So, here's the first tiny bit of VR content I'm adding to the page.
I just tried out the app "vTime" or "VTime" or "VTIME" or whatever. It deserves more respect than what I'm giving it by not looking up the proper spelling of its name, because it's incredible. It's a VR space (and I'm resisting the urge to put the word "space" in quotes, because it'll get tiresome quickly. There are all kinds of new words and definitions and refitting of words that will come because of this...hmm...new form of media? Entertainment? All that stuff. Anyway...) where you...well, I'll just start at the beginning.
So, you load up the app, and it puts you in the middle of a rushing river. Really pretty looking, surprisingly high quality for the Gear VR, where the graphics can be really hit or miss. Very bright and realistic. From there, it lets you create your avatar. I made him look like me (poor fella), and then it has a bit of a walkthrough that tells you how to navigate and make friends. You can choose "random", thankfully, as I don't have any VR friends. I had some random guy join me and off we went to the magical destination of my choosing to do something that I had never experienced before. No, I'm not re-writing that sentence.
I chose the Arctic style backdrop, and after just a second, it loaded in. Same quality as the intro scene. Absolutely breathtaking. I mean breathmaking. You see, this is a VR Chat room, so me and dude are just sitting there in the cold, literally looking at each other, and looking around, and pointing things out, and ACTUALLY talking to each other. He was cool. And so was the virtual air around us, because every time you speak, you can see your own virtual breath in front of you. Fucking rad. After kinda looking around for a bit and chatting about how fucking rad it was that we were looking around and chatting, I decided to move us to another location, upon my new friend's suggestion. So we decided to go to outer space.
After another quick load (I'm not re-writing that, either), we were sitting in lawn chairs on the outside of an arm of a space station, and just looking around and talking and "fucking rad-ing", until another guy (also really cool) joined us. I yelled out, "Holy crap, there's a space ship landing or taking off or something!"- first friend asked where, and I just naturally said, "to your left, over your shoulder". I watched his avatar look to his left, over his shoulder and he "holy shit-ted".
Then my Gear VR decided I was having too much fun, and gave me the always buzz-killing, "Your Gear VR is so hot that it's going to melt you and everyone you know and love", so I tapped the touchpad to dismiss the notification and told my new friends goodbye.
That's it, I'm going to invest in some cooling gel packs or something.
All this took place over the course of just a few minutes, and it sent my mind racing about the possibilities of MMO's or really the direction any kind of social gaming is going to go. Yet again, amazed at the possiblities and the execution.
Highly recommended. Oh, and it's free. Come virtually holla at yo boy.
Edit: I tried again, and it turns out I misremembered a couple details. The very beginning is not in a rushing river, it's in a ...hmm...museum-y space? I also ended up chatting with a few new people. Even though I hadn't played but for a few minutes, I became their guide, showing them all the different environments. I was talking to a guy from Ireland, a guy from Somewhere, US, and a guy from Mexico City. Mexico City guy had a loud TV going on in the background, which made it funny because his avatar was gesturing and moving his mouth to the background noise. Second experience, by the way, still awesome.
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