VR the champions of the world?

[em2nought]

Looking at the videos of Racket Club reminds me a bit of playing Jokari which I quite enjoyed in my early teens.
https://donaldsauter.com/jokari.htm



http://jokariinfo.net/sale.htm

[Skybird]

Eh... hmmm... nööö...

Better comparison really is to paddleball in a smaller cage, or picketball with cage. The way some people smash the ball reminds a lot of badnkinton., too, and I indeed played repeatedly against players who said in the real world they play badminton.

Mind you of what I said on the avatrs, they are static in th vidoes, but the player is nto static, his legs just are not tracked in VR. The real playing ground is around 2x2 to 2.5x2.5m, and inside this cage you jump around and position yourself and dive the deck a very lot - becasue you must... Videos showing the avatars are very misleading.

I am severely sweating after half an hour or so and then must take a break because the lenses get foggy. I wear a terry cloth headstrap under the mask, covering eyebrows and forehead, and have a ventilator in front of me, at full power.


I am addicted to this. I play it exessively.

[Skybird]

The very excellent video and media player Skybox VR got updated and now - finally, after all these many years - can play youtube videos, both on PC's and Quest's Skybox.



FINALLY!!


My to-go-to program again now for watching youtube in a wonderful cinema environment with controllable room lights and no-hassle-no-problems-setup, playing all formats, not just youtube. But YT was missing. It replaces Youtube's terrible own app on Quest easily, its handling is quite messy.

[Skybird]

Playing on the Quest to me mostly is in active, sports-like titles like table tennis and racket, however I got early a title that after the buying for some reason dropped off my radar screen completely and which I just now, after 8 weeks, have discovered in full - after I remembered that I got it. Demeo.

Now, Demeo brings back the glory of good old tabletop dungeon crawlers. As such, is it very difficult (all tabletop dungeon crawlers are, they say...) and plenty of experience with the game mechanics is needed to stand a chance to survive it. Interestingly, it is by the same publishing company that has given us Racket Club VR, which i appreciated very much, as you may have noticed. And Demeo shines with the same outstanding technical excellence. It also illustrates the best of what mixed reality can give you in VR, allowing the playfield being projected into your living room, and, when sitting comfortably on a couch or whereever, tilting the playing area at many angles for more convenient viewing, zooming it, zooming yourself INTO the dungeon, rotating it, all done with a breeze. The technical implementation is outstanding and must be seen to understand what VR offers when the potential is competently made use of.

On the game's content I let the video speak. You either like the principle, or you don't, but if you played tabletops and dungeon crawlers in your youth days, you will love this one, its a dream coming true. But again: its tough, and for players new to this sort of games who never played D&D and the likes, it might be frustrating in the beginning, thinking of the game mechanics as unfair. Well, they are simple in structure but difficult to master in the consequences they are meant to create, while just handling the game and playfield is as easy as it can get, and you can get better with experience of how to best use the features and first learning how to use what combat style best and what the cards are about and how to make best use of them. It is all about experience with the game mechanics. Difficult? Absolutely. But it can get learned. And its not incompetent game design creating the difficultly - understand this, please.

Breathtaking technical implementation. Animated tabletop figurines, that show delicate detail if you just zoom in close. So, see this indeed as a boardgame brought into VR, not as a 1st person RPG. As long as you have no aversion to dungeon crawlers, this game is a must have in VR, and a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate to your friends your brandnew VR headset. You may stick with the game's inbuild hobby room where the playing table is set up or you have the virtual table projected into your live living room, where it will all by itself find itself an ideal place, may it be the table in the room, or the carpet, the top of the cupboard... Or it is in a free spot in your room, and you and your multiplayer friends walk around it like around a real table (you also see their avatars) , forging your plans for your next battlemoves and disucssing your next moves (cooperation of the characters is of utmost importance) Impressive, and on a sidenote: enabled by clever use of AI analysis of the camera's input. All this makes Demeo visually very, very impressive, and one of the most highly rated games by players in VR so far.



P.S. The video is on an earlier verision fo the game after relase,. Meanwhile the party size has been increased from 3 to 4, and there are 4 more character classes. Each of therse command a very difcferent apporoach to how to play the game if wanting to survirve. The game is very well playable in single player as I do, but must be a blast for those preferring to play with 2-4 live friends in multiplayer.

And this one is just one exmaple fo the many helful tutorials of whgicb there are amny, for exmaple on each of the 8 character classes and how to make best use of their individual features .




Edit:
Very relevant is that the only real point of criticism, the need to play all three levels of oen chapter in one row, not beign able to save inbetween and thus needing to invest 2-3 hours in a row, have been cured finally by the latest patch. You can now save the game and leave any time you want, returning to it later. I now remember that this was what stopped me form going into Demo earlier.



Also, a new game of the frnahcise has been just released, called Demeo Battles. In Demeo, its always cooperative game mode and one floor can cost you one hour of playing time a d every chapter has three floors to mop with monsters, in Demeo Battles you can play competeti8tvely in deadly 1v1 and 2v2 (or AI bots), the rounds, so I read, last around 20 minutes, and the playing area shrinks due to "the Burn", lava for example eating up the outer rims of the playing area and thus forcing the characters mercilessly into the centre to meet the final ultimate fight with the others. It added the save-anytime-feature that after release then got patched into the original Demeo as well.



P.P.S.
I would like to see this game principle and its technical implementation being used on some real world tac ops SWAT game or special-commandos-house-clearing game.

[Skybird]

Chess.

[long silence]

Got a chess app, finally, in VR, which is not the shabbiest, actually the interface is really nice. On Quest 3, you do not even need the controllers, can play with your bare hands, and, which made me smile and really liking it - you have a chess clock that you have to manually hit the button, like in the real world.

The visual quality is not fully up to the Quest 3's resolution, but they might change that in a future update. However, it looks good, the figurines however could need more detailed textures, and also shadows to add better depth percepetion - but dont get me wrong, two of the four boards really work very good, are not causing you eye cancer. Originally it was released in 2021 with just two room themes, meanwhile two more have been added. I found the lobby of this mansion and the park scene very enjoyable and immersive.

The AI is not perfect and certainly not the big bad bully of the block, but I have seen mostly much worse engines in these kind of chess apps that do not want to be dedicated chess engines for the semi-pro and pro market. If you are a beginner, amateur, have no special high demands, the AI will possibyl suffice you, though it is far from playing perfect uber chess form outer space - but again, I assume for many occasional fun players it might be good enough, i saw it doing some unexpected moves that were quite unconventional, but also one or two big errors, that maybe were owed to the fact I did not play at the highest setting.

Not many online players, maybe owned to the fact that two years ago they had technical problems with online that a patch has solved since then, but you know: spoil the reputation of a title on launch date, and the memory of it will be engraved in mankind's memory forever. However, this app might be ideal if you want to "target-play" with a marked certain friend from real life. You can chat, can handle the game and pieces most naturally without holding controllers and only your bare fingers, and even have a nice ambience and a chess-clock to slam your angry fist on.

I like it! If looking for a natural playing experience for chess especially on the Quest 3, this one is for you. Especially since there is only one - much, much, much worse and apparently unfinished - alternative in the Questverse.




https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FVsmKXkmSgo

[Skybird]

Demeo Master Class: the Top Gun course for this dungeon crawler: 7 videos that describe and explain each of the seven characters, so that you get an idea what their strengths and weaknesses are, their typical combat cards, possible combos, and how to play them to get best benefit from their participation in the fight. Very good videos. Also gives you a good idea what the game as a whole is about. Its more chess than a game of luck and random chance. I currently play it excessively, its highly addictive.

[Skybird]

The outstanding and excellent Eleven Table Tennis since today has cross platform/synchronization compatability for PC and Quest. It has a long time coming. Huge update.

This is relevant, since Eleven has an active online community. And some, quite many people are insanely good. Many real world players go to Eleven. No squirrels though. Its not the right sports for squirrels.

[em2nought]

My sister plays in a tennis league in a desperately hot southern city so I tried to get her to go watch some of VR Racket Club on YouTube, but she was NOT having it. She worked her whole life on a PC so putting on one of those headsets is not something she wants to do I guess. She did have fond memories of us playing Jokari way back when though.

[Skybird]

Once the Borg have taken over ,wearing those googles will not be a problem anymore.

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"Pickelball One" has seen an update that altered the physics significantly, making the ball feel more alive, reflecting easier from the paddle and ground. Before, it felt like a piece of hard plastic dropping to the floor and not wantign to jump up again, and I thought it were like that in real life (I never had a pickleball in my hand and do not know how it feels to strike it with those paddles they use), it now reminds more - but not exactly - like a mix of squash and tennis with a dripping wet ball, and I like it more now. It also is more in line with the other upcoming Pickleball simulation that the creators of Eleven currently build and which I bought in deep trust as Early Access, having no AI currently (comes this quarter), only a demo to assess their ball physics. I think both games are on their way to deliver a delightful ball physics experience, what maybe will differentiate them is their AI, Pickleball One has room for improvements, although already now it is quite enjoyable - but not full representative for the spectacular exchanges you can see in the real sport. Maybe they have it in multiplayer, so far I havent dared to test that.

Some really good sport games on offer already, lots and lots of solid fun!

[Skybird]

I just found Ocean Rift, and it makes mindblowing use of Mixed Reality. The video says it all. You can also experience all tanks and environment without the safety of your home's walls around you, but I admit that some stuff, the dark, the deep, the Big White stuff, were a bit claustrophobic and made me felt exposed beyond what I would feel comfortable with.



One may think a passive "demo" where oyu cna just swiom aorund or even just watch through the window like this is not worth the money, but the price is 10 coins and in sales even less, and I must say to me it was absolutely worth it, it is a real excellent experience. Different to two or three other relaxation VR experiences of this kind that i had over the past 5, 6 years (I never mentioned them for a reason) , this one will stay, and I intend to go back to it frequently.



Superb for demonstrating your MR VR headset to guests. It will knock them out of their shoes if they never had VR before.



I have completely underestimated Mixed Reality in the years before. Also thinking of the sports games I do in MR, and Demeo.







And this.





Finally, in the christmas sale, I decided to try out (you can give stuff back within a certain timeframe, like with Steam games) something that i did not really expected to bind my interest for long, and I was indeed prepared for refunding it. Now I stay with it, and play it more and more. Fishing. Its another almost medidative relaxation experience, and it finds a perfect balance between playability (you do not want to wait half an hour for the line to show movement from a fish testing the bait, do you...), and replicating the challenges that there may be to bring some tricky fish, big fish back home without having it breaking the line. Well, I break it often. Its more challenging in the game than a noob like me who never did fishing in real life imagined. The sceneries are fully animated, full of life, and high resolution, its absolutely soothing to be out there. The controller gives good haptic feedback, very nuanced, there is a well-working system of achievements and incentives and stuff to buy to keep you interested. So: much much better and also more value for the money than I anticipated! Just understand that this is more on the relaxed experience-side of things, not an action game. I compare it to ETS2, or the above Ocean Rfit, stuff like these. Very laid back.






How much I love my Quest 3! Another thing I had not expected: that it would take over so much from my PC VR gaming, except Racing and flightsimming I mirror PC stuff into the Quest 3 via Virtual Desktop (a must-have program).

[Skybird]

New fodder for the addiction!

[Skybird]

My goodness, The Riviera is an incredibly beautifully designed course and it's really fun to walk it, but hell, it's difficult! Every hole is a minefield, every green is riddled with nasties, the bunkers jam from left and right, there's not a tree out of the way and every path to the hole is an expression of the designer's latent sadism. I suspect the workers had to move all the earth with their bare hands on his instructions, their bones are presumably scattered everywhere just below the turf.

Great! The hardest thing I've ever played in Golf+ - and the first Hawaiian course wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. But at least that one was flat. This one now has the charm of a frozen heavy swell, with mini-golf obstacles scattered around on top.

Should I say it? 135 strikes on my first full round attempt. Thats a new record low. What could go wrong on this course, will go wrong. Every time. Its the Olympia course for 2028 I read - by the end of the day players will butcher each other in despair, I assume.
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[Skybird]

Since one of the recent updates for Quest-related tech stuff, finally the advertised link between Quest and PC works for me, both cable and cable-free (via WLAN). Its still slightly more a hassle than with Virtual Desktop, but it works now. However, often without sound for me, and the usually recommended tips how to switch options in the Quest and on PC here and there to activate this and that sound related option do not always work for me. Maybe it is a specific issue with my setup, maybe it is not, I do not really see through and understand why what is happening. - (If you try it keep on mind that your firewall on PC must allow the traffic, either define an exception rule or switch the firewall off while you make use of Link. It does not work with Firewall on).

However, sound in Virtual Desktop is no problem.

Its also no problem in the Meta Steam VR app, which links the Quest directly to the Steam installation on the PC. That comes handy, I found, it allows to play complex, hardware-stressing PC sims inside the Quest that if launched under Virtual Desktop would stutter due to the overall system load of having to run the sim and VD as well. Why the simple PC-Quest 3 link in cases of such demanding sims also stutters, but with the Steam VR uplink does not, I have no idea, its a bit mysterious or inconsistent. But yesterday I ran for the first time ever ACC in the Quest3, which I tried before, but then had stutters and finally the "ctd", whereas less demanding titles worked.

BTW, in ACC the Quest is an eye opener, literally, much better than with the G2, and absolutely no comparison to the Rift 1 from years ago. It looks unbelievably good, and very sharp and crispy. It looks also significantly better than in the G2. Those pancake lenses make all the difference.

When you run into issues with a VR title and it kicks you out, always check the pixel density per game title, to be set inside the running Steam VR app, and test to - sometimes drastically - reducing it. It solved any issues I had with the higher resolution of the G2 and now Quest 3, my system is 6.5 years old and the gfx board is a GTX-1080 TI, thats now an old card, so it faces performance limitations more often now than it did six years ago. To the eye the visible difference between having pixel density at default 100% and reducing it to 60, 50, 40 %, is harmless. At least in the modern highres headsets now, in the Rift 1 it was much more critical.

I finally found a solid pool title, Black Hole Pool. Crispy graphics, excellent physics, but the way you handle the queue in VR with two controllers is a bit bizarr, you get zoomed down to chin-over-stick position when pressing one button, and then arrest the stick with another button to then carry out your strike, but your handmovements, so that the headset can track them, must be before your face and on shoulder's height, in other words you handle the stick with your fists raised like a boxer. The best implementation of VR pool so far was to be found in Sportsclub VR, formerly known as Pool Nation VR, but that is now broken for me like for so many other players as well, which is a pity, it was a good - and social - game as long as it worked (they did not develope it further after the Rift 1 era), and it had other games as well, especially a very good air hockey sim. Regarding Pool, Black Hole is better, though the handling is eccentric. Single Player is possible, but the focus is on MP and social experience, very clearly. Its mostly for the latter part that I recommend this, even if it is still in development on the Quest 3, it has the so-called App-Lab lable, which is something like "Early Access". The player lobby however I found always to be empty. So best use this with a friend or family.






Do not underestimate the value of VR social games for indeed having a social experience - and this comes from somebody who always was and for the most still is a single player! But the experiences with my Mum, with whom I regularly play both Walkabout Mini Golf and Golf+, have taught me this and I changed my stand on this a bit. She is also consiodeirng the Angler game I mentioned some post earlier, it also has multiplayer, but she finds the menu confusing. You must not necessarily play with random foreigners, though in Eleven and Racket Club this works well for me and I had only good, polite, kind experiences with other players so far, but certain games are better suited for social contexts than others, and a casual, laid-back gaming like Pool or Minigolf or Fishing are excellent opportunities to contact for example good friends, or family members. Instead of telephoning them, you chat with them in VR, and also play a bit while chatting. I enjoy it, also due to the fact that direct, personal talks with my parents nowadays sometimes run out of topics and words after all news of the last couple of days has been traded. The playing-the-game then helps tremendously to prevent the talk getting one-sided or lacking in topics and so leading to silence. That is very precious.

Another title well-suited for this is Wander, I mentioned it before, its in principle just an interface for Google's Streetview database, its like Google Earth, just without the generic 3D interface Earth has, in Wander the navigation is done on a traditional map from which you then can jump into the Streetview images. Here one user can link his avatar to that of the "tour guide", and then automatically follows the guide's movements and navigations aroudn the world, all while the group of users can talk live with each other. Also a nice social contact setup!

Google Earth btw also can be used in the Quest withou a problem via Virtual Desktop, Cable Link, Air Link or Steam VR app link. Its spectacular.

[Skybird]

Mixed reality really can knock me out of my shoes. And since a few hours I know that I bought the wrong pool game.



Its called Miracle Pool and is still in development, can be had for free currently. It uses the graphics engine of Black Hole Pool, but already now is better than that title. That is because here you can play in uncompromised Mixed Reality. The adjusting of the time the table and handling of the queue is very, very well done, the latter thing better done than in Black Hole Pool, the armswork feels more natural. The game is intended to be played in roomscale so that you indeed can walk around the table, however, you can rotate the table via thumbsticks around its scentre so that you can stay in your place, more or less, to line up your shot. That is the way to go if your room is not big enough for that table.

I am very much impressed by this. Once finished, it could be another lighttower game for VR in general and Mixed Reality in special.

Imagine you line the table up and adjust it so that it matches the height of a real kitchen table - then you can lean on it when lining up your shot! Only First Person Tennis played in roomscale and you running in a big hall or on the grass of a big garden in real scale (yes,m you can do that) would be more curious to imagine.

There are quite some very good titles now for MR. Let nobody say the coloured MR in the Quest 3 is just an unneeded lkouxury feature. Used cleverly, it makes all the difference.

[Skybird]

Tennis in full roomscale, in a car park.