I got to try an HTC Vive along with my SO. It was magnificent.
Me and my SO arrived around 9:30. We ended up getting our demo in around 12:30 and we were done by 1.
For those unaware, the HTC Vive is Valves VR headset they’re making in collaboration with HTC.
It was my first experience with real VR (I've tried cardboard before) and it was just fantastic. My SO was hesitant to try it, but I convinced her, even though she wasn't stoked about it. I'll recount my experience as well as hers as she told me about it.
You go into the truck and find yourself in a decently sized all black air conditioned room. You put the headset on, they put headphones on you, then they hand you the two controllers. I'm not sure what I expected but it was interesting to first put it on and truly see nothing. You're completely isolated from the outside world, and I was staring into empty blackness for a while because initially my headset wasn't displaying anything. They had to fix that, but when it finally was working I saw myself in a big white room with screens all around me that held different VR demo names. In each of my hands were paddles that looked like the controllers I held in my hand.
The left controller had a color wheel on it. You could move your thumb on the touchpad, select a color, then squeeze the handle and a balloon would inflate and shoot out. The thumb touchpad felt really finnicky and assuming it's the same way on the Steam Controller, I hope it gets improved. It didn't seem accurate enough, or perhaps the demo itself wasn't coded well. A tip for anyone else who tries it, the balloon will shoot off whatever direction the controller is pointing, even though the balloon fills straight up. So if you want it to shoot up and then try to hit it, make sure your controller is pointed up.
My SO noted that if after making a bunch of balloons you look up, you can actually see them all up above you hitting the ceiling above you floating away which is a nice touch.
After this, they load you onto a sunken wooden ship. You're underwater and can see fish and manta rays around you, as well as the ship itself broken. You can walk around the deck and its a neat little experience. I remember looking up, seeing the sun peering through the water, and having this strange switch in how my body felt, almost as if there was a small pressure around me. Here is where I had one of my first really impressive moments, walking to the edge of the ship and peering overboard. Looking down gives that genuine feeling in your stomach of "I'm really high up" and it was very striking. Down below the ship overboard was the wreckage from a plane as well, which was a fun little surprise. Here I had the thought "I wonder what my legs look like", followed by looking at where my legs should be - seeing nothing - and getting an uncomfortable feeling in my mind. I think this was my first time feeling that disconnect of "this isn't right" and it felt strange. Its manageable, but its a really distinct and unique feeling I don't think I've ever felt before. The lightbox tracking is magnificent. It really is 1:1. Every step felt right. My hand movements felt right. Reaching out towards a fish and watching it swim away gave me a big grin. Peering and leaning and crouching all felt perfect. I was probably a bit too excited, because more then a few times I ended up bonking a wall because I would move from place to place too swiftly, eager to explore. I got a little too into the world I guess!
At this point, I heard a creature behind me - turned around - and saw a huge whale coming closer. As it got closer the true size of it became apparent, and that was humbling. It really helps you appreciate how large these creatures really are. I've never seen a real blue whale up close, but assuming its accurate size it seems like a real behemoth.
My SO exploring the ship ended up on the left side peering over (I looked over the right side) and said the coral reef looked beautiful cool and the colors matched the world well. When she heard the whale she turned and saw it, and when it got close she said she got really freaked out. It got near and she looked at how big its eye was and said for the rest of the time she turned away because she was too scared of the whale. A really cool thing she noticed is that when she turned away, she could still tell where the whale was because of the way it sounded in her headphones. So she was really impressed by the positional audio, as well as the massive size of the whale.
Also, my SO said she heard more than a few *thunks* against the wall next to her, so I guess she could hear me bumping!
The next demo was a Job Simulator, which was a cooking game. They start you out and say "Make this soup" and list 4 ingredients, a tomato, a mushroom, salt, and a bottle of sauce. You look down and you can see two blocky cartoonish hands, and you're in a cartoony kitchen.
When my SO played, she said she turned to the fridge, opened it, grabbed the tomato, mushroom, salt, and sauce - then placed the first two into the pot and poured the second two in. The ingredients poofed away, turned into a can of soup. She grabbed the soup and put it on the delivery tray where it got picked up and taken away. Then she went to the next demo.
When I played, I went to the fridge, grabbed the tomato and mushroom, brought them to the cutting board. Then I grabbed an egg and threw it at the wall, which made it *SPLAT* and turn into a sunny side up egg on the spot. I picked up a rolling pin and started waving it all over the table and stuff didn't react as much as I'd hoped. The soup pot didn't have any physics so the rolling pin just sort of got stuck against it. I tossed it over my shoulder. There was a plate with bread on it next to the soup pot, which I flipped upwards, causing the bread to fly off onto a tray and the tray lifted up and presumably was taken to a customer. That was a good laugh. When I looked behind my shoulder, I found there was another counter top with other supplies on it, as well as a knife. I picked it up and held it infront of my ~VIRTUAL EYE~ because its not a real knife so I can do that! It was cool holding it inches from my face, then slowly pushing it into myself, because obviously I could never do that. I put the knife down on the counter, and wanted to pick it up to slice with which was a bit confusing. The default handposition you use to hold the remote is palms inward, and thus the in game model is also palms inward. But when grabbing stuff, you simply reach forward and press the trigger, so there was this disconnect where I would reach forward to grab it, but now I was holding the knife sideways, so I had to actually think it through, flip the knife, then grab it to be holding it in a proper cutting position. I went and sliced down on the tomato, and the knife instantly shattered like glass into a dozen pieces, which was a laugh.
Here, is where I had my second really uncomfortable experience, this time intentionally. I looked down, and I reached my hand through the table. My brain knows I SHOULDN'T be able to do that, but alas I was, and I felt this strange sensation in my wrist because of it. Again, it wasn't game breaking or anything, but just an odd sensation I'd never had before.
I was worried they might just skip the demo and move on so I decided to finish up the recipe, throwing the ingredients into the pot. I started pouring some salt in, then i decided to just throw the whole salt shaker + sauce bottle in. It turned into a soup can, which I transferred to a delivery tray, which they took and delivered.
Next up was a 3D painting demo. You see a colored line start to appear in front of you, and watch as it turns into a flower. You can move around the flower and see the full size and depth of it. You look down and your right hand is a paint brush, with your left hand holding all your tool options. It has 3 sides, one showing a color wheel, one showing a list of paint types (brush, rainbow, leaves, stars, that type of thing), and the third which I don't remember.
I drew a little bit adding to the flower which was interesting for a short amount of time. I wanted to change the color, which appears in your hand as a color wheel, with the wheel being the same shape and position as the touchpad on the controller. When holding the controller in the default position though, you aren't facing any single side. If you swipe on the touchpad, you can see it rotate, but as soon as your finger comes off it snaps to default position. I asked "How do I change color?" and they said you point to the color you want with your paint brush.
At this point, I turned the left controller so the color wheel was facing me, then I pointed the right controller at it and saw a little pointer that it would eyedropper tool from and I said outloud "That is just brilliant." So I started painting things directly in front of and around my head. I ended up hitting myself in the face a few times, but no biggie~ It was cool just moving around in and through these paint strokes. After a short time, we moved on to the next demo.
My SO did not have a good time with this demo at all. She spent a long while struggling with getting the colors working, and trying to use the touchpad to select the color. She said the person explained how to change color but they didn't do it really well. After drawing a small amount, trying to change color to better suit the flower and being stuck trying to change colors for a while, the person moved them to the next demo. I think this is actually reasonable, and I think it was a bad idea for them to have the touchpad actually cause the tools to move. It was really confusing and if I had not asked and had the person tell me, I would likely not have figured it out for a while.
The last demo was the Aperture VR demo. It is a fairly scripted demo that you can probably find detail of elsewhere, so I'll just talk about the parts that stood out to me.
It was very lightly interactive, and it would have been nice to have more stuff to just randomly fool around with in the room.
When the service door opens, and Atlas walks through was truly stellar. He is emitting sparks and moving in a very herky jerky manner. I crouched down and got really close to the door and to Atlas, and every time he shifted forward I jumped back. It looked really real and impressive. Me jumping back was also reflexive, which was a nice surprise.
At this point you basically pull out Atlas's innards, which expand outward into a really long extension, something like 8 feet out, of all mechanical interworkings. They give you a lot of time to look at it and make it move. So I made it spin so all the machinery was moving like clockwork, then I went to the very tip, and moved my head through it, actually putting my vision directly inside and through all of the machinery. It was insane. There was so much detail, and it looked so complex.
The parts eventually all fall from suspension to the floor, and the floor drops out beneath them. Where I was standing was on the last line of tiles still standing and the depths felt truly cavernous beneath, I felt a slight worry. I saw the tiles beneath my feet start to bend downward and immediately jumped back.
This was probably the most impressive part for me. The side wall comes off and GladOs lowers down. She is MASSIVE! Oh my god! Was this section designed to scale? In the games you really don't appreciate just how large and intimidating GladOs truly is. I know it sounds strange but the scale here impressed me more than the whale from the first demo, because I felt like I had context here. I've never seen a whale up close in person (neither have I GladOs) but I have experience with GladOs. I've played and enjoyed the Portal games and I had never realized her true scale. I think the really fine detail combined with the familiarity made this part the most impactful for me. It felt scarily intense. I loved it.
My SO did this demo also and was really impressed by it. The complaints she had was that she didn't really understand what to do because the instructions weren't clear enough. She didn't know what the charge station was where she was supposed to charge her controllers. She didn't know where the drawers were. She didn't know where the service latch was. Also, she said when Atlas entered she got really close because she wanted to read the text on his body but that it was too blurry to read up close. I had attempted similar and had the same problem. I don't know if it is a limitation of the Vive, a limitation of the stretched FoV, or simply a not high enough resolution texture. Either way, that was a very minor issue, and she still thought it was awesome. When Atlas's parts fall, she wasn't looking at the floor and when she eventually looked down she saw she was standing over the gaping hole and got really freaked out and jumped to land. Some real Loony Tunes shit right there lol.
I'm really grateful that we ended up in rooms right next to each other, because while I was playing I did hear my SO talking to the guide person, laughing, and sounding really enthralled by the stuff she was doing and seeing.
My SO finished a bit before me so she was waiting outside, but when I met her out there she told me she was really, really impressed, loved it and wanted us to get one. She said the whale one was her favorite and she would love to just put a rift on before bed every night and fall asleep just getting to look around at new beautiful nature worlds. She was saying she'd love for there to be more ocean ones, a jungle one, a desert one, and just all kinds of nature. She is really into the idea of us getting an apartment with an extra room that we can use exclusively for VR. I was really surprised but she went from mostly disinterested to 100% sold on it and really excited. We're talking about Oculus Rift and HTC Vive and considering which we should try to get, and when.
It was an awesome experience and I really wholly recommend that if you get the chance you take it.
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