Portal 2 vr7/28/2023 ![]() ![]() I felt the need to move out of the way when we almost collided. I stood in Aperture Science and physically walked out of the way as ATLAS’s portly, round self walked through a door I held open. Manipulating (and trying to repair) Portal 2’s ATLAS robot encapsulated exactly the sort of experience I want to have on Vive, and VR in general: Walking around a limited space, soaking in a location, messing with what’s there, and engaging with interesting characters. I paid attention during the Portal sequence. I rarely have this problem when using controllers to poke around a narrative scene, because it suddenly feels less involved. ![]() I realized I wasn't listening to the golem because I'd been absorbed in walking around and discovering objects around me. Using the controllers, I opened a small door with one hand, reached in with the other, and used the 3D space to analyze a compass, letter, and bottles I broke when letting go. A humongous golem in the distance babbled while I tinkered with the world around me. Similarly, I dug The Gallery, a fantastical, dark game I'd never heard of. It’s a gimmick, certainly, but it’s cool. With one Wii Remote/PlayStation Move-like device in each hand, I used my left side as a pallette, and the right as a brush, to create art in a way that couldn’t be done without VR. Painting in a 3D space really demonstrated the effectiveness of Valve’s controllers. Really, though, it’s Valve’s VR controllers that hooked me on Vive as a distinct, standout tool for games. TheBluVR isn't a unique-to-Vive game, of course, but its fidelity on HTC's and Valve's machine is noticeably better than most VR headsets I've used. Standing on the deck of a sunken ship and watching aquatic life swim by barely qualifies as a game, but there's something special about stepping back as a whale approaches so you can take in its enormity. TheBluVR, an underwater “experience,” also really impressed me. Job Simulator would respond with humorous dialogue, and suddenly there was a fun, two-way relationship between this authored demo and my bumbling, physical interactions with it. Objects interacted exactly as expected, so if I wanted to do something silly, like put vegetables in the microwave, or throw a knife around, those option were available. I had an objective, but deviating from it by exploring the kitchen let me physically express myself in ways that made sense. This is the most “game” demo I played on Vive. Triggers on the back and grips on the left/right sides of each controller give a convincing sense of controlling things in the world. I could take ingredients from across the kitchen and combine them to create dishes, or make an absolute mess of everything, using the simple hand controllers. In the Job Simulator demo, a robot barked orders and cracked jokes about making soup and sandwiches. Each demo achieved an impressive sense of actual space that I wanted to explore. Vive erased my sense of reality in a way no VR headset, VR game, or VR experience, has. Given the physical space necessary to engage with these sorts of experiences, I’m not convinced it’s a viable, long-term product for the mainstream - but I am on board. Vive’s headset/controller combination bears enormous potential for fascinating new ways to explore enormous, ambitious, and entertaining worlds. With a series of new demos, the best of which was a Portal-themed vignette set inside Aperture Science, Valve and HTC have convinced me that Vive VR is a viable, interesting platform for interactive experiences. ![]()
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