Taking training for the zombie apocalypse to the next level
Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see a sinister shape lumbering towards you from the depths of the murky sewers. Your heart skips a few beats—it’s a zombie!
With a few well-timed shots from your shotgun, the threat is neutralized in a heart-pounding and bloody one-on-one.
This probably doesn’t sound like a typical morning for most people, but if killing zombies sounds like a good way to start your day, then you can experience it—or a multitude of other wacky encounters—for yourself through virtual reality gaming.
For the unfamiliar, virtual reality is a type of video game hardware that allows you to experience and interact with an incredibly realistic environment through a first-person perspective via a futuristic-looking headset.
Virtual reality arcades have started to pop up around the area, including the new Ctrl V arcades in Waterloo and Guelph. These video game havens make gaming much more of a social experience, giving patrons the chance to get out of the basement and take a break from solo gameplay. They also provide screens so that you can watch your friends play and cheer them on, or deride them, as you see fit.
The games that are offered at these arcades are so immersive and engaging that you’d swear you were really there, breathing in the air of the game’s unique and often frightening worlds.
For instance, when playing survivor-shooter games such as The Brookhaven Experiment, the zombie shoot-em-up mentioned above, there is a constant element of suspense and terror as a fully 3D-rendered enemy can leap out at you at any moment.
For all the player knows, the enemies are actually there in front of them, and the fight is almost too real. It becomes a much more personal, intense experience when you’re right there in the action, fighting with your own two hands and not just viewing it on a television screen from the obvious safety of your room.
When you experience virtual reality, you can’t help but reflect on just how far video games have come. It is truly remarkable how video games have changed from relatively simple 8-bit romps to fully immersive, fully realized worlds.
We used to have to overlook the limitations of the technology when playing video games and use the power of your imagination to fill in the gaps. Essentially, you would have to pretend that you were in the game’s world. Now, with the power of virtual reality, you can actually live in that world yourself. Technology has bridged the gap between your imagination and the experience.
The difference between playing a game like Doom on a traditional console, and immersing oneself in VR world of The Brookhaven Experiment is mind-blowing to say the least. It has been the dream of countless kids to finally enter that world behind the television screen and take on those nefarious baddies: and now it is finally possible.
Video games most assuredly have come a long way from their humble 2D side-scrolling beginnings, and virtual reality arcades exemplify this perfectly. Who knows where things will go from here?
Photo by Mirali Almaula/The Ontarion.