a decade at this point, and companies keep trying to make it happen. I have seen the theory that Facebook (Meta) got into the VR game because they want hardware they can control without third parties stopping their data collection, but they appear to be downplaying it now.

So can VR be good? When is it going to happen?

My first headset was the HTC Vive, and it was fun at the time, but playing it today, it's pretty dire. Depressingly low resolution, major screen door effect, big, and bulky. Annoying external trackers. It is like 10% of the way to being what I want VR to be. I still have it but can't really play it since the poor quality usually leads to a one way trip to the floor.

I have tried the Oculus Quest 2, and it is kind of on its way. It has better controllers, some actual passthrough, and the screen door effect is much less pronounced. Too bad Facebook are evil. It's like 40% of the way to what I would consider a good headset to be.

I am looking at the Apple Vision Pro, and it's kind of getting there, it is like 70% of the way to being what I want VR to be. It has crystal clear video with no screen door, passthrough that actually works for professional use, and the hand and eye tracking appears to actually work which is impressive. It isn't for gaming and has absolutely no software support for the VR software people like. It appears to occupy a different niche to the cheaper gaming headsets, aimed at "Professional" use. It shares this trait with the quest pro.

We have come a long way in the last 10 years, but it will probably be another 10 years before virtual reality is something people actually want to use. Tech companies are never ones to give up though, and they will keep painfully iterating until they get there. I think to have a chance, to be the 100% of what I want it to be VR, I think it would need, including but not limited to;

Tethered and untethered use, allowing for local apps or connecting to a PC for extra horsepower. No bullshit lockdowns on software like they have today.

Functional hand tracking AND quality VR controllers for different applications. Both of these exist today but not in the same product at the same time for some reason.

Lightweight and cool. Fanless. Won't give you a spinal injury if you wear it for more than 3 hours. Semiconductor technology is probably about there or will be there soon, but Apple isn't fanless. Sadly Apple's battery in the pocket trick might be the only way to keep the weight down. Batteries just don't really change much, sorry!

Ultra high resolution. No screen door effect. Apple are about here but it's crazy expensive, so in 10 years I am sure the price will go down. VR isn't going to happen unless you can get Vision Pro quality at the baseline, for the price of a Meta Quest.

This really reminded me of when I wanted to get a tablet PC in like 2007 but quality tablets didn't exist yet. It was all massive chonky Windows CE garbage. I knew it was coming, everyone did, but tech wasn't there. The ipad releasing several years later is what really put them in the hands of consumers.

Mass software libraries for VR won't happen until these technical challenges are overcome, and by then, who is going to care? Maybe the vision pro is Apple taking something that already exists and putting it to the mass market, as they have done so many times before, but maybe this time it isn't going to take. Maybe VR is just never going to happen, but if it does, I want to be here for it. Play Half Life Alyx if you can, and never buy a Meta product if you can avoid it.

#vr #virtual reality #technology #tech #apple #apple vision pro

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woodaba · 7 months

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Travelling into Trover

The Magic Circle is a concept articulated by Johan Huizinga in the naive and racist Homo Ludens, and later codified by Salen and Zimmerman in the even more naive and utterly wrongheaded Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, which posits that the rules of a game create what is effectively a separate reality that exists within our own, one wherein the concerns and realities of our lives do not intrude, where the work envelops us in its entirety.

Like a lot of game theory that I've read, the Magic Circle is more of a wishful thought than something that is actually observable and true to the reality of the experience. Play does not exist as separate from reality, it is a product of it, just as we are. Game designers can't make a game wholly separate from the person they are, and the person they are cannot be separated from the circumstances that made them, and neither can players. You aren't entering another world when you read The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, you're just using an object to try to shut the world out. To put it simply, we've all got baggage, and we're carrying that shit everywhere with us, whether we want to admit it or not.

Which hasn't stopped us chasing the idea of the Magic Circle. The dream of a game we play becoming a world we inhabit has forever been intoxicating, from when tabletop wargame Chainmail transformed into role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, to the modern rhetoric of The Metaverse, there's an argument to be made that all of this speaks for us attempting to wish the Magic Circle into existence: to create a space we can truly escape into, where the failings of the physical no longer apply. And no vision is more intoxicating than VR.

The eternal non-starter, the future that is always coming but always failing to arrive, VR, in our modern conception of it, is something I have almost entirely experienced vicariously. I am poor, I have always been poor, and I have never been in a position where I am capable of dropping the absurd amounts of money these things routinely ask for in exchange for what is - still! - largely a method to play Beam Saber, VR Chat, and Half-Life Alyx. Like the Metaverse that attaches itself to VR for a shred of credibility, VR continues to insist that it is The Future from atop a house built on sand, sinking down below more and more with each year that passes where Half-Life: Alyx is still the only game that truly gets people talking about VR.

But perhaps this is unfair. I don't own one, after all: this is all the speculation of an outsider. So, let's pick another VR game, more of a median example of this sub-medium. Consider this mu report from observations of an expedition, undertaken by a braver explorer than I, into the Magic Circle as conceived by Justin Roiland: Trover Saves the Universe.

I'll give TStU this much: I actually like the idea of the central gameplay loop. It's a fairly rare example of "second-person" gameplay, wherein you control a character controlling Trover, and teleport to various points in the levels, from which you can observe Trover as he does the sub-Lego Game third person platforming action that this game is made up of. It felt, weirdly, like a more player-authored version of the fixed camera angles of Resident Evil et al, a language of cinematography that we unfortunately lost when it become expected that the player would take full control of the camera. I'd like to see another game explore this concept more, and more purposefully.

That's the end of my praise. You hardly need me to tell you this, but yes, Trover Saves the Universe is fucking terrible, in the same way Rick and Morty is, in the same way every Justin Roiland production is (though, subtracting Dan Harmon from the equation does remove the part of Rick and Morty that I find worst of all, that being its cloying and manipulative sentimental streak that never reads as sincere). It is a 4-hour session of the worst improv comedy class imaginable, tolerable only to baked teenage boys and those who share their disposition, made worse by adopting the exact same tenor, writing, and observations that every hack comedian who thinks they have a Wry Eye on Video Game Cliches deploys. All this game has as a selling point is Justin, and all Justin has is sub-Cake Is A Lie 2009 webcomic jokes processed through a work determined to explain every single joke at length, whilst engaging in gross-out humor that always finds a way to make fat women the butt of the joke, with increasing viciousness that is genuinely sickening.

Every moment of Trover Saves the Universe was excruciating. Sometimes it was excruciatingly annoying, sometimes it was excruciatingly dull, and sometimes was excruciatingly offensive, but it was always excruciating. If I was playing it, I would have turned it off and refunded it within minutes. If I was watching it, I would have found something else to watch within seconds.

But I didn't. I watched this for nearly 4 hours. I saw the whole thing, beginning to end. I sat there for every moment of the playthrough because I was with friends, and they were making me smile and laugh, because for whatever stupid absurd faux camaraderie it was, I wanted to be there for my friend until they ran over the finish line and could free themselves from this self-inflicted torment. Is that dumb? It sure sounds dumb, to read it written out like that. But it's true. And I'd do it again! But only if, like this time, I am allowed to break the Magic Circle, and bring with me myself, and everyone I carry with me, in my head and in my heart.

The Magic Circle does not posit the non-existence of the people I care about within it, but it does argue that they are ultimately supplicant to the rules the circle creates, that the game provides a wholly separate context for them to exist in. But if that was true, they wouldn't have made me laugh the way they did. They wouldn't have made me smile and roll my eyes and groan the way I did. Because they - and that - are the product of this world, not Trover's world.

Proponents of the Magic Circle will push back against the interpretation I've made of it, here, but I do think this kind of preclusive argument is where the fantasy The Magic Circle leads you: if the world is truly entirely separate, maintained until it is fractured by the breaking of it's rules, then the participants must also agree to cease the continuity of their lives, to suspend them, for the sake of the game. And I wouldn't want to do that, even if that were possible. None of Trover's jokes were funny, but I laughed anyway because my friends brought their worlds into this one.

VR is not the future that exists in the present, it's not the gateway to tomorrow. It's just a way to experience play, to engage with rules and visuals entwined together, like the unique gameplay loop of this game (which works perfectly well without VR but it is undoubtedly informed by VR). No matter what way we interface with them, nothing we can do will make Games into something that will let us escape reality. They are not other worlds, they are not places to become wholly different people separate from ourselves, they are not the means by which we can seal ourselves off from the stings of reality, as much as we might wish them to be. And that's for the best. Because if Trover Saves the Universe was a Magic Circle where I left everything behind at its door before entering, I would not be able to survive it. I did so because I brought people into it with me, people who I care immensely about, people that TStU, in however a slight and silly manner it may have been, let me see in new lights and appreciate in new ways. It wasn't a doorway to another dimension. It was a funhouse mirror. And when I laugh at a funhouse mirror, I'm not laughing at the material of the mirror itself. I'm laughing at the reflection of me and my friends in it, provided by the mirror's context.

Trover's Universe may not have all the pains the world inflicts on us in it, but it does not have anything inside it that I love. My universe does. And because of that, I'll never, ever let it go.

#video games #review #games #trover saves the universe

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blindrapture · 8 months

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I was extremely tired and rambled to a friend about Mario and Sonic as mascots.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:01 PM] also. I am marginally upset that Yoshi in Mario Wonder is playable but only as a Nabbit-style character, with no power-ups. but at the same time I am kinda happy as Nabbit is my preferred way of playing NSMBU, so I'll get to do that as Yoshi now. but. best world would have been if all characters were the same as each other and there was just an Easy Mode toggle.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:03 PM] I am always gonna be curious about trying to play through a Mario game as intended. and admittedly the fact that I am forced to play as Mario or Luigi (or a Toad) has been a significant reason why I could never commit to it. getting a choice to play as Yoshi is a big, embarrassingly substantial, incentive.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:03 PM] if I could play as Yoshi in all Mario games I'd play them a lot more, I think.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:05 PM] I think I actually secretly don't care about Mario. or Luigi. as playable characters.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:05 PM] they fall into the Sora trap for me.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:06 PM] where, like, Kingdom Hearts would probably appeal to me way more— it has, as a franchise, everything in its favor for my tastes— but for the fact that you have to play as FUCKING SORA

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:06 PM] and this isn't a "oh, it'd have been cooler if I could have played as some goofy mascot character," this is a "oh that's a shame, I don't want to play this"

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:07 PM] like Playstation Exclusivity, which is also a "oh that's a shame."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:07 PM] ("Playstation Exclusivity," to me, is exactly the same as "game didn't release")

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:08 PM] (it's a shadow-cancel. game still has marketing. still gets talked about. game was finished, by the developers, is entirely playable. you just can't play it.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:09 PM] (and this is coming from a guy who didn't have VR when Half-Life Alyx came out!!! VR exclusivity is not as much a dealbreaker to me as Playstation exclusivity!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:09 PM] (but the Playstation point is beside the point.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:10 PM] (the point is, Sora and Mario are both a really specific kind of Regular Guy character I am turned off by.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:13 PM] (they would be fine— they would be immensely hilarious and compelling— if their Regularness was played up. I mean, they are Regular Guys in a world of Cute Mascots. in Sora's case it's even more so, the whole point is Kingdom Hearts brings a charming amount of Seriousness to a world of Cute Mascots. Sora being there makes Goofy more serious, makes Donald more serious, and that makes the tone fucking surreal and Amazing.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:15 PM] (but they only went halfway. Sora still looks just slightly cartoonish. I mean he looks, frankly, fuck ugly and awkward, but I can tell he's not supposed to, he's supposed to look charming and representative, appealing to kids. if Sora looked like…. like the humans in Mario Odyssey's Metro Kingdom!!!!! then I'd be okay with it!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:15 PM] (and the same with Mario!!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:16 PM] (fans often wish the humans in the Metro Kingdom looked more cartoony. I'm the opposite!!! I sincerely wish Mario looked like them!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:18 PM] (it's a tonal thing!!! Mario's a human, a Regular Guy in a wacky world!!!! if he looks cartoony then that takes away from the fact that he's a Human!!!! he's not a Human, he's just a non-mushroom Mushroom Kingdom Fella! he fits in! which is alright if the story says that!!! but it doesn't!!! the story is, Mario is a Human!!!! but the art style and presentation says he's not!!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:19 PM] (this is the core of why "story doesn't matter in Mario" gets as much mileage as it does!!!! this is why Miyamoto can get away with it!!!! it is rooted in this fucking tonal dissonance!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:20 PM] (because it's only a dissonance for the story!!! it's otherwise professionally-executed aesthetic consistency!!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:22 PM] (but it doesn't win me over!!!! I cannot unsee it!!!! I can forgive and excuse it, there is so much about Mario games that I can love, it outweighs it!!!! but then when I have to play as Mario…… that's when it becomes a factor!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:24 PM] (and for the 3D games, I am usually looking at Mario's back, and how my brain works is really I'm "playing as" the camera. Mario's just a means to an end, I move him so I can move the camera. so I can look at everything else.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:24 PM] (but 2D games, Mario is front and center in a different way.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:24 PM] (also Mario 3D World.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:25 PM] (I can forget Mario in the sandbox 3D games. I haven't yet figured out how to forget Mario in the 2D-based games.)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:27 PM] where was I going with this one.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:29 PM] well I can stress here that I'm feeling out my own tastes. I cannot claim any of this is actually objective. not even the bit about "this is WHY story doesn't matter in Mario." I am not coming from a rigorously analytical point of view here. I can very easily be off the mark on all of this.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:40 PM] thinking about it, I may be onto something with Mario. the Sora thing is much more just my personal taste.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:44 PM] but Mario. Mario isn't average-looking enough for the Idea of him to appeal to me. the Mario movie on the other hand, that handled it well. Mario was an outcast to the humans. he was mocked, he was clearly doing his own thing. that's why he still looks goofy, for a human.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:44 PM] if the games follow the movie's approach, I can warm up even more to it.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:45 PM] that adds context. that tells me why Mario stays in the Mushroom Kingdom. it's not just "Peach is in danger and Mario has a sense of Duty," Peach being kidnapped becomes a pretext for "Mario gets to spend more time in this crazy world, and he likes being here, he feels it fits him in some way."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:47 PM] just. y'know. up until now, with just the games to work with, I've had no reason not to see it as "Mario is The Everyman. he is the Average Dude who doesn't fit in here, exploring the wacky Mushroom Kingdom, in over his head."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:47 PM] which just. that doesn't…. feel right!!! with how Mario looks!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:48 PM] (and acts!!! Mario isn't in over his head!!! he is the hero we count on!!! he is the reliable savior!!! he runs and jumps in a world that requires running and jumping!!!)

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:51 PM] …..and that also gets into my view of Sora. Sora isn't in over his head. he looks like he belongs there. yeah, he doesn't fit the art style of the Disney worlds he visits, but guess what, it's a mega-crossover, the art style changes frequently, you get used to that mismatch!!! Sora's "difference" blends in!!! because he still fundamentally looks like a cartoon!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:51 PM] contrast all this with Yoshi! or Sonic!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:52 PM] Yoshi is the ideal Mario game protagonist, because Yoshi is from the world he's in! Yoshi has an excuse to look cute and goofy!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:53 PM] Yoshi in real-world situations then looks funny! Yoshi in the realistic Mario Party games! that's funny! a wholehearted laugh! Mario in the realistic Mario Party games looks funny at first but then you start thinking about it and it's like, hey, he's supposed to be a human, this isn't supposed to look funny!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:53 PM] and Sonic!!! Sonic is just… aesthetically on-the-ball!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:55 PM] his own world is all cartoon characters and cartoon animals! he fits in! the Adventure games have realistic humans, Sonic looks out of place, but he's supposed to! and then Sonic 06 takes it to an extreme but that game's story is Actually A Fucking Masterpiece and the more you put thought into it the better that mismatch gets!!! Sonic becomes a walking metaphor! the story isn't about Sonic, it's about everyone else!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:57 PM] what about Eggman!!! let's contrast Mario with Eggman, as that's more relevant! Eggman looks strange next to realistic humans, so why does he get a pass? Eggman gets a pass because he's a well-defined villain character! he's such an extreme example of a human! he's fucking nuts and if he looks ridiculous then he comes packing heat and forces you to respect him!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:58 PM] if Mario carried a gun and acted edgy, that'd actually be better, aesthetically!!! he'd be a lot less popular a mascot, but as a character, I think he'd be seen more like Waluigi!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:59 PM] who is also Legit!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:59 PM] …………Waluigi has never carried a gun, no, and he doesn't ever act like a serious villain, no

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 4:59 PM] but Waluigi is closer to Eggman on this "ridiculousness spectrum"

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:00 PM] put Waluigi in the Metro Kingdom and the mismatch makes more sense! people will laugh at Waluigi looking so different from normal humans, but then they'll laugh harder and say "well, he's Waluigi."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:01 PM] Mario gets less of a laugh!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:02 PM] maybe what I'm trying to say here is "I find it difficult to care about Mario because I can't help but feel like Nintendo doesn't really care about Mario. Mario is just a mascot, an excuse, an enabler."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:04 PM] and that ultimately brings me back to Sonic 06 again. my theory of why the story is so fucking good. Sonic looks jarring next to Princess Elise, everyone knows that, but most people just stop there because it was a rushed game, they don't feel they should put more thought into it. I do. I mean, I don't even think Sonic Team intended for the extra thought I see in it, but that doesn't matter, because the line of thought makes the whole game better without requiring fixing the game.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:08 PM] that is. Sonic looks jarring to Princess Elise, in the same way that Mario looks jarring next to Metro Kingdom humans. because that's what it is. it isn't Mario And Peach. it's Mario And Some Metro Kingdom Woman Who Was Sheltered Her Whole Life And Mario Is The First Person To Ever Care About Her So She's Developed A Naive Infatuation With Him. imagine that scenario. Mario doesn't reciprocate, but he also doesn't not reciprocate. he doesn't do anything. he's not a deep enough character, and that's Okay, that's his Thing. he's literally just a Mascot. he would say platitudes like "You Can Do It, I Believe In You" and "If You Have Time To Worry, Then Run!" and she'd treat it all like he's Prince Charming saying completely personalized things to her.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:10 PM] imagine that. in that scenario, the point of the story isn't Mario. the point of the story is the One-Sided Infatuation. a good story would go above and beyond, go out of its way, to explore that Infatuation, not through giving us tons of examples of it, but through showing us where it comes from, what it's a side-effect of, what the consequences are of that greater Reason. Sonic 06 does exactly that.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:11 PM] Sonic 06 shows us a goddamn tragedy in Princess Elise. it brings gender into it, it brings class into it, it even brings religion into it.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:14 PM] Sonic 06 is all about a Realistic Woman who has to bear the responsibility of never crying, whose entire life shapes itself to keep her away from things that might cause that. and she FUCKING DIES. she tries to count on Sonic to save her, and he LITERALLY CAN'T, he FAILS, she DIES and Eggman dies too!!! how the FUCK do people not find this INCREDIBLE??? imagine Mario!!!! imagine it!!! imagine Mario doing that!!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:15 PM] then Sonic himself becomes a greater point about Mascots, about Fiction, about the Responsibility That Corporations Have.

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:17 PM] Sonic has a responsibility to protect Princess Elise, to let her be infatuated with him, to brush that off and just run in a field with her and let her have that moment. he looks ridiculous doing it, and he knows it won't work out because he's always gotta run off somewhere else in the end, but Sonic has a responsibility to live in the Now, to Protect people in the Now! that is the position a corporation is in when a corporation creates a Mascot!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:20 PM] and in the end, in the very end, the end of the story, the only actual way out of the nightmare Hate-God time loop is…. to make the whole story never happen! to forget it! it's like Sonic Team knew the game would be a failure, knew gamers would hate the story, so they gave us an Out! "hey. this game isn't canon. we're cutting our losses and will try something else from now on. the game just didn't work out. but in exchange, you've gotta let us have this moment Here and Now, you've gotta let Sonic 06 exist in its own little space. you've gotta let us run in a field with Sonic."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:21 PM] "because we still put a ton of work into this game, and we had ambitions with it, and it's perfectly fine for you guys to forget that, but we can't. so let us have this moment."

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:22 PM] that's!!!! that's what I get from the game!!! just from Sonic's story specifically, at that!!! Silver and Shadow each have their own themes and they're fucking brilliant too!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:22 PM] that's what I see in it!!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:23 PM] that's what Mario exists in the shadow of!!!

Jordan Dooling, [9/2/23 5:23 PM] raaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh!!!!!! I fucking rambled!!!!!!

#my rambles #sonic #mario #maybe one of these days i'd like to arrange a great big “My View Of Sonic 06” thing. but that'd take a lot of work.#and i have spent my whole life scared of how people aren't gonna accept it anyway.#but i have *thoughts* about mascots. sonic spoiled me for them. sonic raised the bar to the moon.#and odyssey can't lie to me. mario can't reach the moon yet.

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maximuswolf · 3 days

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Help me choose what to get for my birthday

Help me choose what to get for my birthday So I'm torn between a few games and one bigger thing:Stellar Blade (really loved the demo)Baldur's Gate 3 Deluxe Edition (haven't played it, but I don't have much experience with hardcore RPGs)Mortal Kombat 1Dead Space RemakeRent a new VR headset and finally play HL Alyx (rent because I don't think I'll use a VR for anything else)Buy an older VR headset (if you convince me it's worth it for other things than HL Alyx)The comment with the most votes will help me with the decision, because I really can't decide lol Submitted April 25, 2024 at 05:22AM by Ivaylo_87 https://ift.tt/bj6aLVT via /r/gaming

#reddit

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saltypiss · 2 years

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I can't tell if VR is the biggest most global scam ever or simply if it ever was worth a shit.

In all my time with VR, all I've ever walked away with is: "Well that was impressive, too bad I never had nay fun."

What games does VR have? Outside of Alyx, you got hundreds of garbage games. Then the ones you actually hear about, or see videos on, turns out they're below mediocre and everyone was blowing shit out of proportion. Seriously, Boneworks is the absolute last game anyone new to VR should ever touch, yet, it's 40$, everyone rates it high. Why? The gameplay is non-existent, there's platforming and in no real game designer's fucking skull is that ever a good idea, they have 3 enemies, 2 weapons, reskins of em, and then the actual physical combat?

I don't know how else to explain VR other than this: One you're literally always going to be frustrated. The fucking wire. The fucking controllers randomly going out, the DRM, the awful awful controls, for all games. You're constantly fighting to have fun. But the headset or the developers fight against that at every opportunity.

Like, deadass, there are VR games like Job Simulator where you CANNOT move and CANNOT turn the camera, you have to physically do everything, if you've never experienced VR in, you know, your house, you can see how that might be quite seriously the biggest contender for "worst" in game design yet.

Physical combat is impossible. The delay in movement, the unbelievably pathetically conceived weight to everything you swing that turns every single attack into punches in a dream.

The awful visuals. Yeah sometimes you downright feel like you're there. But the vast majority of the time, these games have no artstyle, or if they do, it's laughably amateur or worse.

The performance. My god. I'm confident as hell my PC can handle VR, I know for a fact the wire that was nearly 100$ is the problem. When you are selling wires for 100$, you're admitting everything is a scam.

RE4VR, HL:A, Blade and Sorcery

There it is. The entire actual video game library.

You'd think, someone, anyone, would've realized simply taking Gmod and the concept of combat for boneworks and Blade n Sorcery, would be all you'd need for VR. Instead, everyone is trying to make their cinematic experiences where your character can't move their legs without you running into a wall, and your hand gets caught on everything while your other hand drops whatever you were holding for 0 reason whatsoever.

The uncomfortability of the headset too. Oh my god, you are never comfortable. They improved nothing from the devkit2. Nothing. It's impressive. Same quality screen, worse lens, same awful headstrap, same awful crushed face problems, except now your eyes can have fun with all the crevices hair hides in.

The load times. I have everything on a m.2 SSD, shit takes so fucking long. God help you if you mod, and you almost shouldn't because everything is so damn buggy.

With Fallout, I may have needed to wait 2minutes before I even get in game. With VR titles? It can deadass take 6 minutes before you even reach a menu, then another loading screen nearly as long. There's hardly any mods, hardly any testing, because launching these games is a commitment of time.

You ever struggle to just open up a fucking game because your mood is so poor and your anxiety so high? Yeah imagine if you needed to commit periods of time to simply waiting.

There's no way to truly play seated in so many of these titles either. You'd think, oh shit, we can play vidjah on the bed on our backs, but no! That fucking wire, the fucking game doesn't show up in the in-vr library so I have to get up and do it, I could use desktop but they're labeled randomly and navigation is a pain.

I'm sure, certain even, that current defenders are able to look past this, or even have found their own workarounds, but for VR to EVER become more than the blatant trend it currently is, it's gotta start being fucking reasonable. At least more often than never.

No DRM, fuck off. No 100$ wire, fuck off. No shitty strap, fuck off, no overpriced severely under-delivering games, fuck off, decent load times and performance and visuals and user interface and for god's sake use your own fucking headset and get a god damned clue.

All I ever think when I play VR is "get a fucking clue, playtest your fucking games, it's not optional"

Every game. Every time I boot one up, everytime I play a game, or use an app, all I'm ever thinking: "Just playtest, just once, everyone can tell you didn't, just playtest, once, one time, a single time, a fractional moment of existence, playtest, just, do it. Get a clue."

VR is just such a shitshow. Like boneworks, technically impressive, and entertaining for 5 minutes, but very quickly it becomes tedious, frustrating, hot, not worth the time of set up, not worth the cost of entrance, and clearly the designers/creators didn't give a shit, so why should I?

VR presently is competing with the Nintendo Wii. And not because it came before it, but because what you do in VR works better due to genuine design done with Wii titles. The buggy nature, the offputting movements, all relevant still. Swinging a bat on the Wii feels like swinging air, but at least it doesn't bend at the wrist backwards when you swing forward, at least when you throw something you don't need to do a stabbing motion to throw it forward, at least it doesn't ask me to pull something from my fucking back again when the god damn sensors don't read past your fucking face.

Fuck VR. It will never grow past this stage. Nobody is innovating, everything is broken, slow, tedious and frustrating. And the sad part is, it genuinely doesn't need to. Just make good games. Stop making gimmicks.

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