Dear Reader It is with great sadness that I must implore you to watch this tale of the Baudelaire orphans, for it is filled with tragedy most foul and... unfortunate. This is not a happy tale, for those are found elsewhere, for when there is happy moments they are few and far for the Baudelaire orphans. Mr Lemony Snicket's recital of the unhappy happenings has been told before in a movie most unfortunate, for those that saw it, for it took three depressing tales and made it a movie most saddening, cutting those tales into something most unlike Mr Snicket's written accounts. A guardian, one of many, by the name of Netflix stepped in to recount Mr Snicket's account of the Baudelaire orphans and perhaps most fittingly it has done its deed with nay worry. The tales told so far look over four tragic accounts of the orphans, warning us as I warn you dear reader, to look away, but if you must, you will find yourself enamored to these tales of despair, tales of adults who just won't listen, tales of the orphans who only want to find happiness, but they do not find it, that's not how the story goes. Dear Reader, if you must, despite the warning, go watch 'A Series Of Unfortunate Events', for it is a tale most surprising and gripping.
I've always been a fan of technology and perhaps some of the most interesting and new technology is Virtual Reality.
Having spent months for my previous employer being a representative of the Oculus Rift headset, I got lots of time to use the technology and try it out for myself, I really enjoyed the experiences provided and wondered about where the technology could go and what it could bring to entertainment.
My partner got himself a HTC Vive which is in it's own right a superb piece of kit, the sense of immersion is great and it's sense of 'room scale' is also impressive.
A friend also got the Playstation VR headset which is quite good though not to the level of what you can do with PC technology but it does win out by being the cheapest out of the three commercially available headsets on the market today.
After lots of thinking I decided to buy myself a Oculus Rift as then myself and my partner have both headsets and there's plenty of titles which I really wanted to try which are only available on the Oculus Rift.
I've been using the headset now for just over a week and I decided to write down some thoughts here.
Firstly setup was really easy, as long as you have some room and the sensors can face it, you're good to go, the process was quite easy and straightforward, I also picked up the 'Touch' controllers with my headset and they were really easy to sort out.
Having a couple titles provided for free just by setting it up, it was really easy just to jump in and try a few games and such, I had some mild problems with the controllers losing their tracking but this was solved by me not being a idiot and plugging the sensors directly to my motherboard.
I also purchased some games which I had really wanted to try.
I bought a bundle of games since they were on offer, first one was 'The Climb', A game which I was demonstrating as part of being a Oculus Rep, this is one of the most visually stunning games and with the touch controllers acting as your hands it's really easy to get a sense of immersion and it is also really physically exhausting to play, yes you can play it with a gamepad but that's boring, moving your hands around makes this far far more entertaining and there's plenty to see and explore within the game, well worth the purchase alone.
Next up in the bundle is 'Superhot VR', time moves when you move and you have to dispatch enemies by any means that you can, this as a experience is absolutely amazing, having to dodge bullets, snatching guns out of the air, it's hard to describe how this makes you feel, it is incredibly fun to play, if i have any complaints, it's also quite hard and theres seemingly no way to go back to earlier levels but there is plenty of content to go through and also well worth a purchase.
Next is 'I Expect You To Die', a puzzle 'escape the room' style game heavily referencing spy movies and every trope and cliche imaginable, it's a really fun puzzler with a great sense of humor and style, yet another one which really works with the touch controllers, it says 'a sitting down experience' but honestly I had more fun with it whilst standing up, plus the game has a really awesome intro song.
So far my experience with VR has been extremely positive, I do wish there were more full fledged experiences as the vast majority are just short 'tech demos', but when you do get a proper fully developed experience, it's amazing and a whole lot of fun, VR isn't going to totally revolutionize gaming or replace consoles or whatever, but it's definitely going to be something else to enjoy and experience in the future.
If you're not sure on VR I'd really recommend finding a friend who has access or going to a place which demonstrates VR, there's plenty going on right now, try it for yourself and see what you think!
And no, despite the title, the closing music for todays blog isn't going to be Jamiroquai, it's going to be 'Epoch - The Living Tombstone Remix' by Savlonic.
