Very and very soon, the world will plunge into darkness that the Oculus Rift logo will cut through. Virtual reality will be the best friend of man, and the games with her participation will not leave indifferent even the most hardcore gamers. A representative of Wired magazine got acquainted with one of the latest games on the Oculus Rift and made a very detailed and impressive story about his acquaintance. With him, we will introduce you. Next - from the first person.
I hear someone else's breath.
I played a lot of video games, a lot of shooters, in which I fun rushed through the corridors to certain death. But not at this time. Behind my back is a wall of an abandoned spacecraft, and I am slowly moving along the corridors, looking now to the left, then to the right in search of dangers everywhere.
And I wonder, is that it? Is that the Oculus Rift demo when I rip the headset off my face and run out of the room in horror?
I am not afraid of horror movies or horror video games. Of course, if someone jumps at me out of the dark, I can start hiccupping, but this only shows that my brain is working to its fullest. For the most part, I feel an endless gap between the chilling screen script and the safety of my living room. I do not understand why some of my friends cannot or do not want to take the joystick and play Resident Evil.
Therefore, for me it was a complete surprise when I was on the verge and almost lost my composure while playing the Alien: Isolation demo from Sega on the Oculus Rift. This game, shown at E3 this year, is a typical virtual reality prototype built on the survival horror genre, which will be released on PC and console on October 7th. Moreover, it is another strong demonstration that the Oculus Rift has the potential to create such a dive game that fantasy becomes a reality.
Sega does not tell whether it will make a full-fledged consumer product out of this version for Oculus, but it would be foolish not to do it. I played in the demo of games in virtual reality and sincerely believed that I was taken away somewhere, but there were games when it seemed to me that I was watching a bad movie on a very large screen. Alien: Isolation is from the first rank. The usual trick for the console game - exploring the empty world in which only you are and the lonely Alien you are trying to avoid - this is the perfect solution for Oculus.
“Like everyone else, we were impressed by the Oculus Rift when the Kickstarter campaign was just beginning,” said Al Hope, head of the creative development department for the console team at The Creative Assembly. His team was already working on Isolation, when Oculus began its Kickstarter campaign two years ago, and already then it became clear that they would find a common language. Several Creative Assembly developers have invested in the crowdfunding gathering, so very soon they received a Rift development kit for them.
Sitting down for the demo, I experienced the familiar ritual of fixing Oculus on my head and headphones on my ears. And it began.
Suddenly, I am walking along a quiet desert corridor on an abandoned spaceship. The demo works on DK2, the latest version of Oculus hardware, so it is clear, bright and smooth. Realistic, in general, and completely believable.
I admire the steel gray details of the corridor, listen to the noise of distant cars vibrating on the ship, and it all looks like a virtual version of Metroid Prime, when I notice something. Uh ... is there a dead body at the end of the corridor? Yes. Yes that's it. I feel anxious. Is this guy going to come back to life and jump in order to scare me? How close do I need to go? Carefully walk up to him. Suddenly I start to worry about what is behind my back.
“Turn on the flashlight,” says an Oculus spokesperson, loud enough to break into my alternate reality. Obediently perform. Light falls on the face of the dead guy. He leaned against the panel, his empty eyes looking into the corridor along which I had just walked. It is unpleasant to watch. Strange, nauseous feeling. I slowly move on.
Rift has added such a level of interaction and immersion in Alien: Isolation that even the developers did not expect this. I see a box. As in the console game, I can click a button to open it. I decided not to do it, but later Hope told me that I needed to slightly raise my ass, lift my head and look behind the box, not moving from my seat.
“You can just rise millimeter in this environment, looking around the world around you,” he said. Many of these features Hope and his team themselves discovered while they were testing their games. A pile of massive concrete pipes scattered around the construction site, as a rule, represent the boundaries of the console game, but Oculus allows you to lean against and peer through certain pipes. Oculus allows you to lean against the hole in the door and look at the corridor behind it. As you crawl through the vent, you can look around the corner just by turning your neck.
Creative Assembly did not intentionally include these features in the game - it just happened after Oculus support got into their code. The team literally polishes the games to make them better. And this is a real physical experience.
I just wanted to know how well everything works.
I moved slowly along the corridor, shaking my head to the right and left in search of threats. After I determined that the corpse was not going to do anything, I saw what it was: the very Alien from Hans Giger wandered the corridor in search of prey. Looking for me.
Until he noticed me. But I was on alert. I was looking for a way to go. I wanted to be anywhere, but not here, not inside the ship with him. My brain started to fight on its own. I had to consciously remind myself that this is not a reality, but just a game. And at that moment I started thinking about those adult men who played horror movies on the Rift and tore off their headset in horror.
I continued to move down the hall. It was not just an easy walk, which I started at the very beginning. I moved along the corridor with my back to the wall, trying not to make the slightest sound. And then it happened: Alien found me. I just turned to the left and saw him rushing to me on all fours.
I did not even think to run, and I could hardly have. He raised his thin hand, clawed with razor-sharp hands and lowered it. "Game over".
I took off my headphones, calmed down and thought about what I had just experienced. After my usual emotions and feelings prevailed, I was just amazed at how quickly and confidently Isolation on Oculus pulled me out of the usual worldview and turned my “wow, cool, virtual reality” into real fear.
"In fact, it is very interesting to observe people and their attempts to behave quite naturally," said Hope. - But then the Alien comes closer and you see the physical reaction of their body. They are tense. When the Alien attacks them, they physically recline in their chairs. ”
One player, he said, after the attack of the Alien, even threw his head back in a desperate attempt to avert his eyes from the bloody massacre.
And yes, there were such testers who ripped off the Rift, threw across the room and ran away screaming. Soon.
The article is based on materials .
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