Random Gaming Thoughts

[Anapan]

For most people to be immersed, and not get motion sickness, VR headsets need 90+FPS with real-time head tracking at the least. Add to that the screen-door effect most headsets have with their resolution, and optimizing a fully interactive world with many users... It's still beyond most common gaming platforms. That, and the cost.
Most successful VR apps are still at PS1 level graphics so the cellphone-based innards of the most common VR platform can even try to keep up with the graphics.

[Limewater]

We occasionally take the kids to a local VR gaming place. Their setups are a couple of years old, but they're in the HTC Vive line and were about $1700 new, not including the PC that each set is hooked to.

On that higher-end setup some of the games look really good.

But this is a pretty involved system. Overhead cables on rollers run down to the headset at the center of the playfield, and you need a 10x10ft open area to use it. Additionally, it's not trivial to get all set up with the headset and hand grips.

And the hand grips somewhat limit interactivity.

Overall, I feel like it would be a lot of expense and a pain in the butt to buy, set up, and operate a rig like this at home. And it's a big enough pain to deal with my son pitching fits over normal games.

We had my son's birthday party at the VR place a couple of months ago. They only have fix bays, so he was limited on the number of friends he could invite. Two of the kids ended up scared to try it the whole time, so their dads played and had a great time.

[RCBH928]

I should have been more clear, I meant virtual worlds like Second Life that you can operate using a controller or keyboard and mouse. PS Home Second Life is exactly what I am talking about. Not the headset, although I can see the headset should have been picked up by now.

I am looking at screenshots and PS Home from 2007 looks so much better than Second Life which looks like The Sims from the year 2000. One would think things would be much more advanced 16 years later.

----

Speaking of it, I think there is a place for arcades to come back if they get realistic vehicles/devices that you can operate like real life machines. I know there was a set of Mario Kart karts arcade where you can compete with others. There is a lot of posibilities, fighter planes wars, flying commercial planes, Mechas , F1 cars...and I am not talking about that stuff that is a plastic mold with a steering wheel, I am talking real life replicas especially if it had online gameplay to play against other arcades. People can register user names and have a whole list of top scores just like back then and compete world wide.

Two of the kids ended up scared to try it the whole time, so their dads played and had a great time.

[Syndicate]

...I've been thinking about "filler" games lately. Mainly b/c I've reached the point in my Genesis collection where quite a few of the games I'd like to add are seriously expensive, I looked up the cost of a CIB copy of El Viento early today and quickly checked the price on something else. I was very close to picking up a copy of Greendog and Eternal Champions over the weekend (and I'm not a completionist), both games as well know can generously described as middling . I ended up doing some different things game wise and I try to only buy what I want to play regardless of console, does anyone else think about padding their collections w/suspect games

...oh yeah, I probably will grab a copy of EC at some point

[o.pwuaioc]

...I've been thinking about "filler" games lately. Mainly b/c I've reached the point in my Genesis collection where quite a few of the games I'd like to add are seriously expensive, I looked up the cost of a CIB copy of El Viento early today and quickly checked the price on something else. I was very close to picking up a copy of Greendog and Eternal Champions over the weekend (and I'm not a completionist), both games as well know can generously described as middling . I up doing some different things game wise and I try to only buy what I want to play regardless of console, does anyone else think about padding their collections w/suspect games

...oh yeah, I probably will grab a copy of EC at some point

The last handful of Genesis games I want are ridiculous, especially Crusader of Centy. No way it should by as pricey as it is, and yet here we are.

[Limewater]

I up doing some different things game wise and I try to only buy what I want to play regardless of console, does anyone else think about padding their collections w/suspect games

I don't really have any interest in padding my collection with games I know I'll never want to play. I've never felt the urge to collect complete sets of anything. I buy games to play them, even if I haven't gotten around to some games I bought twenty years ago...

That said, I do buy "bad" games if there is something interesting about them. Some bad games are special for other reasons. Operation Secret Storm is not a great game, though I've played worse. I bought it (a long time ago, when it was cheap) because it's hilarious that it exists.

I bought Deadly Towers because I actually wanted to play it.

[Syndicate]

That said, I do buy "bad" games if there is something interesting about them. Some bad games are special for other reasons. Operation Secret Storm is not a great game, though I've played worse. I bought it (a long time ago, when it was cheap) because it's hilarious that it exists.

I bought Deadly Towers because I actually wanted to play it.

...interesting, I guess that's sort of the way I feel about Eternal Champions. I never thought it was, well terrible, though it wasn't on par w/its peers. I still feel it did some interesting things story wise and I really like the soundtrack for some reason. I still feel like the series actually had some potential.

[RCBH928]

As a mac user, I finally got my hands on a windows laptop that has Nvidia MX2 chip in it (not sure if good or bad). Feels nice that you can run any game you want. I don't understand programming but it amazes me that I can play games released 10-20-30 years ago by just double clicking the icon and it works! Also, Serious Sam still looks amazing IMO. I am a fan of this type of graphics similar to Blood II. I bet it was mind blowing at release. I have set the video to 640x480 (Default) , didn't feel the need to increase the resolution as it looks pretty nice. I think maybe Doom and their clones are set to 640 but they are much worse. Although I didn't play it at release, I must say any one who would make a revisit would really meet his expectation to "This is how I remember it looked"

[Anapan]

I remember the MX2! Neat that you got that vintage and enjoy it.
You can enjoy doom at double resolution - 640x400 or 640x480 with the right recompilation (even the official Win95 build from 1996). The OG is locked to 320x200, so it will look low resolution despite your laptop running it effortlessly as the program is forced into that resolution due to the optimizations they precompiled it with.
If you want some suggestions of what your particular laptop can do, I'd enjoy the nostalgia and take part in a separate thread after you describe what exact hardware you acquired. I have found some recompilations of some games that I think your laptop might excel at running. It's always fun to push machines to their limit and enjoy the era of gaming they were designed for. The 2000s era is one of my favorites in PC gaming.

[marurun]

Y’know folks, I think I might be the only Mario fan here. Sure, people say they like Mario games or have fun playing them, but nobody says they’re a fan. Nobody outright and explicitly says they are a Mario fan, even though it’s obvious they love the property. This clearly means I’m technically the only fan.