VR is finding its way back into the news more and more this year. We have had a little discussion about the Oculus Rift device which has been praised by numerous game developers. A little under a year ago we ran a story about the unveiling of a new VR amusement game called “Sci-Shoota” by MocapGames. It went through some development changes including a slight name change but all said and done, the MocapGames Pod is now available, returning the promise of VR back to the amusement scene.
In addition to the VR aspect, this also includes a personal overlay device which is used for zero-lag, 1:1 motion mapping of a player’s arms. Because of the need for putting the gear on an attendant is required and thus its not technically a coin-op game, although it certainly can be installed into various amusement facilities as an attraction piece. The best explanation for how it all works is provided by the videos below. There is more than one game available for it too – while the arena deathmatch game Sci Shooter has received most of the attention so far, the MocapGames website also lists a climbing game called Hang Tough. They also have a game that is simply called Zombies in development and listed as coming soon for the platform. Aside from those mentions there is no video of them in action yet however. I’m sure that the development of more content will depend a great deal on how many Pods are sold but there is certainly some potential for content to be found here, just watching the shield play in Sci Shooter gives me an idea for something like a first-person Breakout (or to be more specific, the mostly forgotten Robo-Squash). Or even a first-person VR version of Venture would be neat. I’m sure they are cooking up a few things on the software side of this.
The first video here shows the Sci Shooter tutorial. It doesn’t look like a complicated game but any time you have new tech like this you need some in-your-face instruction for newcomers. The second video shows some location testing of the device in Europe. That video also suggests that 6 Pods can be linked together although the website has an updated figure of 10. So far however, I’ve only seen pics/video of two units together.
