HTC VIVE And The Future of Gaming.

In this blog I will be doing a review of the HTC Vive and the virtual environment it creates. With this I will showcase some of the games on the market and how they interact with the Vive. I will also be going over how it's integration may impact the industry and how we play in the future.

The game industry has been at a standstill for how we play games for a while. But with the new wave of VR (virtual reality) systems that are coming out on the market there is new life. The VR system that I chose to go over is the Vive which is made by HTC in conjunction with Steam. The system is comprised of a headset which has a 120-degree view angel. The motion sensors and two motion controls That are read by the mountable sensors. The Headset lets the player see a full 360 degrees around them in the game while the controllers let the player move each hand to interact. During game play the sensors pick up the movement from the headset and controllers to input the actions to the game.

I am going to take one game to illustrate what the new system can do and that is the Brook haven experiment. In this game you stand in one place with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, each of these weapons are a controller. Waves of enemies are sent at you in all directions so you need to look around constantly. These enemies vary from big to small and have different speeds and abilities, they mostly look like genetic experiments gone wrong. At the end of each wave you can use money that you get from killing the enemies to choose other weapons or upgrade the one you have. The sound in the game plays a big part as it lets you know if an enemy is close and what direction they maybe. You really feel immersed in the game as you start to feel the pressure of the levels getting harder. At times you’ll find yourself jumping from enemies popping right out in front of you adding a shock and awe value to the game.

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256660940/movie_max.webm?t=1456755011

So overall how does the system feel when you’re playing? Good but not great as more developers start to make games for the systems it will become better. The graphics and game play will become more fluid to the point you would swear you are there. With all technology there is a adoption period to see if the masses will want it and then we will get the boom. As Adi Robertson of The Verge said "THE BEST WAY TO THINK OF THE VIVE MIGHT BE AS AN EARLY ACCESS SEASON PASS FOR VR". I for one cannot wait for this to get bigger and that is why I am trying to make my own VR game. Because I believe this and Augmented reality (AR) are the future of gaming and I want to be at the forefront.

References:

Adi Robertson (Apr 10, 2016) HTC Vive Review. TheVerge.com. Retrieved from:http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11358618/htc-vive-vr-review

Steam (Apr 5, 2016) Steam Store. SteamPowered.com. Retrieved from: http://store.steampowered.com/app/358040/

Vlad Savov (Feb 21, 2016) HTC Vive priced at $799, available in early April. Theverge.com. Retrieved from: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/21/11081462/htc-vive-consumer-edition-price-release-date-mwc-2016

Steam (Apr 5, 2016) Steam Store. SteamPowered.com. Retrieved from: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256660940/movie_max.webm?t=1456755011