Nice. Still waiting on a deep sale for MFS (just a bit too sandbox-sim for me
), but good to hear they're still working on VR aspects. The motion controller additions last year def piqued my interest 
Nice. Still waiting on a deep sale for MFS (just a bit too sandbox-sim for me
), but good to hear they're still working on VR aspects. The motion controller additions last year def piqued my interest First Look: Nock
Source: https://youtu.be/LT7rfjZd4jw
Finally replaced my CV1 with a Quest 2, and had to go straight to Nock. Definitely living up to the 'Rocket League in VR' tag. Although I've barely dared to step out of the bot ring as yet
The arm swing skiing works really well on the whole, and gauging arrow flights as you slide around feels totally natural. Loving the double jump shots, even though they seem to be high risk affair, (leaving you wafting around in mid air if you don't save the second 'jump' for a descent).
The core conceit of losing one of your 3 arrows if you miss a shot is a fine one, and then the arrow pick ups, 'block arrow' option, collision kills, and deadliness of high speed balls add the right amount of decision-making and chaotic drama.
Finally replaced my CV1 with a Quest 2, and had to go straight to Nock. Definitely living up to the 'Rocket League in VR' tag. Although I've barely dared to step out of the bot ring as yet
The arm swing skiing works really well on the whole, and gauging arrow flights as you slide around feels totally natural. Loving the double jump shots, even though they seem to be high risk affair, (leaving you wafting around in mid air if you don't save the second 'jump' for a descent).
The core conceit of losing one of your 3 arrows if you miss a shot is a fine one, and then the arrow pick ups, 'block arrow' option, collision kills, and deadliness of high speed balls add the right amount of decision-making and chaotic drama.
First Look: First Hand [Quest Hand Tracking]
Source: https://youtu.be/UwP5H8yKhfg
This is a lovely homage to the First Contact Oculus intro app. But also totally let down by how shonky hand tracking is in practice unfortunately. At least in my experience to date. Very much getting Kinect vibes off the tech. (A fun novelty, with potential for some great applications, but fairly frustrating to use in practice).
The Iron Man style shield and hand blast played out pretty well in the end. It was just anything that pushed more into detailed object interaction which went wibbly.
I am finding the simple menu interactions fairly neat and slick to use on the whole though while trying this stuff out. When they work. And certainly 'Minority Report' style tablet swishing seems viable.
This is a lovely homage to the First Contact Oculus intro app. But also totally let down by how shonky hand tracking is in practice unfortunately. At least in my experience to date. Very much getting Kinect vibes off the tech. (A fun novelty, with potential for some great applications, but fairly frustrating to use in practice).
The Iron Man style shield and hand blast played out pretty well in the end. It was just anything that pushed more into detailed object interaction which went wibbly.
I am finding the simple menu interactions fairly neat and slick to use on the whole though while trying this stuff out. When they work
. And certainly 'Minority Report' style tablet swishing seems viable.
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On a more positive note...
First Look: Tea For God
Source: https://youtu.be/aoGaftDOS0U
Just experimenting with this in my way-too-small playspace (1.5m x 1.5m). Still great fun teetering along ledges and around impossible corridors though. Very much as daft and endearing as I hoped it'd be.
It looked from the menus like it might be possible to play with classic control locomotion, rather than roomscale, (and possibly with a bigger generated game spaces as a result?). Which I might try if so, even if it does kind of go against the roomscale heart of the game
First Look: Tea For God
Just experimenting with this in my way-too-small playspace (1.5m x 1.5m). Still great fun teetering along ledges and around impossible corridors though. Very much as daft and endearing as I hoped it'd be.
It looked from the menus like it might be possible to play with classic control locomotion, rather than roomscale, (and possibly with a bigger generated game spaces as a result?). Which I might try if so, even if it does kind of go against the roomscale heart of the game
I tried this a few months ago, also in a small play space - I had a few days alone when I emptied my dining room so I could try it in a bigger space and wow, what a difference it made. Once I learned to trust the space tracking it was quite the unique experience. It’s the sort of thing I wish I had access to an empty warehouse for.On a more positive note...
First Look: Tea For God
Source: https://youtu.be/aoGaftDOS0U
Just experimenting with this in my way-too-small playspace (1.5m x 1.5m). Still great fun teetering along ledges and around impossible corridors though. Very much as daft and endearing as I hoped it'd be.
It looked from the menus like it might be possible to play with classic control locomotion, rather than roomscale, (and possibly with a bigger generated game spaces as a result?). Which I might try if so, even if it does kind of go against the roomscale heart of the game
I’ll be trying out the hand tracking demo when I get back from holiday, all I’ve used it for so far is selecting Link when I can’t be bothered picking up my controllers
If you’re looking at any Quest 2 specific games, I enjoyed Resident Evil 4 and would recommend it. Another one to keep an eye out for is Into The Radius which is coming out in September (I believe) - I managed about 14 hours during the recent closed Beta and it’s quality stuff. It’s been difficult holding off buying the desktop version because I loved the ease of just popping on the Q2 for a quick foray out into The Zone
I tried this a few months ago, also in a small play space - I had a few days alone when I emptied my dining room so I could try it in a bigger space and wow, what a difference it made. Once I learned to trust the space tracking it was quite the unique experience. It’s the sort of thing I wish I had access to an empty warehouse for.
I’ll be trying out the hand tracking demo when I get back from holiday, all I’ve used it for so far is selecting Link when I can’t be bothered picking up my controllers
If you’re looking at any Quest 2 specific games, I enjoyed Resident Evil 4 and would recommend it. Another one to keep an eye out for is Into The Radius which is coming out in September (I believe) - I managed about 14 hours during the recent closed Beta and it’s quality stuff. It’s been difficult holding off buying the desktop version because I loved the ease of just popping on the Q2 for a quick foray out into The Zone
Nice one, yeah I immediately wanted to shove tables aside and see how a bigger playspace would play out
Yeah I really would like the hand tracking stuff to work. Started trialling it because of some neat-looking AR apps for piano tuition. (Stuff like PianoVision, Grand Reality etc). It really feels like it could be great for stuff like that. (But in practice I found it just can't track fingers well enough, and it was only really the AR overlay that was cool). Would love something like this that was robust and worked though...
(That guy's using a midi piano plugged in, so it's the keyboard feedback executing accurately, not finger tracking etc).
Definitely looking around for things that make use of Quest as more than just a Rift replacement for PCVR generally though. And on that front, cheers for the tips! (Unfortunately I already own Radius for PCVR, where I'm waiting for it to cook a bit more
. I'm kinda hesitant to play anything that I could have in full cream mode. Currently Nock is the only thing that has really sat sweetly in the wireless + Tron-tier-graphics wonderland for me )First Look: VRtuos [Passthrough Beta]
Found the 'Guitar Hero' piano app I was looking for
It's a pain to grab the full footage and audio, so here's an example of what it's like:
Source: https://youtu.be/ECCU2sZeH7o
This one doesn't faff around with hand tracking, and has a nicely robust keboard mapping setup if you don't have a midi keyboard to plug in. Which meant I could just sit down at a keyboard and play Beethoven's Moonlit Sonata at 35% speed, while the dropping bars of rainbow guidance gave me the heads up on what to play
And like, I'm still bad. But actually getting those familiar tunes ringing out on pretty much the first go is fairly crazy. And I could definitely see how muscle memory could start to kick in.
There are a few teething issues still. (It doesn't re-orientate the virtual keyboard after each sitting, because I refuse to remap my roomscale boundary just for this. So have to resize it each time, but it takes about a minute.)
But this is the first AR app I've used where I've thought: Damn, that is cool. And useful.
And after downloading some random midi files I managed to get various John Williams tunes for my kid. And he was happily playing the Star Wars theme within minutes. If at quarter speed to start. Could definitely see this as a really useful bonus way to learn tunes, as an adjunct to traditional methods.
Found the 'Guitar Hero' piano app I was looking for
It's a pain to grab the full footage and audio, so here's an example of what it's like:
This one doesn't faff around with hand tracking, and has a nicely robust keboard mapping setup if you don't have a midi keyboard to plug in. Which meant I could just sit down at a keyboard and play Beethoven's Moonlit Sonata at 35% speed, while the dropping bars of rainbow guidance gave me the heads up on what to play
And like, I'm still bad. But actually getting those familiar tunes ringing out on pretty much the first go is fairly crazy. And I could definitely see how muscle memory could start to kick in.
There are a few teething issues still. (It doesn't re-orientate the virtual keyboard after each sitting, because I refuse to remap my roomscale boundary just for this. So have to resize it each time, but it takes about a minute.)
But this is the first AR app I've used where I've thought: Damn, that is cool. And useful.
And after downloading some random midi files I managed to get various John Williams tunes for my kid. And he was happily playing the Star Wars theme within minutes. If at quarter speed to start
. Could definitely see this as a really useful bonus way to learn tunes, as an adjunct to traditional methods.The VR build of Evil Empire Games' loving recreation of Red Letter Media's studio in Unreal Engine may lack all the UI and gameplay elements of the regular build, but it is still quite stunning -- feels like I've really been there to visit those hack frauds.
OK at first I was thinking... meh, more shooting, more Boneworks land...
Source: https://youtu.be/G0EOqHATQfg
But that shape-shifting conceit is pretty neat.
And actually, they might just have amped up the Half Life pastiche thing even more. Possibly to 11
But that shape-shifting conceit is pretty neat.
And actually, they might just have amped up the Half Life pastiche thing even more. Possibly to 11
I’ve finally got around to buying rudder pedals to clag into the t16000m HOTAS, and to celebrate I bought IL-2 Flying Circus (I’ve recently watched Wings (1927)* and got the urge to fly a kite in something a bit more complex than War Thunder) - and VR is glorious
It’s got everything I need in a VR sim: fluffy clouds, cloud shadows, and raindrops on my canopy glass (I’m easily pleased
)
I’ve been very impressed with how little things have been implemented in VR - eg. leaning out of the cockpit will give you water droplet steaks across your goggles if flying through clouds or rain, and one time when my pilot got shot there was a few seconds of blurry blood splashed onto my view and everything went colourless, blurred and a bit muted as I managed a swift descent and rough landing.
Performance is great with i7 8700 / RTX 3070ti - 4K textures, most settings High/Ultra and I’ve still got about 20% performance headroom. It’s nice to have a landscape that doesn’t shimmer and shadows that stay put for a change
I’ve been tempted by some of the WW2 modules for IL-2 Great Battles but hopefully I’ll be accepted into the closed VR beta for Cliffs Of Dover (which looks fantastic) which should scratch that particular itch.
Next up this week is Iron Man VR for the Quest 2 (hopefully this Thursday) - the PSVR exclusive is finally getting a wider audience
*well worth a watch if you don’t mind silent-era extravagant acting
The flying sequences are all real with one of the main actors being a former WW1 fighter pilot - the film basically slapped cameras on the planes pointing at the actors and off they went to have dogfights! The film won the first ever Best Picture Oscar and was considered a “lost” film for many decades until a copy was discovered in the early 90s.
It’s got everything I need in a VR sim: fluffy clouds, cloud shadows, and raindrops on my canopy glass (I’m easily pleased
)I’ve been very impressed with how little things have been implemented in VR - eg. leaning out of the cockpit will give you water droplet steaks across your goggles if flying through clouds or rain, and one time when my pilot got shot there was a few seconds of blurry blood splashed onto my view and everything went colourless, blurred and a bit muted as I managed a swift descent and rough landing.
Performance is great with i7 8700 / RTX 3070ti - 4K textures, most settings High/Ultra and I’ve still got about 20% performance headroom. It’s nice to have a landscape that doesn’t shimmer and shadows that stay put for a change
I’ve been tempted by some of the WW2 modules for IL-2 Great Battles but hopefully I’ll be accepted into the closed VR beta for Cliffs Of Dover (which looks fantastic) which should scratch that particular itch.
Next up this week is Iron Man VR for the Quest 2 (hopefully this Thursday) - the PSVR exclusive is finally getting a wider audience
*well worth a watch if you don’t mind silent-era extravagant acting
The flying sequences are all real with one of the main actors being a former WW1 fighter pilot - the film basically slapped cameras on the planes pointing at the actors and off they went to have dogfights! The film won the first ever Best Picture Oscar and was considered a “lost” film for many decades until a copy was discovered in the early 90s.I’ve finally got around to buying rudder pedals to clag into the t16000m HOTAS, and to celebrate I bought IL-2 Flying Circus (I’ve recently watched Wings (1927)* and got the urge to fly a kite in something a bit more complex than War Thunder) - and VR is glorious
It’s got everything I need in a VR sim: fluffy clouds, cloud shadows, and raindrops on my canopy glass (I’m easily pleased
I’ve been very impressed with how little things have been implemented in VR - eg. leaning out of the cockpit will give you water droplet steaks across your goggles if flying through clouds or rain, and one time when my pilot got shot there was a few seconds of blurry blood splashed onto my view and everything went colourless, blurred and a bit muted as I managed a swift descent and rough landing.
Performance is great with i7 8700 / RTX 3070ti - 4K textures, most settings High/Ultra and I’ve still got about 20% performance headroom. It’s nice to have a landscape that doesn’t shimmer and shadows that stay put for a change
I’ve been tempted by some of the WW2 modules for IL-2 Great Battles but hopefully I’ll be accepted into the closed VR beta for Cliffs Of Dover (which looks fantastic) which should scratch that particular itch.
Next up this week is Iron Man VR for the Quest 2 (hopefully this Thursday) - the PSVR exclusive is finally getting a wider audience
*well worth a watch if you don’t mind silent-era extravagant acting
Oh god, I dont know if I have the sims chops to push any further than WT, but that does sound ace
. (Tell me the wet canvas flaps un-nervingly on the frame during storm turns )Yeah def going to jump on Iron Man. On a general gaming/VR hiatus at the mo, but heard good things about the control scheme there.
A recent update has enabled accurate bullet holes and damage but not flapping canvas as far as I’m aware - I’ve not seen any but I’ve quickly learned to listen to the airframe - going a bit too fast in a dive and pulling hard into a turn has ripped a wing off on a couple of occasions!Oh god, I dont know if I have the sims chops to push any further than WT, but that does sound ace
Yeah def going to jump on Iron Man. On a general gaming/VR hiatus at the mo, but heard good things about the control scheme there.
It’s not too much advanced from WT - I’ve still got lots of safety wheels switched on and I’m not sure whether I’ll ever be able to mess around with things like engine cooling and fuel mixtures while panicking in a fight, but it’s early days - I’m almost always pressing the correct rudder pedal now, so I am learning
Funny you should mention having a gaming/VR rest, I was the same a while back but having a go on Dr Beef’s Quest 2 native ports of old id games reawakened some VR joy. Must be the added dash of nostalgia! Dooms 1, 2 & 3, Quake 2, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein are all great fun in VR - they’re currently working on porting Jedi Outcast and that looks awesome so far
Getting the HOTAS & pedals set up with a “proper” flight sim (and a desk fan blowing in my face for mah imurshuns) has put me back to my early days VR wonder I just hope Odyssey’s update this month sorts out the few VR issues that keep me from playing at the moment.
Who fancies some of this at some point.
Nappies not included.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MWpjLmyeEE&ab_channel=GamertagVR
Nappies not included.
I still haven't got it together to try the HL2 mod (and that's 80% because of the Ravenholm section )
I'm always tempted by this horror affair in Steam sales though. Horror really isn't my buzz, but the reviews definitely make it sound like an indie take that loves the genre...
Source: https://youtu.be/ZQYHSL2n4es
)I'm always tempted by this horror affair in Steam sales though. Horror really isn't my buzz, but the reviews definitely make it sound like an indie take that loves the genre...
I hated head crabs in Alyx (swear words gallor) horrible little (more swear words) things.I still haven't got it together to try the HL2 mod (and that's 80% because of the Ravenholm section
I'm always tempted by this horror affair in Steam sales though. Horror really isn't my buzz, but the reviews definitely make it sound like an indie take that loves the genre...
Source: https://youtu.be/ZQYHSL2n4es
They kind of became like comedy rubber chickens for me by the end. Comparative to the other horrors anyway
(I think it was mainly after I realied you could trap them in buckets
)Iron Man VR on the Quest 2 has been good so far - it really nails the flying super-suit feeling. Only complaint is the AI Tony thing; it annoys me for some reason. I know the character of Tony Stark is supposed to be an arrogant narcissist but this version seems to me to go fully into that without any redeeming qualities or humour.
The graphics have taken a step down from the PSVR version but the extensive load times have dropped to mere seconds.
Gets a solid B+ or 7/10 score from me so far.
———
Got Espire 2 last night (another Quest 2 exclusive) and the pair of hours I’ve spent in it have been fantastic
The opening section is a love-letter to the first level of MGS and it’s even got the stuffing-bodies-in-lockers from MGS2
I really enjoyed the first game once I understood that it was okay to “go loud” - it was supposed to be a mash-up of MGS & Goldeneye after all. This is more of the same but given a good polish, and I’m finding the stealth mechanics to be more rounded this time.
———
@VR Golgot - a quick question regarding Cyberpunk 2077: how have you found performance using the VR mod?
I tried Luke Ross’ VR mod for GTA V the other day and I had a horrible double vision effect on moving objects which I assume is due to the alternating-eye method he uses. I tried the three different quality settings in the mod batch file and also changing my Quest 2 frequency - low settings at 72Hz had the same double vision as high settings at 120Hz, so I don’t think it’s performance related to my PC. It wasn’t ASW related either and bringing up the FPS counter showed the framerate as steady.
Maybe it’s because the GTAV mod isn’t supported any more, but I’m holding off buying CP2077 because I want to play it only in VR and I wouldn’t want to play while having this visual effect.
The graphics have taken a step down from the PSVR version but the extensive load times have dropped to mere seconds.
Gets a solid B+ or 7/10 score from me so far.
———
Got Espire 2 last night (another Quest 2 exclusive) and the pair of hours I’ve spent in it have been fantastic
The opening section is a love-letter to the first level of MGS and it’s even got the stuffing-bodies-in-lockers from MGS2
I really enjoyed the first game once I understood that it was okay to “go loud” - it was supposed to be a mash-up of MGS & Goldeneye after all. This is more of the same but given a good polish, and I’m finding the stealth mechanics to be more rounded this time.
———
@VR Golgot - a quick question regarding Cyberpunk 2077: how have you found performance using the VR mod?
I tried Luke Ross’ VR mod for GTA V the other day and I had a horrible double vision effect on moving objects which I assume is due to the alternating-eye method he uses. I tried the three different quality settings in the mod batch file and also changing my Quest 2 frequency - low settings at 72Hz had the same double vision as high settings at 120Hz, so I don’t think it’s performance related to my PC. It wasn’t ASW related either and bringing up the FPS counter showed the framerate as steady.
Maybe it’s because the GTAV mod isn’t supported any more, but I’m holding off buying CP2077 because I want to play it only in VR and I wouldn’t want to play while having this visual effect.
The flying seems such a good fit (even if the episodic campaign trappings aren't my fave). Def gonna get it, but would love to have it in full PCVR glamour instead. (I still struggle with the pared back looks for 'AA' titles on Quest. Indie Nock style stuff is all fitting and good though
)Got Espire 2 last night (another Quest 2 exclusive) and the pair of hours I’ve spent in it have been fantastic
Cool. I've still got the orig sitting around on PC. Got to give it a run. Or indeed a run and gun
---
I had to dial the graphics and resolution down very steeply to hit 60fps on my rig:
Certainly that resolution level won't be for everyone, but I was fine with it on balance. (The balance being, a whole working open world game
).There's an auto-resolution option in the more recent builds, but I found it to be a bit sketchy. Manual experimentation via the benchmarking test got better results for me.
Regarding the flicker in GTA, I got that as well on Rift/PC (although on a very early build of the mod, not sure if it's improved since). And it's almost entirely absent from CP, which was a pleasure to see
. It was def very annoying in motion in particular in GTA. He seems to have streamlined the alternating eye tech a lot along the way.
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Excellent, that’s the info I wanted to hearRegarding the flicker in GTA, I got that as well on Rift/PC (although on a very early build of the mod, not sure if it's improved since). And it's almost entirely absent from CP, which was a pleasure to see
The GTAV mod got a Cease & Desist earlier this year so I suppose I’m just seeing outdated mod tech - the version I got from GitHub was from Dec 2020.
I’ve also just been asked by my daughter what I want for Christmas in serendipitous fashion, so fingers crossed for a GoG sale soon so I can save her a few quid