Virtual reality is a natural fit for the sim racing genre, bringing high visual immersion in line with detailed and realistic driving physics. But if you’re playing with a controller (or worse, a keyboard!) you’re missing out the depths of immersion that such games can provide. This article presents an introduction to sim racing hardware, with kit recommendations for any budget, including wheels, pedals, and accessories, combined with sim rigs.
Testimony is one of the most profound and powerful applications of virtual reality that I’ve seen so far. It’s an experimental documentary that captures the stories of sexual assault from five women broken up into five segments. You’re completely immersed within a virtual sphere with these five stories that are represented as sequences of circles on different lines. As you look at a specific circle, it comes into the full frame and plays a 2D video segments from that victim either sharing their story of sexual assault, the aftermath, their process of healing, or their ideas for how to reform the criminal justice system. The depth of immersion and intimacy that the virtual reality medium enables allows you have much more capacity to provide your full attention and to bear witness to these stories of deep emotional intensity. It’s a radical application of VR that represents a revolutionary approach to healing from trauma.
Evocat Games’ first title Nemesis Perspective is a two-player action game where one player uses a gamepad and traditional screen to operate a third-person hero character, while the other assumes the role of an ‘endgame boss’, towering over the hero in VR from a first person perspective.
On June 20th, action RPG The Mage’s Tale will launch on the Oculus Store. The dungeon crawler from developer inXile Entertainment is optimised for Rift and Touch, set between the events of The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate (1988) and the upcoming The Bard’s Tale IV.
The word ‘surreal’ invariably falls short when it comes to trying to lift the shroud surrounding the VR first-person puzzler FORM. Transporting you to a strange inner universe via an enigmatic black obelisk, you experience what it must feel like to make contact with a higher intelligence, with its intense interlocking geometric constructions and imposing, dream-like architecture—FORM is an unexpected delight for anyone looking for something truly out of the ordinary.
While Microsoft’s ‘Mixed Reality’ VR headsets are due to launch with some impressively low minimum hardware requirements that will be met by integrated graphics, the big players presently in the market have a much higher ‘VR Ready’ bar which involves a beefy GPU for high-end gaming applications. Intel says they expect their integrated CPU graphics will eventually achieve the performance required to meet that high-end bar, though even their new ultra high-end Core i9 isn’t there yet.
Today at Computex 2017, the annual IT expo held in Taipei, Taiwan, Microsoft revealed more from their line-up of affordable Windows ‘Mixed Reality’ headsets, including Asus’ headset and an updated design from Dell.
Road to VR, the internationally respected resource and leading independent publication for virtual reality coverage, today announces a new partnership with international games media specialist Gamer Network.
Starting June 27th, leading OEMs such as Clevo, ASUS, and MSI will begin to offer new high-performance Pascal-powered ‘Max-Q’ gaming laptops using GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080 GPUs. Max-Q is NVIDIA’s new holistic approach to notebook design, with claims of major thermal and efficiency improvements that result in much thinner and quieter gaming notebooks.
Kyle Russell is on the deal & research team for venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (aka A16z) where he’s focusing on investing in technologies ranging from virtual & augmented reality, artificial intelligence, drones, and other exponential technologies like quantum computing. A16z has invested in a number of prominent VR companies including Oculus, Magic Leap, Within, BigScreen as well as Lytro, & Improbable.
HTC’s new mobile VR headset dubbed ‘Link’—which curiously does not fall under the company’s Vive brand—is also not making use of the same tracking systems employed by the Vive headsets. Instead the company has teamed up with Ximmerse, makers of the Neon tracking system.
We have all experienced, while in VR, moments of discomfort. When it comes to the Vive, these moments mostly revolved around the stock headstrap. It was either too tight, too loose, or hung the headset too low on my face; I couldn’t ever seem to get it so I could play comfortably for long periods of time. Enter the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, which has a much more structured build, adjustment knob, and integrated audio. To really put the Deluxe Audio Strap to the test, I decided to write this entire review while wearing the headset with the strap attached.
HTC have announced that, in addition to its TPCAST wireless add-on, it’s also working with Intel on a WiGig powered wireless VR solution and it’s keen to find more partners to work with on further solutions too.
Oculus’ founder Palmer Luckey, who left the company in March, recently opened up on record for the first time in an interview since September 2016. Among a range of topics discussed, Luckey spoke of the timeline of future VR headsets from major hardware players.
