Virtual reality video games are already here
Some of us may remember the crazy demo videos we saw in the 90s of “virtual reality”. A fully virtual world to participate in that uses a special headset. Virtual reality video games were supposed to revolutionize video gaming.. but it didn’t. Unless you had more money than you knew what to do with.
Until now.
Youtuber Goldfish uploaded a video demonstrating the modification for Half-Life 2 entitled Half-Life VR. (Mod: http://vrmods.wordpress.com/)
Half-Life VR utilizes the synergy combination of the Oculus Rift for a true immersive 3-Dimensional display and the Razer Hydra for 3-Dimensional spatial controllers.
The effect is ground breaking, as you can see in Goldfish’s video below.
This isn’t the first that we’ve seen utilize the Oculus Rift or the Razer Hydra in such a refined way and it certainly won’t be the last.
Star Citizen aims to use the Oculus Rift as the primary and preferred display technology for the game and is promised to be controller agnostic, allowing for players to use a spatial controller like the Hydra. Despite being in a pre-alpha phase, Star Citizen already has outstanding support for the Oculus Rift.
Soon, gamers will not view through a monitor and will instead view their games through a headset, like the Oculus Rift. This will increase immersion greatly and a lot of the early adopters have consistently reported that the level of immersion is so great that they often times forget they are sitting at their computers.
Imagine walking through the corridors of a ship in Star Citizen and looking at the details of the ship within the corridors. Seeing the pipes and bulkhead, like you might gander at if you were actually walking through a ship in real life. The level of details in games will grow exponentially.
The Oculus Rift is still in development, however the company sells development kits to anyone, which essentially is a production prototype so that game developers can get their hands on it and get familiar and begin making games and applications for the Oculus Rift. The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 is currently available for $350 USD.
The Razer Hydra is currently unavailable but the price point has been $140 in the past. Razer has indicated via a few emails to various gamers that the Hydra is so popular that they cannot even come close to meeting demand so a lot of retailers list the device as discontinued. The Oculus Rift has rapidly increased interest in devices like the Razer Hydra. Some players have indicated that they were able to order the Hydra directly from Razer.
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