Since we are winding down on 2015, I thought it would be fun to look into our collective crystal balls. To peek into the not-too-distant future and imagine what our sports gaming lives will look like in VR!
I bring this up because two particular games have piqued my interest as of late. On the heels of the wildly successful car soccer mashup up Rocket League, I thought, “what games could supplant this wacky title and what would it take to make them different?” To do so it would have to be easy to play, have a pretty simple control scheme, and also be a lot of fun.
Three games that instantly came to mind are Headmaster from Frame Interactive, VR Sports Challenge from Sanzaru and 100ft Robot Golf from NoGoblin. 100ft Robot Golf is a crazy looking title where you control huge robots in destructible environments while playing golf. Imagine how awesome a combination of Hot Shots Golf and Voltron would be! From their PlayStation Experience announcement trailer, they are going all out on the zany factor. As they state on their website:
“100ft Robot Golf is a real time golf game where you get to control impossibly large robots on their quest for par. Never get your ball stuck behind a pesky tree or skyscraper ever again! Just swing your golf club to smash even the tallest buildings out of the way – or into the way of your robot golfing buddies.”
Now, this already sounds pretty damn fun with just a controller in your hand, but imagine doing all this from the cockpit view of one of these monstrous robots with a virtual reality headset on. I think having PlayStation VR attached to this experience will just make it even more immersive.
What makes Headmaster a must play is what the game does in terms of making you feel like a physical object is screaming toward you and making you react as if you were feeling this in real life. I’ve played very few virtual reality games that get this feeling right. It’s a new version of the uncanny valley but less in terms of “reality” and more in terms of “believability”. Believability will be the mark that VR games will have to shoot for and Headmaster through its use of light, depth of field, and physics creates what I think is the must play game for PlayStation VR. It is hilariously fun and made me a believer in my short time with it. Enough so that I thought about how awesome the experience was days after.
These three titles are ones that I’m looking forward to playing and sharing not only for the fun factor, but for the ability to show off the new universe of home virtual reality. I’m excited for myself but all of you too. Let us know what you think of VR Gaming in the comments and on social media!