Hey all, I got to go to Epic Games!
SWEET EH!?
Yeah, baby, I had a tour, met a bunch of employees, saw Tim Sweeney walking in, checked out the building, climbing wall, indoor slide, offices, snack bar, etc. It was a very cool place. I was excited to see it and Adam got to come along as well. We each got a t-shirt. I really enjoyed seeing the artwork on the walls and all the mini models and swag all over the place! Not sure if anyone ever saw the Gears of War trike they had made?
Well, apparently MS got that when they bought the IP. It used to sit in the epic building. Now, in it's place sits a big wheel something like this!
LOL
Anyway, the climax was seeing the VR demos. We saw 4 and I can discuss 3. The three I can talk about are:
1. The first demo is called Showdown. You can see it in action on your boring 2D screen here (haha):
www.polygon.com/a/the-race-for-vr/showdown-an-exclusive-look-at-epic-s-vr-tech-demoYou don't DO anything in this demo. It just drags you along as you take in all the sights. Holy crap. You've heard people say it's on another level to see this in VR. Well, it's more like 4 levels up.. not just 1! When that RPG hit the concrete pillar and pieces of rock were flying across the screen, I was literally moving around out of the way. It looked like they were flying right past me. I had this instinct not to get hit by concrete. Then another RPG blew up under a car and sent it flipping over my head. I could see inside as it flew past. Then it ends with a close encounter of the robot that screams in your face. It's startling, actually! Adam jumped!
2. Next we saw Lucky's Tale. You can get a sense of this game here:
www.playfulcorp.com/It's a basic knock-off of every platformer you've played. This is an actual game you can buy and play right now on Rift. You collect coins, go down through "pipes" bounce and squash enemies, etc. The plus side is that it's in VR. It looks amazing to see your character in such perfect 3D. The downside is that you are the follow camera in this game and you don't control yourself, you control Lucky, the animal. The camera tries to follow you with a slow movement and some delay. But this one made me feel more sick than anything else because it would sometimes move in ways I didn't expect. Especially when Lucky got too close to the screen and the camera backed away... well, it looked like I was backing up but I wasn't doing that with my feet or my fingers. So, my brain didn't like that much.
3. Finally, we got to see Bullet Train
This was a short demo but probably the most fun of anything we did. You start off in a subway train and there are cans and other trash on the floor. I picked up a can and tossing it from hand to hand using the Oculus controllers. BTW, these controllers are not for sale yet and most people have never even tried them! But I have wahoo! The others in the room got a laugh seeing me toss the can around like that. Then I lifted it up and pretended to drink form it which also got a laugh... and again when I did the same but with 2 cans. Eventually you get to a train station and step out and the game proper starts.
The gameplay essentially is shooting the bad guys. It's a simple demo and you cannot be hurt but it didn't diminish the fun much for a couple runs through. The feel of picking up a gun and just aiming and shooting like I would in real life was so dang cool! I loved that. And you could have a gun in each hand, Matrix style, shooting in 2 different directions!
The other mechanic was movement which was also combined with slowing time. When you hit a joystick and held it forward, a warp line would appear and possible warp points would show in the train station. Time was slowed down. When you selected a point and released the stick, you would warp to that location, grab some weapons sitting there and keep fighting. They had grenades. You could pull the pin and throw them. They had guns you could shoot and pump. When time was slowed, you could grab bullets out of the air and throw them back at the shooters. You could even throw your guns at bad guys to get em!
In the end, some giant robot thing attacked with rockets as in the trailer and you had to throw the rockets back.
I realize this sounds more like a description of a random game than a VR experience but you need to think about the fact that we were doing all of this naturally with our hands. There was no tutorial on how to aim different ways, dual wield, etc. We just did it. it just felt right and everyone was laughing and cheering and having a blast! It looked great.
Other than Lucky's tale, the other 2 were over a year old. Man this tech is going to be awesome!