Why you might care about Oculus Rift: Too

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Part of that is because I’ve had the chance to do a lot of travel recently. The other part is likely diligent laziness.

One of the travel destinations that caused this disruption was E3. And here I am, months later, writing this while attending Comic-Con. What prompted me to write now was the realization of how the digital culture has radically changed the importance of events like these (E3 & Comic-Con), while at the same time reducing the need to be there in person. Once upon a time, being able to get first hands-on experience with a game or attending a panel of a favorite author or writer was an enviable experience. It could be weeks or months before others might be able to share your knowledge and grasp the new innovations.

Now that moment of discovery is practically instantaneous. So, rather than stand in line for most of the day to hear the likes of George R.R.Martin speak, I can wait for the YouTube post later that evening. It takes a bit of the magic away from actually being there.

 

However, there are those singular events that stand our modern paradigm on its head. One such moment was when I was invited at E3 to check out Eve: Valkyrie (thank you, Adam Kahn). For those of you not familiar with the Eve Online franchise, it is an MMO that takes place entirely in space, and you participate by means of the spacecraft that you own. Eve: Valkyrie takes place in the same universe, but puts you in the pilot seat, literally. It may have been a vertical slice of the game or maybe it was just a tech-demo of what they were working on at the time. Regardless, it was a unique perspective that you can’t replicate on YouTube, because it was displayed through the Oculus Rift. 

The basic controls were explained to me and I was given a game controller. When I put on the visor, I noticed that the field-of-view took up all of my peripheral vision, which gave me the sensation of being in another world almost immediately. Over-the-ear headphones were also placed on my head.

Everything seemed to be out of focus for a moment, like borrowing someone else’s glasses, but with a simple adjustment of the oculus over my nose everything snapped clearly in place and in perfect focus. I was in a one-man space fighter in a launch bay. I craned my head to look behind me and I could see the entire surrounding hangar bay, as well as other fighters alongside me. I looked down at my hands that I mentally knew were holding a game controller, yet my hands were on the cockpit controls.  

Imagine yourself actually in an X-Wing fighter, or in a Viper onboard the Battlestar Galactica.  That was the dream that had become virtual reality around me.  

And then we launched.

Suddenly, I left the comfortable confines of the hangar, hurtled down the ship’s launch tube, and was ejected into the vast openness of space. It was a beautiful shock to the system, with nothingness of the cosmos all about me. I started to get my bearings, being able to key in on massive asteroids lazily tumbling through space and a nearby planetoid slowly spinning beneath. That’s when the attack began.

 

Fortunately, my gaming flight instincts kicked in and allowed me to focus on the task at hand: defend & destroy.

This all took place in the space of perhaps four minutes, but felt like one.

The Oculus Rift may still seem like pie-in-the-sky for most people - but if they were able slip on the visor and encounter the likes of Eve: Valkyrie, like I did, there might well be a lot more true believers out there. It’s an experience that could change your mind.

You had to be there.