koifish

I sympathize with that, but suggest perhaps another insight that may help you out. When I first used VR for games, I found that I became nauseous after about 20 minutes of play. As I kept playing, however, I found that I slowly improved, and for every subsequent game that granted me motion sickness, I would come back the next time able to handle it without problems. What I'm getting at is that, in my experience, people can definitely adjust and become more comfortable with VR. I'm not saying to go out and buy it now, but I would suggest giving it some more tries in the future. You might find that your body adjusts to it with more exposure.

You lost some boosters there it seems. Still, really interesting, and not something I would have expected. Figure somebody will turn up with Drac's head from #2 next?

Besides the obvious disclaimer that this post is my own opinion, let me start by saying that I first experienced VR through student projects in university, around 2014-2015. That was very early days back then, you were cool just to tilt your head and have it notice Still, playing Doom with a 3D motion-detection helmet was really cool, even if it did destroy the illusion of 3D created by the 2D character sprites. Since 2017, I've owned the following: HTC Vive Oculus Rift Oculus Quest I've also used a few cheaper items, like a Gear VR or Google Cardboard, but I did not own them myself. The HTC Vive had great tracking, but that was about all I liked tbh. The controllers were by far the worst part, they had almost no inputs, an unnatural shape, and also featured the terrible touch pads, which Valve was obsessed with for several years. This basically made it so that vive was only good for simulating guns, swords, or amputees. Also, the screen door effect was more notable than on Rift, which may have been just a difference in how they chose to render things, since Rift had IIRC the same eye screens. I sold the vive less than a year after I bought it, mostly because I tried a friend's Rift and became convinced that oculus knew better what they were doing than valve did. I bought the Rift maybe early 2018? It's tough to remember, I was fed up with VR after the Vive, but then convinced that developing VR games might be fun, so I bought a Rift. The main thing I praised it for was the controllers, Oculus Touch pads blew the Vive wands out of the water. They had actual inputs, a natural shape, and felt like you could do more than just pretend to hold stiff rods with fake hands on the end. I know some people have complained that original touch controllers were too small for their hands; I personally didn't have that problem, as my hands are long and slender. Either way, they released new touch controllers which have no hand wrap, so that issue sort of died away (even if IMO the new controllers aren't quite as good). The biggest problem with Rift was the setup. The cameras are much more clunky than the vive sensors in my experience. To be fair, the vive sensors had better placement in the room in which I used them (where I am now is not where I was then) and some do tell me that they have better experience with rift sensors than with vive sensors. Either way, I've had trouble. Also, I found the oculus software to be tempramental. Too often it would lose my settings or just behave oddly. Finally, being wired got old. I never noticed until I bought a quest, but wired VR is like a halfway experience compared to wireless. I imagine there's an adapter for that, but still, it's a problem on the base model. So that brings us to the Quest. I bought one of those on release, because I know a guy (who knows a guy) and got to try a quest dev kit several months before it launched. Pretty much as soon as I used it, I was in love. The reasons? Extremely easy setup. Put it on, set up your environment, and you're ready to play, almost never more than 30 seconds required. Compare to any camera tracking VR system and it's just insulting to them. Wireless. As stated before, I realized how much of a game changer wireless was for VR. Yes, you can buy adapters for PC VR to be wireless, but that's a lot more expensive, which leads me to Price, quest is to me a perfect entry point for a VR system price-wise. It's enough that you don't get total junk hardware, but low enough that you can make it a buy like a console, as opposed to the significant investment in hardware you'll be making to get a proper PC VR setup. Homebrew. It's pretty easy to dev on PC VR too, but it's also easy to sideload apps for Quest, and there is already some interesting stuff. Since it's "just" quest as well, you don't have to wrestle with any oddities that for me have popped up in the PC VR world, ie. where a dev made something for Vive but didn't make Rift support since he didn't own it, or vice-versa. Portable. This was a winner for me, as packing, unpacking, setting up PC VR was killing me even with just the rift's small sensors. I can't imagine doing it proper with a Vive setup. I carry my quest in a small laptop bag (with a small pillow over the visor opening to guard the lenses) and it travels easily. The main problems are as people said, battery life is not super long, and also, because it is basically a souped up android phone, the games won't wow in comparison to what you can do on PC VR. Also, you cannot use it in dark rooms, unless you have an IR light source (which you can buy in places), which can put a damper on watching a movie in bed while your partner sleeps. To me overall, however, the pros outweigh the cons. I've had way more fun with the games I got for quest, if only because the experience of using the hardware was that much better. PSVR, I've been sort of interested, but I haven't tried it yet. The biggest perk here is that it's Sony, who not only promotes outside development for their console (comparable to oculus and way more so than valve), but they are also able to convince bigger Japanese developers to care, those two forces combining to mean that you will get games there that just won't come out elsewhere. That said, I have concerns about the camera setup and about the controllers. The PS Move controllers aren't the best IMO, they don't even have joysticks, and IMO they weren't that good with PS3, so I don't know that I'd go for them on PSVR. Also, going to cameras and to wires, and from what I've heard, the most restrictive camera/wires of any current major VR platform, that concerns me a lot. Full motion is where many of the most exciting moments occur, so it would suck to go back to the old ball and chain of wires and camera sensors. Ultimately, I won't say I don't think you should get PSVR, however, I will say that perhaps you should wait. Sony has already said that they will keep PSVR support for the PS5. That means, at the very least, that it isn't going anywhere for the immediate future. On top of that, Sony has made some patents lately for new VR tech, including headsets which do inside-out tracking instead of relying on cameras. It's possible that PSVR will get a big upgrade in the coming years, and that it will remove some of the issues present in the current iteration. Given that possibility, I would choose to wait and see if they make a new model. If they do, you can get a better experience, or buy the PSVR original model more cheaply. If they don't, then PSVR should still be cheaper than it is now. For me, the quest is an easy choice for a VR headset. Cheap enough to be not horrible on the wallet, good enough to supply some entertainment, and more versatile than PC VR for, well, actually using VR. The free nature of the hardware has meant that I've used it way more than I ever used PC VR, because the PC VR was "only" for games to me, whereas I feel that I've gotten a variety of uses out of the quest hardware. If I were to choose between the two, I would definitely pick the Quest, unless you already owned a PS4 and definitely had specific games you really wanted to play now. I suspect that the latter will have an upgrade in the next two years, so maybe keep your eyes open and see if it gets new hardware. Anyway, that's the end of my long long post, I hope my insights have proved valuable to you.

Maybe I should write a short guide on how I beat it, if it would please the members to know the tricks I used. Started this past weekend, I'm about halfway through A-Mazing Tater. it's a surprisingly fun game, I didn't think I'd like it as it gave me lolo vibes, and no offense to LoLo Lords out there, but it just wasn't my game. Despite that, this one is really entertaining. I think I might also try and play through Cool Ball as well, it seems interesting. Hold me accountable though, I really do feel like I should beat Cyraid and Alfred Chicken this year, so please pester me about it in mid/late December if I haven't already cleared them.

Another clear, finally beat Bomberman GB. The final boss has three phases and doesn't really allow for error, but with practice, I found a tactic to beat each one, and was rewarded with the story of how bomberman went through all this trouble, found a ring, and then said "nah, let's leave it behind". The credits scroll was lengthy, a poignant reminder that even seemingly simple GB games required a lot of effort from many people to be created. Hopefully another fun game will be had soon, I'm not sure what but I've got enough in progress that it shouldn't be hard bgb00039.bmp

I've chosen to join the fun.

You want to talk about games that could have used more polish given the NFL license, I think Konami's NFL Football is possibly a bigger contender, just because that game is probably one of the more painful football games I've ever played. I wouldn't be surprised if I heard that it had been rushed for release. If I recall correctly, it even mixes up Cleveland and Cincinnati on the US map. Bionic Battler is done. There's no win screen, just five levels of different difficulty, and you get "rewarded" with money that doesn't actually do anything and doesn't really accrue anywhere. Attached is a screen of the final win screen for Level 5. Themost important thing to do with this game is just be slow and methodical. The manual also soundly advises you to 1) hit and run, and 2) charge the B-button missile shot up as you move. I will add to it that the enemy robots seem to have patterns for their movement, if you never engage them (which seems to happen if you directly interrupt their movement path) then they shouldn't ever give you a huge amount of trouble. Just pull back the instant they begin to shoot or punch you, however, or you will likely take too much damage from sitting in their shooting zone. I didn't notice, but as of Dig-Dug, that makes 40 games for me. I told myself many months ago it would be great to hit 50 games, but I don't think it will happen at this rate. We'll see how far I can get. bgb00035.bmp

Finished Dig-Dug the other day, New Dig-Dug was a contest of patience more than anything. I had to do a lot of retries to clear levels, but in the end, 40 levels with 4 more-or-less identical boss fights wasn't too bad at all. I'm trying to decide what to move to next, maybe I'll try again to beat the Bomberman final boss, or I'll go back to Ninja Boy 2, or pick up Konami's Ultra Golf. Hard to say for now.

It returns! Alas, I haven't finished any GB games in a while. I might come back now, in honor of VGS rebirth. I know I had several games in-progress, I will continue to work through them.

Sounds great! I'll look forward to it.

All I want a proper successor to Lost Planet 2. The game was incredible but had some rough edges that led to it being criminally underappreciated. A sequel that could polish up the problems would have been great, but alas, the Lost Planet 3 we got was total rubbish. I want them to just forget LP3 ever happened and give us a "proper" LP2 followup instead.

I don't think I'd like it as a game, but I find it really intriguing, and I am tempted to play it. Alas, I don't have a PS4 and don't plan on owning one for a long time. I'll probably just watch some friends play it while slowly getting more drunk and chucking peanut gallery comments here and there. I'm a fan of experimental games, and the message I've seen portrayed as being a central core of the plot is actually one that I believe in myself, but I have a suspicion that I wouldn't care to play more than a few hours at most of the game.

Most of them are games where I played them primarily for the multiplayer. Examples include Quake and TimeSplitters Future Perfect (though in my defense, that game has a LOT of stuff to finish in it). I also have a bad habit of getting to the end and then not finishing it. I think it's a sensation of not wanting it to end. I've done that with TV shows too. I find myself in it, wishing I had more to enjoy, but knowing the only thing left to do is to beat the game and complete your 100% items checklist. Metroid Prime was a good example, I loved it but I didn't beat the final boss until 17 years after I first played it.