October 07, 2024
Virtual Reality has always been a dream for many of us. Personally, it was always about those little things that I wasn’t able to do by just being myself. Be a wizard, fly on a broomstick, spend a day in space, or a night in the deep ocean. All those little things are almost at a hand’s reach, especially after Oculus Rift was crowdfunded three years ago.
It’s not easy to create a compelling experience for the average user to enjoy. With problems like motion sickness, low latency, uneven performance, and many other things that can, and will probably at some time, shatter your experience, developers will have to be pretty inventive in the way they handle this hardware. Many indie developers have come up with demos that let you explore our solar system, an entertaining and educational experience, one that can inspire many generations of future scientists.
But it doesn’t end there. The experiences vary from movies like Insurgent filming a VR tour of some of their in-film sets, an Apollo 11 VR demo which pretty much sums up itself, virtual reality cinemas where you can watch your favorite movies, and TV series, from the comfort of your couch, but like you are inside a movie theater—I mean, who wouldn’t want that?
Expectations go as far as even filming some content in VR. The Wall was an HBO VR demo of the emblematic wall from Game Of Thrones. Minecraft is Minecraft in VR. After the phenomenal success of Minecraft during the last five years, it was only a matter of time until someone did it. The list goes on, and on, to rollercoasters, mid-space swansongs of people drifting in space, Adr1ft, a game that makes you an astronaut trying to save himself (or herself, I’m not sure) from a space accident (Gravity alert!).
I could go on for days analyzing every game separately and all of them together. There are as many opportunities as humanity’s imagination. Oculus VR has given us the opportunity to simulate not only typical, everyday things like jobs, but also imaginative, new takes on bigger-than-life experiences that can change us to our very core.
There are many people that believe that VR is a fad. Even if it gets to that, which I hope that it won’t, we are also standing before a cultural revolution, one that can make us more aware of humanity as it is, change our concept of reality, and even inspire us at being a better version of ourselves. After all, it’s not every day you can make a trip to Mars and return, and the next moment finds yourself hunted by massive dinosaurs (yes, there is a game for that too.)
We have some ways to go before we get the first, “consumer version” Oculus Rift (until Q1, 2016 that is), but until then, keep checking our site for everything VR-related, and don’t forget that virtual reality, and Oculus Rift, offer experiences that can, and hopefully will article Submission, change your lives forever.
