This time, apparently I was almost exclusively in a space combat game mood. First, I went to the Oculus booth and played Eve: Valkyrie. It was essentially that demo on easy mode. The Rift itself, I have to say, is now flawless. I also had a go with it's DK1 back in 2013 and was not too impressed then, but now, there is absolutely no perceivable delay or image blurring as you move your head around. No trace of nausea or queasiness for me. The resolution is still a bit low, of course, but it'll do.
The most interesting thing: In the beginning of the demo, after you get ejected out and fly with your mates, a strange and profound feeling of joy overcame me, stronger unlike any other feeling I can remember having while playing with them electronic toys (*). I can't say where it came from. I did not really feel "there"; when you look down, you do see some hands, but they are immobile and grabbing at a flightstick while your real hands are on a gamepad. I was always aware of the comfortable and safe chair I was sitting in and the operator with me in the room, I think I even left my mouth closed most of the time
But you look around and the giant fake spaceships and the giant fake planet simply look amazing. And the ships control like a dream.Anyway, then the enemies beam/warp/phase in, the joy vanished and I was only playing a videogame. A pretty good videogame that was going on all around me. And the nice trails the spaceships leave behind combined with the fact that you can just look around make it super intuitive to track your targets. It's 0% simulation; there was not even a way to control the speed of the spaceship, though I suspect that was only for the demo.
So yeah, that was quite good. I could not try the in-development hand controllers, but for games where you sit in a cockpit, I can totally see the Rift and its peers become the recommended mode of play. It's probably going to be cheaper than two good extra monitors. The obvious, pressing question: Would I play a lightcycle game on them? Dunno. The first thought would be that the sudden turns are a fast track to vomit land, but apparently sudden transitions between perspectives can be fine, if a little disorienting. So it could work if one leaves out the turn animation and makes it a sudden, instant jerk.
Next was Speedrunners in the indie booth, a four player local competitive platformer. Which was a blast. Well, once I found out which dude I was controlling. It's a bit limited in depth; for example, you can slide, and that's only useful and mandatory in exactly one kind of situation. But there are also jumps, walljumps, wallslides and a grappling hook giving you plenty of not easy to master control over your momentum. And nasty items. It's a bit like Mario Kart, I thought, and sure enough, that's in their sales pitch. If you're genre-biased against Towerfall or sick of it, Speedrunners is worth a look.
Then I stumbled upon the small Star Citizen booth, essentially just four PCs with high end flightsticks, facing the outer wall. You'd imagine that with the sixty million dollars raised, they'd give themselves more of a presence, but oh well. The game is still pretty rough around the edges, too. On display was the space combat portion (of course), but I accidentally left to the hangar where I promptly bumped my head on my (presumably) ship and fell over, several times. I think we were not supposed to go there
There was texture pop-in, too. The operator freed me from my misery and set me up for a proper mission, super easy mode. I did have lots of problems coping with the setup, so I don't want to blame the game too much; there was no armrest, so handling the flightstick was quite exhausting and imprecise. The shots you fire vanish quickly and you can't properly see where you have to fire to hit the enemies... usually space games would have the spot where you aim marked in front of your targeted ship. Only a bit in, I noticed that the game does this in reverse: It has a second target reticule next to the one showing where your shots actually go and to lead your target properly, you have to align that reticule with it. Which is... odd. I suppose you can get used to it, but why would anyone design a battle system so that you have to match the movement of one object you don't control with another object you only partially control? Instead of the straightforward old way? I'm not backing that one. But I did take three of their styrofoam spaceships.For a space-break, I had a quick go at Cuphead. 's good. What I did not know going in was that it's all boss fights, I'm not so sure I like that; but they are inventive and challenging and the art is just adorable. To shoot, the cupheads make pew-pew with their hands! Restarts take a little too long, but at least they don't take you out of the stage. And it has local two player coop. A concern with stylish game is always that they might sacrifice gameplay for looks; not so here, the controls are as tight as megaman's pants. This one I am very likely to get. I played the XBox One version, but it's also coming to PC.
I then had a short go at Elite: Dangerous on the XBox One. Seems to be working just fine there, no technical issues or awkward controls. Of course, this one is out already for quite a bit on the PC and really too complex to properly test on the show, so I did not dive into it too much.
Lastly, Starfox Zero on the Wii U. Never played a Starfox game before; it's nice. The demo was the three (four?) stage level that also was shown for E3. Variety is much bigger than on the other space shooters, you have semi-on-rails sections and free flight sections and a section where the main camera stays fixed on the target. You can always aim with the gyro controls of the gamepad; I never quite got used to that. What I also found awkward is that often, the game has you shoot stationary or slow moving targets. And since you can only shoot in the same direction as you're flying, that means half of the time you're just flying away from your target, waiting until you're far enough for the next run. I think you're supposed to hit them properly the first time
But my own rubbishness aside, it's looking quite good. IF we get a Wii U AND I'm not somehow already saturated with spacy shooty games, this could be in the first batch of games.That was it. I'll quit rambling now. I guess this is mostly to sort my own thoughts.
(*) Important qualification. It's on the level of finding a really, really good hiding spot during hide and seek, I'd say.
But it's only 8 words!
