VRodeo: 04: Raw Data, Edge of Nowhere, and More

After having played it for several hours, I'd say that Edge of Nowhere is a pretty decent game. It doesn't leverage the fact that its a VR game to the same extent as other Oculus or Vive titles but it is a self-contained, complete, and well polished game that gives early adopters something decent to play. To have designed it with touch controllers in mind would have been a bit of a waste given that touch controllers aren't available yet so I don't have any truck with that. Once touch controllers become available and the install base becomes reasonable, I'd be disappointed to see a game like Edge of Nowhere tread such a conservative path. As it stands though, its solid and does what it sets out to do.

Edge of Nowhere seems like a fairly decent Tomb Raider-like game with some Dead Space thrown in. But I see no reason why it would be in VR. Admittedly, I'm one of those 3D Vision weirdoes and I like playing third-person games in 3D (Arkham Asylum in 3D is fucking amazing), so it'd be cool if they ever released a non-VR version of it.

Compared to last episode, this one didn't do much for me. Edge of Nowhere doesn't do anything new, and the VR implementation seems poor. Raw Data didn't look too much of a step up compared to other wave based games like Cosmic trip and Space Pirate Trainer. Floorplans seems neat though.

Surprised Dan didn't recognise the voice actor in Edge of Nowhere, tee hee.

@zombievac: Yea, as a fan of Rock N Roll Racing, BlazeRush is really cool.

I wouldn't say it's a particularly great version of what that sort of isometric racing game could be.. but imagine if someone did! A really cool Super Off-Road, RC Pro Am, Micro Machines.. little miniature isometric boat or jetski racing game.. look like its in a tank of water in front of you. So many neat ideas that may not be completely original, but could be so awesome and feel fresh if done in VR.

You know as neat as some VR stuff goes, and as interested and excited about VR is, I can't help but have zero desire to buy any VR product as long as the teleport movement is the key thing.

I get it, maybe it is a motion thing that can't be solved. But honestly if that can't be solved I would rather just play with a controller without VR. The teleport thing all these games have really really turn me off to VR. Contrived teleport experiences are just so many levels of uninteresting to me. I really want to like VR but I just can't until we get to a stage past that stuff. Plus as cool as some things are, honestly half of these feel like half a step above an on rail shooter,

Uninteresting in the sense of me actually buying them. Super awesome watching these hilarious videos the site makes!! Keep up the great work!

Edge of Nowhere is pretty meh in the scope of everything you can play in VR, so if it's not your very first VR game, it's not going to wow you. It demonstrates that over-the-shoulder action gaming isn't compelling in VR, or at least when it's as conservative and simplistic as EoN. (Yes, I've played it.)

VR in itself doesn't provide instant immersion. The world being depicted has to be fundamentally immersive and believable in its own terms. A lot of early VR efforts don't get that. Counterintuitively, Minecraft survival mode works really well in VR because of the depth, subtlety and beauty of its world; you lose yourself in its rhythm of life and a world that bends to your will. Normally you'd think a snazzy setpiece-driven action blockbuster like EoN would be the most compelling VR thing, but those types of experiences come off as hokey and artificial when you're actually inside of those worlds. The Disneyland-ride nature of them becomes immediately apparent, which makes the Rift/Vive feel like a fancier HDTV rather than a gateway to another world.

Jeff seeing a setpiece moment happen in front of him, and then getting frustrated that he can't explore it at will... The irony of VR is that the suspension of disbelief is even more fragile than in a traditionally rendered video game.

Reasons I love Giantbomb Nr. 1428 : The first 10 seconds of this video

@north6: It's because you feel like you are there. Your brain tells you are there. Imagine if you were just standing in your living room and suddenly the room starts moving around you. That's what it feels like in VR.

Some people can adjust to it, some people can't. It almost made me sick the first time I played non-teleporting games where you hold a control stick to move around my first time. But now I can do it without a problem. It feels a bit like surfing as weird as that sounds.

This video was a significant improvement over last week, guys. I liked the deeper dive and going into the games with a bit more experience/knowledge. It made a significant difference.

Jeff in regards to Raw Data, you do have to unlock Bulletstorm to use it. It is a bit clunky that the tutorial shows you how to use it before can actually unlock it though.

As for your guys criticism of Edge of Nowhere, I think it's just a pretty solid little game. I don't think every game on a platform has to make complete use of that platform's strength to still be a cool experience. Yes it's a much lesser VR "effect" than other VR games but it's still cool to be in the 3D world in my mind. You are right it doesn't feel as immersive as something like Raw Data, but still think it is adds something over just playing it on a regular TV screen. The sense of vertigo from the climbing is nice and the way you can pinpoint aim camera and gun with your head feels pretty good. But mainly it's just a solid classic game with some aded VR effect and I'm not sure what's wrong with that really. Why can't that also be a thing?

You guys really should check out Rec Room on the Vive. It's way more fully featured and polished than any of those other social spaces and has a lot of neat games in it like Paintball, Frisbee Golf, Dodgeball and more. And it has a nice clean Wii Mii's type of aesthetic. And it's free.

I also don't remember you guys checking out Cloudlands VR, which is a pretty solid game of VR Minigolf (I play it regularly with my friends online). Also Solus Project just came out and had a big update with improved Vive support. It's one of the most fully featured Vive games and looks great.

Love this feature. You guys are headed in the right direction with it. Someone did suggest that it would help if the person "on the couch" had at least experienced these games a bit before. Then at least they'd have some idea what it feels like. I really don't think it works the same to have them staring at the screen for no context of how it looks and feels in VR.

Can change the SteamVR window to not be "always on top" in the options if you want jason :)

HTC Vive

• 0:01:55 Raw Data
• 0:23:55 Trials on Tatooine
• 0:33:45 NVIDIA VR Funhouse

Oculus Rift

• 0:41:40 Edge of Nowhere
• 1:10:05 Floor Plan

You pretty much answered your own question. What if you could play it in significantly BETTER 3D than 3D Vision? That's what Edge of Nowhere is like in VR. It's a classic game with way better 3D than any TV or Imax or anything. For what it is, I think it's pretty cool.

There were some I think. 3D video games or CD technology, both impressive gimmicks at first, but became groundbreaking with time. With 3D video games it was inevitable (although is it just due to our perspective? Maybe VR is also inevitable?) but CD technology was in trouble due to "multimedia" garbage like CD-I or 3DO.

@devil240z: 2nd that, needs better "testing attire".

Jason I don't know if you're reading this but you can hide the SteamVR overlay inside the settings. You have to look around for a bit but there's a checkbox you can use and it will hide underneath the game windows.

Uncharted does the exact same thing with the flashlight. It follows the camera not Nathan. Nathan could be facing the camera but the flashlight will still point behind him.

@voodoopc:

Honestly when they were talking about it, i was thinking about how useless a camera in a dark room starting at an unlit section would be.

Yeah I guess it's kind of immersion breaking but I wouldn't be surprised if MOST games don't do this because it makes a lot more sense for light source to follow camera in the heat of the gameplay. Nobody wants to ever be staring at a pitch black screen.

@seikenfreak said:

Ummm... why? you might say you wouldn't have the same 3D depth effect(obviously), but it would work just fine.

Except f you mean that since it's very very basic, without that effect it would be just a really mediocre game, in which case I'd have to agree(and such is the case for every single VR game so far pretty much).

All I can think of in edge of nowhere is Kaz. Robin Atkin Downes is really doing that voice here.

@danryckert Should I shave my head?

If you're just going for 3D, I disagree. I've tried the Rift before and I don't think it adds much over 3D Vision in this instance. Videogames is the one medium where 3D displays actually work really well (I've always hated and actively boycott 3D movies). As far as I can tell Edge of Nowhere is basically that plus using your head to control the camera. Not really worth 600 bucks.

Just my opinion, of course.

how do you change your picture thing? i can't figure it out.

I think this might be my favourite GB series.

@amafi: EoN is actually pretty great, but it is largely due to showing the potential of VR within 3rd person games. While playing it I kept thinking how awesome an Uncharted would be in VR, the world just encapsulates you.

I was really impressed by the opening scene when it places you in the airplane with the guy because the animation of the other character seemed really neat.

Walking backwards was the one thing I noticed while playing through. Like I felt I got trapped into a situation and you can't really backtrack because you are walking towards the camera. I noticed the light thing, but I understand why they did that.

A SM64-style game in the vein of Edge of Nowhere sounds like a really fun idea. I'm starting to understand why people want VR to be a long term deal, really badly. Nice to see some games are starting to pay off!

@bathala said:

This is freakin hilarious. Just wait until you can fit the whole rig in the headset. You'll see idiots on the street goin' nuts like Jeff. And you thought Bluetooth phone talkers were annoying.

@terranova: It's still a very cool effect and is incredibly immersive. If I were given the choice to play a 3rd person game in 2D or VR 3D I'd choose VR everytime. While Edge of Nowhere is cool I thought Chronos was much better.

I actually really like 3rd person VR games like Lucky's Tale and Edge of Nowhere. Could they be regular games? For sure, but the easy targeting and camera control are nice bonuses. You also feel like you're in the environment so much more when it's real 3D.

The flashlight in EoN is pretty cool too, because it's always lighting where you are looking, rather than having to worry about orienting the character. For me It's nice that it doesn't light the character because that would ruin the environmental lighting, and generally you aren't facing the camera so it's not that weird.

I'm not sure why it would be weird to have subtitles in a VR game. You guys do realise that, like, deaf people need them right?

Okay, that first game (Raw Data) in the Quick Look looks reaaaaaaaaaaal fun.

They need cowboy hats and each one should start with a opening beat by Jeff in Soundstage.

For me personally, Raw Data is the first VR game I've seen in these videos and said "damn, I want to play that". Looks cool as hell. Still in no way enough to convince me to buy a headset, but it's nice seeing VR progress.

Dan is bad at improv.

Definitely exciting to see some games with some more polished mechanics!

Second reason is what I was going for.

@danryckert the proper way to pistol whip is to hit with the top of the receiver, not the bottom of the magazine. If you hit the bottom of the magazine, it will most likely break the spring in the magazine and all of your bullets with fall out leaving you with only 1 round in the chamber.

Know gun safety and no one will get hurt.

No gun safety and know someone will get hurt.

Dan and Jeff are super entertaining in these videos. Thy seem to be on the same wavelength about the game.

It's so hot where I live right now I wish I could step into a VR ice and snow world! I thought the snow sound on the game was really good. Could imagine myself being in winter.

Edit: isn't keep talking and nobody explodes in VR too? I hope we get to see that one.

Let's not forget that this isn't even VR's first run. It's already appeared, impressed and subsequently flopped once in the past. Whether that's a good sign or a bad sign...

But I also feel like we're overlooking a lot of things by being so reductive. The barrier of entry for developing these titles is much lower than we've seen with any "experimental" hardware in the past. I'm willing to bet several of the VR titles up for sale right now is some amateur programmer's first attempt at actually releasing a game. I'll say, for myself, the mere concept of VR makes me more interested in learning programming than I've ever been in the past! So, of course there'll be a lot of rudimentary titles that barely even scratch the surface of what VR can do, because they're also barely scratching the surface of general graphics and gameplay mechanics in the first place. Baby steps.

Besides that, there's a lot of subtle successes that we're not seeing for the flaws. Remember motion controls? Remember the Wii, or even better, the Kinect? Waggle controls, menus that barely even work, on-screen instructions for almost every move (and the game failing to register even when you think you're doing exactly what it says)... The Vive's doing that, now, with what looks like a near 100% success rate. You wave the controllers around, the hardware tracks them, the games interpret them as physics object and cool shit happens. Aren't we looking at a hardware gimmick that once seemed impressive, but then flopped, and then came back again some ten years later and actually made it the second time around? What's to say the entire VR experience can't pull that off given time?

Of course, my example wasn't so much a hardware launch that started off shaky and got better... I suppose it's more a concept that launches and fails and gets reinvented until it works. So I guess I'm not saying the Vive will necessarily have amazing games a year or two from now, but I'll bet you the Vive 3.0 will have some really mindblowing stuff going for it in about a decade! Until then, if I can strap a thing to my face and get freelook in Elite: Dangerous without having to buy a whole new HOTAS with even more knobs on it, then that's good enough for me.

I got a Gear VR for free with my wife's new phone, and it's neat. Of course, it's not like a proper headset, but good for showing others what VR can do.

I love how Jeff always tries to shoot himself in the face in VR.

So we've established VR adds practically nothing to the game and then you say playing it without VR would be dumb? All this sounds like to me is "there's no reason to play this game but I already spent all this money so I might as well".

@jedted: I was so sad where he didn't do it in the previous episode of VRodeo outside of the space pirate game.

Also stabbing himself with virtual swords.

@teo22: Hmm.. Not sure I said it doesnt add anything?

I was saying there are people who feel it doesnt and those who do.

I feel it does. It can take something as simple as Edge of Nowhere and make it fairly interesting and cool to experience. Without VR, it is nothing special.

Excuse me while I go buy not one, but two 1080s for the proper VR Funhouse experience.

Great work GiantBomb crew! I love these!! My Vive library grows each time I watch one of these :)

For me, the only interesting game was the last one. VR has a long way to go it seems before it becomes the next go to form of video game entertainment.

@davekap: awesome! I'll go and check it out. Thank ya!

I wonder why they didn't mention how the textures in Raw Data looked like garbage. Maybe they had to run it on low settings and didn't want to draw attention to it? But I noticed it right away and was thinking about it the whole time.

As a huge Star Wars fan, the presentation of Trials on Tatooine was really cool, but man that is such a nothing thing.

Green-screen Jeff flashing in and out of view made for a pretty funny transition. I like it.