VR Omni-Directional Treadmill Lets Players Run and Gun

[Yuuki]

The difference with Guitar Hero and Rock Band is that the peripheral actually made playing the game better. Trying to play any type of fast gameplay on the treadmill will be terrible and, as you point out, exhausting too. Until consoles get their input data directly form your brain, it's hard to imagine a more efficient way of navigating in a gaming world than a joypad.

Argh, don't quote my huge post with all those images, snip them out or something :S

On the topic of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, if I wanted to be a jerk then I could say that technically using guitar/drum peripherals are not the best way to play those games. If you think about it, the entire goal is to whack the incoming icons in the right order - so if you were to replace the drum/guitar with say...a keyboard, or gamepad and translate all the inputs to the keys/buttons, the games would become a JOKE to play.

The hardest part about Guitar Hero is learning to use guitar peripheral and get very good with it. But if you were to bring someone along like me equipped with nothing but an XBox controller with emulated inputs and the triggers acting as a whammy bar (I suck at Guitar Hero btw, but I'm fairly decent on a real guitar, oh the irony ) I would actually have no trouble with the beginner-intermediate tracks

It's safe to say that doing the below with a guitar peripheral or DDR pad would be IMPOSSIBLE:


But I get the appeal of Guitar Hero and Rock Band is the increased immersion with controllers resembling the instruments, as Yahtzee said you can at least close your eyes pretend to be Carlos Santana for a few brief *wonderful* moments

Back on the topic of VR, so far several of the first-impression reviewers of Rift Occulus have complained about...you guessed it...motion sickness :S

 

[Timzilla]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

God, I love living in the future!

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I'll pass.

I kinda like sitting down while playing, thank you very much.

I already got aches from playing the dead space rail shooter while standing up today. @_@

 

[MorphingDragon]

Can we just get over this? Please? For the love of god? After a long hard day who on the flying fuck would even find the effort to give this a try?

Because exercise isn't a thing people engage in ever.

I'd agree it's not something you'd probably use every time you want to play a game, but it could be pretty cool for those that want a more immersive experience and exercise all in one.

I'm of the opinion that a lot of Gamers just need the encouragement to find a sport which they enjoy playing. A lot of sports are still games after all. A lot of these augmentation technologies can only increase the amount of physical sports that exist.

I have a lot of nervous energy, and Muay Thai was a nice click for me that I just didn't know existed a couple years ago.

 

[Nouw]

snip

I agree that it's very unlikely to be a replacement, even in the future, but when it is affordable with issues sorted I think it'd be a nice thing to have. As you pointed out, it wouldn't be feasible to use it as a replacement but as something to do from time to time when you have an itch for immersion, this set-up would be great.

I like to think in the near-future, the next decade, someone is going to use this set-up with a first person horror game. Movement and combat tends to be simpler in horror games so I see this as the next logical step. Or rather, the first logical step but as I said before, this progress shown in the video is still good.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

I think Yahtzee's comment on his talk about motion controls where he said games are better played slumped on a couch with a mouth full of Malteesers.

Seriously...I doubt this will be any fun since your gameplay now becomes WAY too dependant on your fitness level. In fact...

"Well, we found him passed out in this bloody thing after we told him to just relax and play some video games. Apparently the RELAX part missed him somehow..."

 

[hoockhand]

So... how about jumping?

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Now all we need is good motion controls that have some element of force feedback(even simple vibration would be an improvement). Better would be an arm piece that can lock up at joints to convey real force. Like say in a melee combat game you lock swords with someone, the brakes and motors on the arm piece would engage and you'd have to overcome them to win the lock.

Unfortunately, it would require more bulk than I could reasonably expect someone to strap to their arm when they want to play a game, but it's no more ridiculous than an omni-directional treadmill.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Alternatively, there's this;

 

[Do4600]

For this to really work you need a gun that moves independently of the head and a head that moves independently of the body. Also your head motions need to be tracked, so leaning to one side causes your view to tilt in the same way.