At E3 yesterday I got a chance to flash the vip vip vip card and jump the line into the Oculus Rift booth. When I heard they had Valkyrie I couldn't resist. The Rift is a lightweight VR and headtracking kit that immerses you in the game world. Valkyrie is a lightweight, visually striking flight sim by the developers of EVE.
The Rift is super cool - the display is slightly blurry (though it may not have been perfectly adjusted) and the current design bleeds a little outside light around the eyes, but I forgot there were any problems once I launched. Looking around the world is intoxicating, and filling up your entire FOV with game really sucks you in. It's incredible to look left or right and see your ship's guns looming there. I'm not sure the game is quite as crisp and legible as it'd be on a regular HD display - something worth keeping an eye on as Oculus comes closer to launch.
I got turned about a few times, since keeping track of your head position is another variable to master on top of motion through 3D space. Valkyrie uses a Diaspora-style slow combat model: ranges are long, relative velocities are high, most fights are jousts, and you'll almost never get into a merge. I spent the full three minutes of the demo tangling with a single enemy - a red blur I never got to see up close, although we made a few head-to-head passes. Your ship's cockpit registers damage by sparking and cracking. The design is less intrusive than Star Citizen's, or at least it feels that way, perhaps because the Oculus gives you so much space to work with.
To my shame, I didn't actually land a kill, despite several good gun engagements and a lot of generous use of Valkyrie's missiles. The missiles track a helmet-mounted sight, and the longer you can look at the enemy while holding down the trigger, the more of them you can lock on. This feels ****ing awesome.
Playing on the Rift definitely made me eager to try it more, though I might jump for a different game. I'd
love to play FSO on here - the clean interface and sharp, noiseless visual design of FreeSpace would be a better fit for me than Valkyrie, and FreeSpace's faster, more violent combat might even look better. Most importantly, though, the Rift works as advertised. It's good hardware. When I looked down at my virtual body in the game, I started to get a touch of
body transfer, an eerie and kinda cool sensation.
Let me know if you have any questions.
