Joystiq

Half-Life 2 on the Oculus Rift looks like double the trouble, fun

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:30:00 EST

Oculus Rift owner and YouTuber Vaecon recorded a 15-minute session of Half-Life 2 on Oculus Rift, and the entire experience can be summed up in a few words, spoken less than two minutes into his gameplay demo: "Whoa. This is really cool."

Valve launched official support for Half-Life 2 on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, in beta form, on Friday. Valve programmer Joe Ludwig cautioned that this beta was "a bit more raw" than Team Fortress 2's Oculus Rift prowess, noting HUD and UI issues.

Vaecon sported some anti-motion-sickness bands during his Half-Life 2 session, since previous games on the system left him woozy. Whether because of the bands or the game itself, Half-Life 2 on Oculus Rift didn't appear to affect Vaecon's stomach.

"This is the perfect scene to show on the Oculus because there's a lot of action, jumping and - oh, I feel like I'm swimming," he said.

Half-Life 2 on the Oculus Rift looks like double the trouble, fun originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 12 May 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Attach more things to your head with Oculus Rift sensor, camera clips

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:00:00 EST

Oculus Rift dev kits have been out in the wild for just under a month and the gameplay videos and mods keep trickling in. The latest mod comes for the hardware itself, two clips to add extra motion sensors or cameras to the back or front of the headset, both 3D-printed. Hackaday's Caleb Kraft designed and printed the attachments, one for extra, heavier sensors that threads through the flexible strap on the back of the Oculus Rift, and one that snaps right onto the front of the system, mainly for cameras.

"While browsing an Oculus Rift thread on Reddit, I saw someone mention how nice it would be to have some actual mounts for external sensors on their Rift," Kraft writes. "The idea is that adding additional sensors or cameras will allow us to expand the capabilities of the Rift."

The Oculus Rift attachment designs are available for free for other 3D printing and VR headset aficionados via Makerbot's Thingiverse.

Attach more things to your head with Oculus Rift sensor, camera clips originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is what playing TF2 with an Oculus Rift and an omni-directional treadmill looks like

Jordan Mallory — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:30:00 EST

In order to demonstrate the functionality of its "Omni" prototype treadmill, which the company calls a "natural motion interface for virtual reality applications," technology start-up Virtuix has released the above video of the contraption being used in conjunction with an Oculus Rift and Team Fortress 2.

The setup essentially works like this: The Oculus Rift handles head tracking and display duties, while a Kinect tracks how the player walks/runs on the the Omni, and then converts that input into in-game commands. The Kinect is an in-development solution, however, and Virtuix says the Omni will include its own sensor when/if it ships to consumers.

The company plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign in May, with final production units costing somewhere between $400 and $600, sans shipping. A second example video, this time showing a better look at a prototype of the device while in use, has been tucked away beyond the veil.

Continue reading This is what playing TF2 with an Oculus Rift and an omni-directional treadmill looks like

This is what playing TF2 with an Oculus Rift and an omni-directional treadmill looks like originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See Faith run in Mirror's Edge on Oculus Rift

David Hinkle — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:00:00 EST

We're pretty sure this would make us vomit, but those with stronger constitutions may be interested in playing Mirror's Edge on Oculus Rift. YouTube user Cymatic Bruce uploaded nearly ten minutes of the game in action.

If you have an Oculus Rift and Mirror's Edge, you can get this running by installing Viero Perception and the FOV mod.

Oculus Rift dev kits began shipping late last month to Kickstarter backers and include a free Oculus version of the Unreal Development Kit, though the promised Doom 3 BFG Edition is no longer included. Oculus has not announced a launch date for retail units yet.

See Faith run in Mirror's Edge on Oculus Rift originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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UnderCurrent aims to bring deep sea exploration to Oculus Rift

David Hinkle — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:00:00 EST

UnderCurrent is an Unreal-powered deep sea exploration game designed for Oculus Rift from a group of university students over in the UK. The group became fascinated with VR technology and has already put together three different levels, though the collective notes that some of the core mechanics of UnderCurrent are still undetermined.

These students are also maintaining a work blog chronicling each step of the design process, covering everything from music to artwork and team bios. The developers promise more videos and updates as work continues over the coming summer.

[Thanks, Rasmus]

UnderCurrent aims to bring deep sea exploration to Oculus Rift originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thirty minutes of Team Fortress 2 in virtual reality caught on camera

Jessica Conditt — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:30:00 EST

The team at Tested got a chance play around with Team Fortress 2 using the upcoming Oculus Rift headset, and they recorded half an hour of gameplay for us to virtually enjoy. Not "virtually" as in we'll "almost" enjoy it, but "virtually" as in "virtual reality"-based enjoyment. Just watch the video.

Kickstarter backers should receive their Oculus Rift dev kits by mid-April, with pre-orders hitting a little later in the month. For those expecting a kit, check out Valve's list of handy tricks for setting up VR in TF2.

Thirty minutes of Team Fortress 2 in virtual reality caught on camera originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve offers Team Fortress 2 'VR mode' tips and tricks

David Hinkle — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:55:00 EST

In anticipation of VR mode in Team Fortress 2, Valve has put together some resources on how to activate VR mode.

Before you boot up Team Fortress 2, hook up your Oculus Rift, add "-vr" to your command line options in Steam and you should be good to go. You can save shortcuts to your desktop with or without the modified command line for quick-launching in VR or vanilla modes.

You can find all of the above and more on Valve's Oculus Rift user guide. The Oculus Rift will have its first dev kits shipped this month; Kickstarter backers should expect theirs around mid-April. Pre-orders are currently open on the Oculus site, though these folks are last in line to receive their goggles sometime near the end of April.

Valve offers Team Fortress 2 'VR mode' tips and tricks originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve experimented with VR in other games, Team Fortress 2 'obvious choice' for Oculus Rift

David Hinkle — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:45:00 EST

Valve revealed that Team Fortress 2 will be the official first game to support Oculus Rift's VR headset, something Valve programmer Joe Ludwig told Engadget was an "obvious choice" for Valve - not only because of the size of the community, but because of how rapidly Valve is updating the game, meaning the community is used to being sort of a test group for new concepts.

"Team Fortress was sort of the obvious choice for this," Ludwig said. "The Team Fortress community is large and healthy. There are millions of people playing TF every week, but they're also used to us shipping a lot of updates." Team Fortress 2 receives updates nearly on a weekly basis, but it's not uncommon for players to see multiple updates to the free-to-play shooter in one week.

Ludwig said Valve is currently experimenting with VR in its other games, but is hardly committing to anything beyond testing at this point. "We've played a bit in Left 4 Dead; we've played a bit in Half-Life 2. We haven't taken any of those other games to the point where they're anywhere close to being ready to be shipped; we've just sort of experimented with head tracking a little bit."

Valve chose to partner with Oculus as opposed to creating its own display simply because it made more sense to go that way - the two companies each had something the other wanted. "We've done a bunch of experiments with various bits of hardware, but we don't have a display that we can ship. Oculus is actually out there doing this, and so we're partnering with them because they have the hardware and we have the software and we can help each other out. And we can both learn a lot in the process."

"We don't know how strongly people will react to VR," Ludwig concluded. "We don't know how popular it will be, what people wanna see. It might be that we need to learn a lot more from TF before we move on to other titles. We just don't know what's gonna happen."

Valve experimented with VR in other games, Team Fortress 2 'obvious choice' for Oculus Rift originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Team Fortress 2 is Oculus Rift's first official game

David Hinkle — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:43:00 EST

Our pals at Engadget toured the Valve offices last week to check out virtual reality support in Team Fortress 2, something Valve programmer Joe Ludwig has been working on for quite a while now. Ludwig reveals that Team Fortress 2 will be Oculus Rift's first official game and that Valve will push a VR mode update to players "sometime within the next couple of weeks."

"This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in," Ludwig told Engadget. Initially, VR mode will be available to only Windows PC players - Mac OS X and Linux platforms are a possibility down the line, after Valve gets access to SDKs for those platforms. "We don't have a Mac or Linux SDK from Oculus quite yet, but once we get those, we'll get it ported over to those other platforms."

Ludwig will provide a talk on Valve's hurdles porting the free-to-play shooter over to virtual reality at GDC in San Francisco in two weeks. The Oculus Rift is an upcoming VR headset that was successfully funded through Kickstarter and ships to backers in April. Oculus Rift's 40 "pilot" dev kit prototypes will begin shipping this month and pre-orders are currently open through Oculus Rift's website.

Team Fortress 2 is Oculus Rift's first official game originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve's two talks at GDC 2013: VR is hard, Team Fortress 2 in your head

Jessica Conditt — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 19:00:00 EST

Valve will be giving two talks at GDC 2013, one to discuss porting Team Fortress 2 to virtual reality goggles, and the other focused on hurdles in developing for virtual and augmented reality.

Valve programmer Joe Ludwig will lead the TF2 talk, titled "What We Learned Porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality," and Valve research and development man Michael Abrash leads the second talk, called "Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where it Might be Going)." Abrash will focus on head-mounted displays. Not "displaying mounted heads" - that's at the Big-Game Developers Conference.

GDC 2013 is at San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 25 - 29. Other notable talks include a postmortem on FTL: Faster than Light, a talk from Capy on paid apps, one on The Walking Dead's art, and talks on mainstream games such as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Assassin's Creed 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Hitman: Absolution, Mass Effect 3 and more. Peruse the list here.

Valve's two talks at GDC 2013: VR is hard, Team Fortress 2 in your head originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Jan 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget goes hands-on with Oculus Rift

Sinan Kubba — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:00:00 EST

Former Joystiq heartthrob Ben Gilbert, now officially known as Bengadget, got some hands-on time with the Oculus Rift VR set at this year's CES. While Oculus isn't letting out the latest prototype for use, Ben took an old one through a new demo of the Unreal Engine 3-based Epic Citadel.

Engadget goes hands-on with Oculus Rift originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hawken will support Oculus Rift when it launches on Dec. 12

David Hinkle — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:30:00 EST

The Oculus Rift may not technically be a tangible thing yet, but as of December 12 it can boast support for one more game: Hawken. It makes sense: every time we've seen something with mechs in it, the pilots are always wearing goofy goggles. Appropriate.

In an interview with Forbes, publisher Meteor Entertainment's Mark Long offered some insight on why Oculus Rift and Hawken make such a great match. "Why Oculus works so well is the sense of presence. You have to experience it. When the graphic world is all around you, it takes the experience to a completely different level."

"Hawken is perfect for Oculus because its environments are well-suited for the level of visual density and distances you're looking it," Long added. "The shapes that are close and far away lend themselves well to 3D. When you're in a typical first-person shooter, you're a slave to the direction your weapon is pointing, which is unnatural. Being in a Mech, this offers a more realistic virtual reality experience."

Of course, the question of lag is ever-present with VR headsets, but Long says Unreal Engine has certain things built in that alleviate that concern. "With Unreal we can dynamically change the point-of-view and make sure that the latency is as low as possible for the viewers to eliminate motion sickness. We're going to build out a cockpit that players can buy so they can see the inside of the Mech with Oculus for a more immersive gameplay experience. This is a subset of something we're going to be bringing to the PC game."

And in the end, the cost for Adhesive Games to add Oculus Rift support was minimal. "The cost of an Oculus Dev Kit with two systems will be less than $300," Long said. "The technology uses a DVI connection and USB to do head tracking off a PC," so with some wires, a headset and a fairly nimble neck, it was a fairly inexpensive feature to implement.

Hawken will support Oculus Rift when it launches on Dec. 12 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Doom 4 to be compatible with Oculus Rift VR headset

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 12:30:00 EST

Doom 4 will be compatible with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset (the one that was over-funded via Kickstarter in less than 24 hours last week), just like its baby brother, Doom 3 BFG Edition. id Software has been involved with Oculus Rift for some time, showing off Doom 3 BFG running on Rift at this year's E3 and including a copy of the game with every Rift dev kit.

"I'm excited for once Doom 3 ships, and gets out there, I'll put all this stuff into the Doom 4 platform, which will be nice to take our current top-of-the-line stuff and have that in virtual reality," id's John Carmack told Polygon at QuakeCon. "I'm looking forward to doing that."

The Oculus Rift Kickstarter has so far raised more than $1.26 million of its desired $250,000, with 26 days to go.

Doom 4 to be compatible with Oculus Rift VR headset originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 05 Aug 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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'Oculus Rift' VR headset Kickstarter funded in 24 hours

JC Fletcher — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:45:00 EST

Our future is starting to look more like the future of the early '90s, with gamers signing up to have TVs strapped to their faces. The 21st-century iteration on the long-lost VR headset concept (remember Sega VR?) is the Oculus Rift, a headset that combines a 1280x800 viewing area with head tracking technology.

It's apparently a much better execution on the VR idea than those past headsets, as the Oculus has the thumbs-up from designers like Cliff Bleszinski iD's John Carmack - so much so that every dev kit will include a copy of Doom 3: BFG. It also has the explicit financial support of a bunch of Kickstarter users, who have contributed over $800,000 of its $250,000 goal in just one day of funding.

The development version of the Rift is designed only for PC, but the team hopes to "make the headset compatible with major consoles and all other platforms, including mobile, and as soon as possible."

'Oculus Rift' VR headset Kickstarter funded in 24 hours originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oculus virtual reality headset looking for funding on Kickstarter

Mike Schramm — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:00:00 EST

Most "virtual reality" helmets tend to be disappointing to say the least, but the Oculus Rift has gained a bit of buzz this year. Developer Palmer Luckey is now looking for funding via Kickstarter. "The reason we're using Kickstarter is so that we can get these dev kits into the hands of developers as fast as possible," Luckey says in the pitch video above. "That way they can try it for themselves and start integrating support into their games and engines."

The crowd-funding route has worked already, with the project securing more than double its $250,000 goal as of this writing. Limited prototype dev units - at $275 each - have all been claimed, leaving the $300 level as the cheapest route to get your hands on the hardware, which includes a copy of the upcoming, Rift-enabled revamp, Doom 3 BFG. In a related endorsement, id Software's John Carmack called the device "the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen."

That price is likely higher than what consumers will eventually pay for everything once the software is optimized and the design is finalized. The dev kits are set to be shipped out in December, so we could see a final product as soon as next year.

Oculus virtual reality headset looking for funding on Kickstarter originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We have to hand it to Datura, this virtual reality rig is impressive

Jessica Conditt — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

Datura looks like it will be a mind-melting Move masterpiece on its own, but seeing it running on a giant screen with a virtual reality visor, we can't help but be summarily impressed. Check out Plastic's rig in the above video, which features Sony's HMZ-T1 personal projector and a giant hand.

We have to hand it to Datura, this virtual reality rig is impressive originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 02 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SnowWorld breathes new life into severely burned Afghanistan veteran

Jessica Conditt — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:10:00 EST

We know video games can offer deeply immersive experiences that affect our real-world emotions and draw intense reactions from our real-life bodies and minds. We know this, and finally the professional medical community is beginning to recognize our insight, with truly encouraging results, as described by GQ's recent feature, Burning Man.

Sam Brown's body was burned horrifically during his tour in Afghanistan, after his Humvee ran over an IED, GQ writes. He spent many months after the accident drugged out of consciousness on rave-grade hallucinogens and enduring the highest levels of physiological pain during therapy that no amount of morpihne could tame. And then a cognitive psychologist told him to play SnowWorld, a virtual-reality game full of snowball-chucking snowmen and penguins, while his skin was stretched, a procedure that normally garnered a score over 10 on Brown's pain scale.

Playing SnowWorld, he gave the pain a six.

Hunter Hoffman, the psychologist behind SnowWorld, is working on further research into the art of pain distraction through video games, but already results such as Brown's show great potential. Hoffman is using $7.5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to expand his research, including the incorporation of Second Life-style elements into video game therapy. Read the entire, captivating story at GQ.

[Image via MGShelton]

SnowWorld breathes new life into severely burned Afghanistan veteran originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony experimenting with virtual reality games

Justin McElroy — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:15:00 EST

We're not sure if the return of technology that never came to fruition can truly be called retro, but we're seriously pondering the question thanks to Sony London Studios chief Mick Hocking. In an interview with Develop, Hocking brought up the head-mounted 3D display (seen above) his company showed off at CES, saying, "We're working with a couple of games at Sony that are experimenting with virtual reality-type experiences."

That's right, according to Hocking, virtual reality could be making a comeback. We're looking forward to the games that would spearhead a VR renaissance, but only if we'll get to drench ourselves in revamps of VR Troopers, VR.5 and Lawnmower Man.

Sony experimenting with virtual reality games originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect Hacks: First-person slipping

James Ransom-Wiley — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

Full-body mapping isn't new to Kinect -- not even hacking it to control the MikuMikuDance is new. But this isn't the apparent innovation put on display by a Kinect tinkerer known as "Nao_u." The adventurous programmer combines Microsoft's camera sensor with a pair of Vuzix VR920 LCD glasses, allowing a player to see through Miku's eyes (projected in the VR920 head-mounted display), while controlling her in-game actions with body movements registered by Kinect. It's total first-person VR -- J-pop style -- with a $400 add-on!

Feeling confident in his new body, Nao_u steps out onto a precariously placed i-beam (just where did that come from?). High above the sim city, he takes his first, wobbly steps. You can see where this is going (after the break) ...

Continue reading Kinect Hacks: First-person slipping

Kinect Hacks: First-person slipping originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Laser projector stuck to Wii Remote for faux 360-degree immersion

Griffin McElroy — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:00:00 EST

We can already see a hot new trend surfacing in the gaming hardware modding world: Hastily conceived designs featuring the handheld ShowWX laser projector. Yesterday, we saw what happens when the pint-sized display was adhered to an iPhone 3GS; today, we see how Nirav Patel managed to stick the projector (and a Spacepoint Fusion gyrometer) to a Zapper-equipped Wii Remote. The result is a somewhat disorienting 360-degree "virtual reality" display, which is just perfect for playing simple, open source first-person shooters with.

Check out a video after the jump to see Patel's projectorgun in action. We'd hate to find ourselves on the business end of that bad boy.

[Via Hack a Day]

Continue reading Laser projector stuck to Wii Remote for faux 360-degree immersion

Laser projector stuck to Wii Remote for faux 360-degree immersion originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 12 May 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seen@GDC: The spherical future of video game interactivity

Griffin McElroy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:00:00 EST

We don't just go to GDC in search of hot scoops. We're also constantly scanning our periphery for the next big movement in video game technology. This year, it came in the form of the VirtuSphere - a device we've heard about since 2006 but haven't seen in person until today. No, it's not a magical orb which infuses its user with moral excellence; it's a virtual reality peripheral controlled by its enveloped user's strut.

The technology was demoed on the show floor at GDC with a rudimentary first-person shooter. The player wears a visor (which changes the camera's view as the player looks around in real time) and holds a light gun peripheral. They can walk around the rolling sphere, which moves the player's in-game avatar around the level. Sounds too awesome to be true, doesn't it? Hey, we'd never lie to you. Check out a video demonstration of the device after the jump.

What? Did we try it out? No, unfortunately, we've got a thing about dizzy-puking in public.

Continue reading Seen@GDC: The spherical future of video game interactivity

Seen@GDC: The spherical future of video game interactivity originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mulleted mystery man invents PC VR Game Gun

Griffin McElroy — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:30:00 EST

It's an indisputable fact that magical things can come in mullet-clad packages. The collected works of Billy Ray Cyrus, the 1994 hit Beastie Boys track "Mullet Head" -- and now, from yet another unlikely, mulleted source: The PC VR Game Gun. If you'd like to cast off the veil of time and peer into the unthinkable future of video gaming, the YouTube video posted after the break should serve as an adequate portal into the world of things yet to come.

By merging a toy gun, a PC gamepad, a LCD screen and a Gyration Air Mouse, the nameless modder created a pretty clever (and relatively inexpensive) head tracking system that's just perfect for first-person shooters -- especially F.E.A.R. on the highest difficulty setting. Sorry -- you can't play it on easy. The gun runs on extreme high octane action.

[Via Engadget]

Continue reading Mulleted mystery man invents PC VR Game Gun

Mulleted mystery man invents PC VR Game Gun originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spielberg talks future of gaming, believes in virtual reality

David Hinkle — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:55:00 EST

We would never dare think of crossing Steven Spielberg. The man is made of pure magic, and has the power to erase firearms from existence, cause you undeniable fear of the water, and create currency out of toy planes and paper. When he talks, we listen. And recently, he did just that with The Guardian's podcast, Tech Weekly.

Spielberg had some insight as to where the gaming business is headed, with his hopes for the immediate future residing in 3D gaming, much like his colleague James Cameron. Spielberg says the reemergence of 3D in film -- something Hollywood tried and failed at back in the 1950s -- is a prime example of how we'll see the technology make its way into games. Spielberg envisions "3D games developed where with a good pair of glasses we get a real three-dimensional experience in front of an appropriate monitor that is designed just for 3D." Also, he thinks we're not too far off from a future void of console platforms altogether, where we'll soon be playing games directly from our TV sets.

As for the long-term future, Spielberg sees the technology going toward virtual reality, and sees it as the industry's inevitable future. "I really think virtual reality -- which experimentally came and went in the eighties -- is going to be redeveloped, just like 3D is being redeveloped today," he said, further adding, "and that's going to be the new platform for our gaming future."

That's all well and good, Mr. Spielberg, but these virtual reality games better be more enjoyable than that Grid Busters game we played down at the Jersey shore back in the '90s.

Spielberg talks future of gaming, believes in virtual reality originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 20 May 2009 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday Video: Taking immersion to new levels

Alisha Karabinus — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Friday Video

Johnny Lee, who we're now elevating to the status of superhero around here, is back with an all-new Wii-centric project: Wii in 3D, thanks to head tracking. What's head tracking? Here, it's centered around mounting a sensor bar on your head (which is much cooler than it sounds) so that the software (and a Wii remote) can track the position of your head and allow displays to take on a full three dimensional scope, thus turning a flat screen into something more like a window. The result? Why, it could mean games that look like full-on virtual reality. Check out the video above, which was too good not to be in our weekly spotlight, to see just what it all means.

[Thanks, Chad!]

Friday Video: Taking immersion to new levels originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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