I got to test a short demo for Overkill’s The Walking Dead using a Star VR headset during E3 2015. All I really have to say is holy sh*t that was the best four-minute game demo ever. As I previously stated in another VR demo review, I suffer from motion sickness. It prevents me from playing first-person shooters for extended periods of time. It sucks, but I can work around it by adjusting the controls.
What I liked about the Star VR headset is it gives your a 210 degree field of view, which means your peripheral vision is covered. You don’t have to turn your head to see what’s next to you with the Star VR, which likely helped my motion sensitivity. I didn't feel dizzy after playing The Walking Dead game.
Anyway, The Walking Dead game demo was pretty short, but it was enough to show you what the VR headset can do. They had me sit in a wheelchair and asked me if they could jerk the chair around towards the end. I said yes because why not get the full experience? Once I sat down I was given a short tutorial on how to use the remote shotgun hooked up to the game. You had to pump back and forward to reload between shots.
Simple enough, right? The demo began in a dark room. It appeared to be in a hospital. I can hear a woman and a man arguing. The man wants to leave you behind while the woman is pleading my case. I looked down and realized I was sitting in a wheelchair and missing a leg. Sh*t got a little too real at that moment.
The woman “pushed” me through a dimly-lit hallway. The experience was incredible. I felt my heart rate go up and my palms got sweaty. Things quickly go awry and the man (both in the game and outside of game) hands me a shotgun. The Star VR tracking made it feel like I was one with the shotgun. The tracking registered my moves with the shotgun- if I put the gun down in real life, it went down in the game.
The thing about the VR headset is everyone’s first instinct is to reach out and touch what’s in front of them. Once you realize you’re limited to visual, you’re taken out of the VR experience. The Star VR headset never too me out of The Walking Dead game. Before I knew it, I was making headshots and killing zombies coming at me from every direction. Not being able to see behind me made it even more nerve-racking when they began to swarm me.
Eventually I ran out of ammo and I watched as the zombies crawled towards. My instinct was to use the gun to get the zombies off me, but too many were coming at me. I put the gun on my lap, put my hands up and may have let out a tiny scream. Star VR made a lasting impression at E3 2015, and I'm excited to see what they come up with next.
