Saturday!
There is an old fable about the blind man who gave a piggyback ride to the lame man and, together, they walked around town.
That’s the background.
The foreground is that one of my coworkers recently purchased a Samsung Odyssey VR headset. It arrived and he found that it didn’t work with his CPU. He told me about the Windows Mixed Reality PC check (which is free!) and, as it turned out, my PC could handle it. So I brought my PC over to his house and we hooked up his VR system. (My bud points out that if you get this, you’ll also need this extension cable and a couple of these adapters).
Well, the first thing we did was pull up the Microsoft application and we were inside of a beautiful house on a beautiful cliff. My bud told me to (virtually) walk up to the edge of the cliff and look over. It looked like looking over a cliff. My feet made little fists. “Now step over the edge!”, he said cheerfully.
I told him “you know what? I’m not going to do that.”
It was freaky. I knew, in my heart, that I was standing in his living room. But I looked over the edge of that cliff and it looked real. I heard (but didn’t feel) the breeze. I very, very much did *NOT* want to take a single step forward.
We didn’t even get to a *GAME*, yet. I was doing the demo. The demo put together by *MICROSOFT*. And it had me freaking out like I was being foolhardy and taking my own life into my hands.
So then we started playing games. Valve’s game, “The Lab” (also Free!), was a surreal and delightful. It had some not-even-games where you’d stand in a square in Venice or on a hill in Iceland. There were a couple of games in which you were fooling around in Aperture Science labs. There was a game where you picked up a ship much like Galaga and, then, you were holding your ship in a 3D space and your controller is whichever hand you’re holding it in… and it’s pointing in whatever direction you’re pointing in… and you have to dodge the other ships’ projectiles with your hand.
We were boggling at the graphics, at the immersion, and at the weirdness of when we took the goggles off and found ourselves back in just plain old R.
If you have a chance to play with some of these goggles, do so. Before that game night, I was pretty sure that VR was little more than a gimmick. Now I’m pretty sure that it is the harbinger of the death of civilization as we know it.
Dude. You *TOTALLY* need to do this.
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is HG Wells playing a war game from Illustrated London News (25 January 1913[/efn_note]
Due to an early childhood strabismus, my vision is biocular (I switch back and forth between two working eyes) rather than binocular (both eyes work together). I can, with considerable effort under proper conditions, force my eyes to work together briefly to yield proper depth perception (for example, using the old View-Master toys). It’s not reliable. 3D movies give me little 3D effect and headaches. I suspect that VR is going to give me similar problems.Report
Not to get all evopsych on everybody but I can totally see how these sorts of vision problems are evolutionarily-useful defenses against VR.Report
There is a genetic component to strabismus occurrence (my mom had it, so does my son). There’s also, as I recall, some correlation with fine motor skills. Even paleolithic humans had a need for geeks, if they could produce better flint points or other useful items.Report
@michael-cain I have basically the same condition you do (hooray I’m not alone!) and similar trials with 3D.
I tried out the rig today, it didn’t allow glasses, and while it did give me a headache, it was *more* immersive, not less so, due to not being able to see properly….
Really uncanny in a very exciting and fascinating way.
My body was very not ok with it after about 10 minutes though.Report
We downloaded Fallout 4 VR.
OH MY FREAKING GOSHReport
I’d say more but this is next week’s post.Report
I’ve never been a fan of zombies. I remember Romero’s slowpokes, and the innovation of 28 Days Later’s speedsters, but they never really engaged me as interesting monsters. I’ve never watched The Walking Dead, and I’ve never understood why the zombie apocalypse became such a popular meme. That said, during the last Steam sale, I picked up Left 4 Dead, and I’ve really gotten into it. Zombies are the perfect opponents for a first-person shooter. The game has a nice mix of redshirts and serious challenges. I still don’t think I’ll ever pick up the sequel, though. It’s got a different cast of main characters and I’ve really bonded with the originals.Report
I walked around San Francisco yesterday to learn the meets and bounds of my city. While walking I encountered a few young people walking from the March for Our Lives protest. The politics of this moment are interesting. The pro-gun side had passion behind them for decades and that helped them in the gun control debate. Most Americans favor gun control but don’t have strong feelings about it. After Parkland, something broke and millions of American youth are simply not having it anymore. It helped that many of the Parkland youth had an education that really helped them navigate the politics of it. General liberal anger at Trump and the Republicans also broke the straw on the camel’s back. Now the gun control side has passion behind it that can match the feelings of the NRA.
The NRA might still win the current round in the gun control debate. They have a lot more money than the Parkland students and can also vote. They have deeper connections to the Republican Party and the Republicans are fanatical on this issue. Yet, they are making the same mistake as late Prohibition era Drys by not giving an inch. The Wets originally just wanted to reform the Volstead Act so beer and light wine was legal. The American Temperance movement was so vehemently against drink that they wouldn’t do this at all. The NRAs insistence on a maximum reading of the Second Amendment will undue them. The gun control side might just get pissed enough to say fish it and abolish the Second Amendment and go for maximum gun control.Report
You moved? Congrats!
Though I have to wonder… was the right’s asset their passion or their money? I venture to guess it is the latter and I’m not sure that has changed dramatically.Report
The NRA’s chief asset is the number of people they can mobilize to write letters, make phone calls, and send emails when any sort of gun legislation is proposed. A million people marching once doesn’t change that; it’ll take the same kind of sustained effort.Report
NRA members are also of legal voting age. Most March for Our Lives participants are not.Report
Welcome to SF!Report
ThanksReport
@leeesq @kazzy @mike-schilling Dudes, this is Mindless Diversions. It’s a Saturday! post about games. Please cease and desist to discuss gun control on this thread. (Pointed at this by Jaybird, who is in this case 100 percent in agreement with me.)
Further comments on this topic will be deleted.Report
Sorry. I should know better.Report
@maribou @jaybird
So sorry! I clicked through Lee’s comment and didn’t even notice what post it was. Total goof on my part.Report
I don’t see myself getting into VR games any time soon. I tend to play strategy games and the less-actiony RPGs. A visceral, in-your-face experience is the last thing I want from gaming. To me, a good gaming experience is a game I can play while drinking coffee, that doesn’t mesh well with VR.Report