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Just played HL2 for two hours straight w/Rift

roculus99
Protege
I just finished a 2 hour continuous session of Half-Life 2 and I my mind is blown. I'd say it is the best gaming experience currently available. It reminds me of the first time I played Quake 1 with a 3DFX card. Just, wow. Intense, beautiful, and gratifying.

I've had my Rift for almost two months now, and for the first time it feels like more than a dev kit. It feels like a product and an experience. For me, totally worth $300. For those of you still waiting, it will be so worth the wait.

I had my IPD measured professionally today, I have HL2 all set up, and I am well VR acclimated. For me, avoiding nausea is all about how I use the right stick (using vr_viewaim_mode 0).

I forgot how amazing this game is. They got immersion mostly right the first time around so the transition to VR is fairly seamless (as long as you close your eyes during the loading screen!) The design of this game is pure genius.

Thanks you Valve. I would buy the VR of HL2 version again, once for each eye.

Higher resolution, positional tracking, and hand tracking would make this experience just breath-taking.
20 REPLIES 20

dolomite
Honored Guest
Been hearing a lot of good stuff lately regarding the Rift and HL2. Gonna definitely be one of the first games i try with it as soon as i get sometimes this century ;).

MrGeddings
Explorer
after you play that long do you start to wonder if Half Life 2 is actually reality and that the "real world" is what is actually made up? 😛

roculus99
Protege
Not quite. But if I heard this after jacking out, I'd probably freak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wssm57mbabw
I actually had to put the game on easy so I'm not afraid of dying. After an intense firefight, I have to take an in-game breather.

dbuck
Honored Guest
"rmcclelland" wrote:
I am well VR acclimated.


Same, and Same (Except 1 hour session). I think the issue is going to be getting someone to be VR acclimated, how to get early users sucked in enough that they're willing to work up the resistance so that the larger game experiences are actually usable! I know for instance, trying HL2 now was immensely more comfortable than trying TF2 was a few weeks ago

faberfan
Honored Guest
"MrGeddings" wrote:
after you play that long do you start to wonder if Half Life 2 is actually reality and that the "real world" is what is actually made up? 😛


haha! we will be there at some point in the future, wondering which Half of our Lives is more important to us

niall
Honored Guest
Same here - finally had time to play HL2 for an hour or so, and it was brilliant.

I've rigged up my Rift to hang from the ceiling, and after trying with the Hydra off to the side (all immersion is lost when y0u can't keep rotating 360+ degrees with Hydra cables tethering you to the physical world) I taped the Hydra base station to the top of a helmet like the Project Holodeck guys did, and Wow. Being able to keep rotating naturally, as you go up all of those stair-cases at the beginning of the game to get onto the roof.... truly the first time using the Rift that I've really felt like I was there, and not being tethered by cables off to the side is really what made the biggest difference for me.

Still having a few teething issues with the Hydra configurations, they all assume a monitor and no player rotation, but I'm sure Sixense will sort that out as best they can with the current Hydra. I'm going to try mounting the Hydra on my chest, so it's sitting on a horizontal shelf or something, and if that works better than the helmet approach (hot!) then I might open up the Hydra and re-orient the sphere so I can mount the Hydra flat on my chest and use velcro to keep the controllers docked.

I'll see if I can post a new thread for photos of people's playing areas, mine's shaping up really nicely but I'd love to see what others are doing.

Krisper
Explorer
"niall" wrote:
I'm going to try mounting the Hydra on my chest, so it's sitting on a horizontal shelf or something, and if that works better than the helmet approach (hot!) then I might open up the Hydra and re-orient the sphere so I can mount the Hydra flat on my chest and use velcro to keep the controllers docked.


That is what I was considering doing as I imagine with the base on top of a helmet, the controllers would really be on the edge of the range. With the base on your chest the controllers will be much closer. If you end up changing the orientation of the base sphere, please post about it as I would be very interested in this. I was wondering if the sphere could be extended from the base with wires so you just need to mount the sphere on your chest?

niall
Honored Guest
"Krisper" wrote:
I was wondering if the sphere could be extended from the base with wires so you just need to mount the sphere on your chest?


Looks do-able:

http://howiem.com/wordpress/index.php/2013/04/18/razer-hydra-base-station-teardown/

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=14036

John
Honored Guest
Seeing people having such a good time with the rift makes me impatient. Not sure if I should wait or learn Unity while buying the dev kit.
Good to see positive feedback on this.
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