I tried VR and didn't like it...

I got tho play around with the Vive at a friend's house. I couldn't have been more excited about it at the time. My only prior experience was with a phone based system and well, that one didn't really impress me all that much. But messing around with a Vive hooked onto a extremely powerful PC? Now that was going to give me the best VR experience out there. My buddy is a real believer as well so he made sure I was extra hyped. He said that I would be blown away and he was sure that I would immediately want to buy my own set. So I strapped on the set and plugged in the earplugs. Hook me up, I'm going in!

Well kinda sorta in that is. When I turned my head the headset would loose tracking and I would get a blue screen. Also only one of the controllers seemed to work. Houston, we have a problem. So cue about an half hour of us fiddling around to get the thing working. There had been a firmware update, maybe that was the problem? Or is one of the cables loose? The software was not really helpful, it would show the base stations connecting and then disconnecting but didn't give us a clear fault message. I was almost ready to give up but then someone found that the base stations were not put in the right mode and that was why the system got all wonky. Right then, let's get back in.

The first game I tried was some sort of zombie shooter. You choose your gun and then wave after wave of zombies would get right in your face. I'm still not sure why my friend chose this game as my first experience. I was kinda impressed by the "VRness" of it all but the game was not really grabbing me. It was kinda freaky to have a life-sized zombie right in my face though.

Then I tried The Lab as I knew that this would give me the best sense of what the Vive is capable of in technical terms. And yeah this was way more impressive. The graphical fidelity and scale of the environments were much better and the level of interactivity with the environment was really cool. I had a lot of fun with it but after about an hour I kinda had seen it all. It's a cool tech demo though.

My buddy then insisted that I had to try some VR porn. And well, that was kinda weird. I found myself sitting in a chair inside another dude's body. Two ladies came out and started to put their boobs right in my face. It was like I was looking trough a fish-eye lens, especially when they got real close to my face. When one girl finally climbed on top of the dude I burst out laughing. The sensation of seeing a woman doing it with a body that was supposed to be my body but without any physical sensation was just bizarre. Also my buddy was waving the controllers around in the background and that made the whole thing even more hilarious. I'm sure there is a market for this stuff but other then a good laugh I got nothing out of it.

Finally I checked out some sort of social game (not Recroom). Again this was pretty hilarious. The only game that had any players was a sort of frisbee golf game. The interactions I had with other players would range from impromptu shootouts to awkward conversations in broken English. There was also and area were you could 'sculpt' in 3d. There they gave me free movement and thus I got motion sick immediately. Take me out now! I'm ready to pop!

Overall the whole experience left me rather cold on VR. The technical issues, the grainy visuals, the sickness, the sub par software... There are just so many things that pushed me away from wanting to buy a VR set. Some of it will be resolved in later iterations I'm sure but at this point it all feels like a really expensive gimmick. I also have strong reservations about what kind of games are actually doable in VR. Action games with lots of movement are out of the question for me because my stomach really cant take it. And I'm really not interested in playing shooting gallery games were you teleport around. The social gaming part can be hilariously funny but I can't see myself spending a lot of time in those either. So yeah VR may not be for me. I will gladly give it another go when the new generation of headsets come around but for now I'm out.

Me too, I tried a birthing demo at EGX Rezzed and felt very uncomfortable by something. I do have a serious eye condition but I was told by the rep it shouldn't make any difference.

The demo saw me playing a women who gives birth to either a boy or girl, after selecting your own and your partners characteristics. I was made to wear a strange suit with light reflecting balls. I nearly threw up over a crowd of people after the demo finished, and the rep styled it out by saying I had morning sickness.

In the 90s I tried Virtuality, since then I've been waiting for the major breakthrough. I feel like the wait goes on, which is sad.

The Vive is some impressive-ass hardware, but the software lineup means I'm more than happy to keep using my friend's every month or two. As for standout Vive games, I'm personally a big fan of Space Pirate Trainer, largely because it feels really nice to be physically dodging incoming shots. I've had a near-perfect experience with the head and hand tracking in all games.

As for the future (since you seem to be in the wait-and-see camp), The GB gang mentioned the potential for something like a VR Black and White, which I think would be a great use of the tech -- even the controller-bound AirMech VR is pretty rad. I think the real limiting factor for VR is going to be movement. Vive games typically rely on teleporting, and having done some playtesting for a PSVR game that had more traditional joystick movement, I can say that teleporting is MUCH nicer on my stomach. As such, I think it'd be a real shame if folks simply tried to make VR games that are effectively "traditional" games but now in VR instead of really building from the ground up to play to the strengths and shortcomings of VR. It'd be a bummer if all we have in two years are a bunch of games where folks said "it's a shooter, since people like non-VR shooters, but you just jump around because hey VR," but I guess we'll never know unless the hardware catches on.

I enjoyed watching netflix on my gearVR until my neck started hurting lol. All the games cost money and i just wanted to try them first before wasting ten bux. If they ever get the size of the headsets down to like glasses size i could see it being better for me. I wouldn't have enough room for anything like the Vive, but i'd love to mess around with it one day. VR also seems like a cool way to watch 3d video as it's self contained , but again instead of stupid glasses you have stupid headset on your face lol.

To each his own I got my Rift this year and been replaying some of my old favorite games in VR and it was almost everything I dream of. It's could be better of course no screen door effect higher res less glare wireless lighter headset ect..But just replaying F.E.A.R. my favorite FPS of all time in VR was a dream come true. I didn't need motion controls to feel immerse although I'm sure I'll get touch eventually. But going back to your favorite games in VR is almost magical as corny as that sounds it's true.

Well it sounds like you were shown kind of the sub-par stuff. He showed you "some zombie shooter" rather than Raw Data or Space Pirate Trainer. He showed you some other social thing that wasn't Rec Room. He's showing you Duke Nukem Forever when he could show you Doom. I honestly don't know about porn (I swear...), but it kinda doesn't sound that great just yet. Also, play budget cuts.

Other than the initial set-up, my Vive has been pretty technically sound. I've had to reboot a few times when I first go into steamVR, but the tracking has been basically flawless.

Don't give up on it yet. I really enjoy mine and everybody I've shown it to, whether they are interested in games or not at all, have been very stoked on it. You just have to be shown the right stuff and the setup needs to be ironed out beforehand.

I've had my Vive two weeks, no tracking problems and haven't felt even a tiny bit motion sick. It's great.

I felt the setup process was very intuitive and there's plenty of good stuff to play on the Vive.

If you are having tracking problems still I think your friend might have it set up wrong, having them tilted downwards and optimally covering your area of play is important!

I would definitely keep an open mind. You sound like you had the odds stacked against you pretty hard core. Few truly good experiences and technical issues that are not normal.

Or maybe it really isn't for you but it sounds like it wasn't the VR you didn't like but what was done with it. Sooner or later that will get better.

Until then, we all have Handibot.