Tokyo Game Show in VR

Worth a visit

We went to Tokyo Game Show tonight. It was great fun. It’s no substitute for the real thing, but it is worth the effort. To make it work I connected my Quest 2 to my PC and then fired up the program you can download from here. After a few large downloads and a quick registration I was good to go. I fired up the PC game from the Quest and I was then able to find the server where number one son was connected and then we went around together. I usually use the Quest as a free-standing device, it was interesting to see what it is capable of with a proper PC behind it.

There are a number of different levels in the VR show. Each one has a bunch of game stands. I took loads of pictures with my in viewer camera, but I’ve no idea where they ended up. It’s not enormous, we managed to get around the stuff in an hour or so, but it is worth a visit.

Rooms of Realities for Quest is worth a look

I’m not sure which player I was

Last night three of us had a very happy hour or so playing the Rooms of Realities demo which you can get for free from the Oculus store. There are some very nice puzzles, everything works as it should and the environment is well created. We’re looking forward to seeing the complete game.

Elven Assassin Upgrade

We played Elven Assassin on the Quest tonight. It is still great fun. They’ve improved it quite a bit since we last had a go. They now have a feature you can use to skip past the easy first levels and get onto the gritty ones right at the start. They’ve also added a new player vs player environment and seem to have upped the number of simultaneous contestants which has great potential. A game with 12 or so people taking part would be hilarious.

Demeo Defeated

That new save feature is important

We spent a great evening last night fighting off various kinds of horrible demons playing four player Demeo on the Quest. And we won. It wasn’t necessarily thanks to me in particular. I was mostly dropping arrows on myself and standing in poison. But fortunately my colleagues were made of sterner and more capable stuff and we managed to vanquish the hordes and emerge triumphant in time for “Have I got news for you”.

We’ve been playing the game for a while. It has only recently gained the ability to save progress. We did get close to finishing one time, but we were beaten back by the final level and poor headset battery management on my part. Now we can just play one level at a time and complete the campaign over a few weeks, which is what we did.

The game is also available for PC and would work fine with a mouse and a keyboard, but in VR you do get the impression that you are “going somewhere” when you play it. The game creates a view of the playfield with animated characters that remind me strongly of the Amiga Battle Chess game from way back. The aminations and sound effects are great, but it might be even more fun if we actually played it in the dungeon rather than standing over it.

If you fancy a bit of RPG on your Quest and you can find three like minded souls to have a go with you it is rather fun though.

Walkabout Mini Golf for Oculus Quest is now even better

If you’ve got an Oculus Quest (and even better, some friends who also have Quests) you should get Walkabout Mini Golf for it. I’ve already said this a while back. At the time I mentioned that I while I loved the game I didn’t think it was “proper” mini golf because there weren’t any windmills. Well, there are now.

They have just added a whole new level with loads of windmills in a really lovely setting. The hole design is as fiendish as ever, and much fun can be had working your way round the courses. I love it when good things get better, and this game is a case in point. Very strongly recommended.

Arizona Sunshine for the Quest

First the bad news. The graphics in Arizona Sunshine are not the best all the time. Zombies are not just hard to kill, sometimes they float backwards into the air and bits of them appear through walls. However, when playing the game this is not a problem. I guarantee you’ll be too busy hunting for ammo or frantically trying to reload to spot these glitches.

I’ve played about twenty minutes of the solo campaign and it seems quite fun. A story is unfolding and up until now the zombies I’ve bumped into have been quite easy to dispose of. However, I really bought the game for co-op play and last night four of us had a very happy time fighting off waves of zombie hordes.

The way that you hold and wield weapons works very well. You can manage both a rifle and a revolver quite comfortably. The reload action is nicely realistic although you’ll find your clip always runs out at the most inconvenient times which adds a lot to the atmosphere of panic. The networked group play is rock solid, and you do get to see the entire figures of your fellow players, which adds a lot to the gameplay.

At the time of writing this post the game is available for a third off in the UK, which makes it around 19 pounds. At that price it is very good value.

Walkabout Mini Golf for Oculus Quest

We spent a couple of hours last night playing Walkabout Mini Golf on the Oculus Quest. It’s rather good (as if we’d spend any time at all playing a game that is rubbish).

It’s miniature golf, but without the windmills. You get five different themed courses, each of which has a more tricky “night-time” mode. The environments are lovely, the physics works well and the group play is very well realised. It’s also very reasonably priced. Very strongly recommended.

Oculus Quest 2 Headband

If you are lucky enough to own and Oculus Quest 2 you will be enjoying the higher quality and lighter weight of the device compared to the first version of this device. However, you might have noticed that the head strap arrangement is a bit more primitive than the earlier version. One way to fix this would be to buy the expensive Elite Strap. Another approach is to print out a support that fits on the back of your head and holds the straps in place. I had a go at printing it and got the above result. I’m quite pleased with how well it came out. I used a very large layer height so that I got the strap quickly, which is why the quality is not the best. I also used “tree” support to hold up the large mid section. That worked really well too.

Quest Disc Golf Winner

Won a game of Disc Golf on the Oculus Quest this evening in Rec Room. Imagine my surprise when I search for details online and I find that frisbee golf is actually a thing. Anyhoo, I’ve found that the best way to throw it is to stand sideways and actually aim. Just like real life in fact. If you have a Quest it is great fun and very sociable.

I need to work on my "VR legs"

We’ve been playing some escape room type games with the Oculus Quest and the Rec Room application. They are like real escape rooms, in that a bunch of you have to figure out some puzzles to find your way to the exit. However, you do all this in a virtual environment. We’ve played a few now and the only real problem for me is that they entail lots of moving around which I don’t seem to have the stomach for.

However, if you’re made of sterner stuff they are certainly worth a look.

Elven Assassin is great fun

How we tend to look after a session

I know a few folks with Quests, which is nice. We’ve been playing Elven Assassin which is great fun. We position ourselves on platforms around the landscape and try and stop nasty things from wandering into our village/temple or whatever by shooting them with arrows. There were a few glitches getting started, but once we got going the game worked very well.

The graphics on the Quest don’t look as impressive as the screenshots on the game website. But they are perfectly adequate for the job and the important bit (taking aim and shooting with your bow and arrow) works really well. If you and your friends have Quests it is a fun way to get together and do stuff.

I’m fairly rubbish at most video games, but in the coop version of the game it doesn’t matter quite so much. Those with sharper shooting skills than mine can take up a bit of the slack and, most importantly, they aren’t shooting at me.

Prescription lenses for Oculus Quest change everything

I’ve had my Oculus Quest for quite a while. I’m always impressed by the quality of the experience that it delivers, but I’m less impressed by the way it makes my glasses dig into my face in a rather painful manner. So, last week I ordered some prescription lenses from VROptition.com. It would have been a simple process, except that I’d lost my prescription and when those nice people at EyeSite responded with the information I had to contact them again to ask what it meant…..

Anyhoo, the lenses arrived today. Amazing. I’ll write that again. Amazing. This must be what life is like for people with normal eyes. Lucky for them. I don’t need the glasses spacer any more so my field of view is much wider and the lenses themselves (which are beautifully presented as you can see above) are multi-coated so I get virtually no reflections from the optics. And, with no glasses I have no frame digging into my face any more.

The Quest has suddenly become properly viable for long term use. If you wear glasses you should investigate getting some of these. I’d even be inclined to suggest you get some “blank” ones if you don’t wear glasses because of the way they reduce reflections. I’m looking forward to spending a lot more time in VR now.

Vader Immortal for Oculus Quest

Well, that was embarrassing. Fortunately number one wife was out so nobody saw. Yesterday evening in the middle of light sabre training I managed to wallop one of the lights in the living room with my “sabre”. Quite scary to have the real world intrude on the virtual one. And I think I’ve broken the bulb in the lamp.

I was having such fun too. Once in a while you do something and think “This is the future”. Playing Vader Immortal is like that. The quality of the experience is first rate. The use of the controllers is very clever. The “sense of place” is very well realised. I particularly like the bits where you climb hand on hand up ladders and look down at where you’ve come from. And get a bit of vertigo. Once people have had a dose of this they will all want their own virtual reality. And quite right too.

I think the game doesn’t take that long to play. I’m deliberately rationing myself because I don’t want it to end. The first episode of the game is only 8 pounds or so, and great value at that price. If you have a VR device you should have a copy of this game. It really is the future.

Racket Fury for Oculus Quest plays a mean game of Table Tennis

I’ve no idea why a table tennis game should be called “Racket Fury”. But the game is great. I had a go at the Sports Scramble game on the Quest (a demo version is supplied with the device) and found that to be a bit “meh”. They seem to think that changing your tennis racket into a golf club in mid rally is a good thing.

I beg to differ.

But the Racket Fury: table tennis game is another thing entirely. I’ve played enough “proper” table tennis to be able to tell when a shot I’ve made is going to go out. I get this “sinking feeling” as the ball leaves the bat. The Eleven: Table Tennis game I play on the HTC Vive is good enough to give me that “sinking feeling” and so is Racket Fury. The frame rate seems a bit lower, but the fun of playing the game is still there.

It’s also rather satisfying to be able to play this game better than number one son, thanks to many years spent bouncing off real tables.

The tracking of the bat is very good, two pro tips:

• investigate the menu that lets you rotate the bat in your hand, this means that you can have a more natural bat holding experience

• changes from arcade to “physics” mode. This makes the game harder, but more satisfying.

If you have an Oculus Quest you should get this game.

The Oculus Quest is the future of VR

I’ve played with Virtual Reality enough to know that it is the future. I was never sure about 3D TV, but I think that the experience you get from a good VR system is something that everyone will want. The problem has been that until now a good system has involved external lighthouses for tracking, trailing wires and a hefty PC.

The Oculus Quest changes that. It gives a good experience that you can get just by putting on the headset and picking up the controllers. There’s a simple room calibration that you need to perform and then it will transport you into a whole bunch of engaging virtual experiences.

Number one son turned up with his device yesterday and after around 10 minutes playing with it I decided to get one too. It really is that good. The graphics are not as detailed as those from my HTC Vive system, but it is just so much easier to put the headset on and get started. And the lower resolution images still manage to conjure up a very real environment.

The controller and headset tracking is first rate and the device manages the boundaries of your virtual environment very well. We only seemed to have problems with bright sunlight from one side of the room upsetting tracking every now and then, but not enough to get in the way of a good time.

If you’ve not played with VR before this is a great way to get started.