Remember an old Edge letter to the mag where someone mentioned the idea of new games where you play a lawyer or a doctor and can save someone's life as either. This was circa 2003/04 before DS gave rise to (translated) Phoenix Wright and Trauma Centre doing exactly that.

A VR surgery game would be awesome. You would need 3D spatial sensing of hands though, and you just manually pick up virtual implements. Hell, just make it a VR tool using game.

An astronaut on a spacewalk repairing a panel outside the ISS.
A formula 1 driver in the cockpit.
A single-person diving simulator, or spec-ops diver planting limpet mines.
A first person bird game. Simulate flight by using your arms/hands to adjust angle of attack of the wings. Which are in real birds controlled by their fingers anyway.
A bomb disposal technician.
A crime scene investigator, manipulating in 3D potential traces of evidence.

Basically VR and fine control input would let you do stuff that current games only let you do via "press A to complete objective" inputs.

Brooks wrote:

Honestly my strongest suspicion is that the most successful VR games are going to more neatly resemble text-adventures/IF than most other formats.

I completely agree, in fact the most evocative and well made IF games would be the best analogues to the strongest VR experiences in spirit and kind of in nature too, absolute departure from anything you'd been asked to interact in before. In an intellectual, perceptual and/or emotional etc way, not fuck the demon jelly goat way. Not that I ever played fuck the demon jelly goat IF

Games where you possess different people/beings would be really interesting in VR. Possess an OAP and maybe your vision is blurred and hearing filtered, possess an eagle or a bat or something and experience the enhanced senses and time dilation.

Brooks wrote:

Honestly my strongest suspicion is that the most successful VR games are going to more neatly resemble text-adventures/IF than most other formats.

The Witness for me - slow pace, immersive (hopefully) puzzle world thing. 
Clean line, low noise art aesthetic focusing more on shape, silhouette, flat colour and nice lighting; rather than obsessing over texture density and real world grit, dirt and high frequency environment noise.

Haha nice, Chump. Double whammy

Surgeon Simulator supports Wavy Wavy btw

djchump wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Honestly my strongest suspicion is that the most successful VR games are going to more neatly resemble text-adventures/IF than most other formats.

The Witness for me - slow pace, immersive (hopefully) puzzle world thing.  Clean line, low noise art aesthetic focusing more on shape, silhouette, flat colour and nice lighting; rather than obsessing over texture density and real world grit, dirt and high frequency environment noise.

Absolutely, one of the most important things i've found on the OR regarding how to digest artwork is that if it's high density information the pace has to be extremely slow, or completely up to you, and even then without some strong tangible locational movement and focus it can get very annoying quickly. Being lost in an environment in VR with a lot of eye-noise going on can generate a psychic scream + take headset off + 'fuck that'.

Noisy FPS games do this very easily, Half Life 2 gets called boring yet the way it so naturally fits the VR mindset in so many ways for a game genre really not harmonious with it makes it supernaturally prescient seeming. If any of you get the chance, give it a go (be sure to play with controller settings until one suits you absolutely), you'll reach some bits (In fact the opening few minutes manage this spectacularly but there are many more further in) that you'll think 'how did they not do this with VR in mind'. Not even great big awe inspiring things either, sometimes eery serene moments of space and 'presence'

LazyGunn wrote:

Vela wrote:

Nice to see some of my ideas are so obvious as to have already been experimented with. The problem is they demonstrate the economic reality of the future of VR, but the potential is immense.

Not sure what this means really, it's not an economic event yet, it's only available in devkit, prototype or DIY form

It means that - using that bird simulator as an example, it is going to be prohibitively expensive to get many of these concepts into a form that can sell well and recoup costs.

I'm sold on the idea that the platform has ample potential. I'm not convinced that it will be able to create a profitable market which can take advantage of that potential. In a way, like the Wii.

dynamiteReady wrote:

Vela wrote:

The wiimote as a pointer is basically a mouse where the pad is the 2D plane of space facing the TV. Incredible accuracy and fluidity of control; in my opinion second to none.

Hence the thread.

I think it's dropped in prominence way to soon.

Angry Birds on Wii feels completely at home. Not a fan of the game but control-wise it is super slick. I recently acquired a Wii game called Ivy The Kiwi that lives or dies on the accuracy and responsiveness of the pointing control and it is rock solid.

davyK wrote:

The wiimote as a pointer is basically a mouse where the pad is the 2D plane of space facing the TV. Incredible accuracy and fluidity of control; in my opinion second to none.

Hence the thread. I think it's dropped in prominence way to soon.

Angry Birds on Wii feels completely at home. Not a fan of the game but control-wise it is super slick. I recently acquired a Wii game called Ivy The Kiwi that lives or dies on the accuracy and responsiveness of the pointing control and it is rock solid.

And on top of that, the Wiimote has full depth and orientation sensors...

Honest to fuck, why is there a new CoD coming out in the place of Ninty's Zelda Bass Fishing - Championship Edition?

Vela wrote:

The backlash to wavy wavy waggle was led in part by a misinformed campaign by whingers for 6+ years of endless complaints in magazines, websites and forums by petulant tossers who hung their hat on an argument based on shovelware.

No, 100 million Wiis sold don't need to worry about whingers. There were only a handful of games that made good use of the controls. Skyward Sword is not one of them. For all the good the aiming in Metroid did, the lack of buttons gimped the weapon upgrade/switching mechanic. Mario Galaxy would've been as good if not better with a GameCube pad.

Skyward Sword did okay with the Beetle and the various gadgets I thought. As well as you can get out of wavy wavy shite anyway. 

That's a bit harsh Ian.

I agree with the pad being better for the Galaxy games though.

Add pikmin 1 and 2 down as games better with Wii controls.

Re Galaxy, I hate shake or wave being added for the sake of it (DKC Returns for example) but for seem reason I liked the Galaxy controls - the flick for the spin jump just felt right and using the pointer to gather star bits was quite compulsive.

Vela has already said it - but stuff like the ball rolling and manta riding were nicely done and introduced variety.

Have mentioned this already too - but just to hammer it home - tilt on Wii is superb - Kororinpa and Mercury Revolution have beautiful control. Let's Tap also shows just how sensitive it is.

And something else about the wiimote that credit isn't given for. The fact it can be used in multiple configurations while remaining elegantly simple is a design master class.

In pointer configuration, the dpad, A and B trigger readily available (giving in effect 6 buttons) . In NES pad config, the dpad and 1 + 2 buttons naturally fall where they should, and the A & B buttons are within reach. WarioWare and Let's Tap shows other configurations. Then add in the nunchuck for richer control. It really is quite clever and will have taken many iterations in the design phase.

Vela wrote:

LazyGunn wrote:

Vela wrote:

Nice to see some of my ideas are so obvious as to have already been experimented with. The problem is they demonstrate the economic reality of the future of VR, but the potential is immense.

Not sure what this means really, it's not an economic event yet, it's only available in devkit, prototype or DIY form

It means that - using that bird simulator as an example, it is going to be prohibitively expensive to get many of these concepts into a form that can sell well and recoup costs. I'm sold on the idea that the platform has ample potential. I'm not convinced that it will be able to create a profitable market which can take advantage of that potential. In a way, like the Wii.

It will fail because not everyone can make giant bird machines? What about the people who are happy sitting back with merely something over their eyes? I know they're a minority but there must be a market for the eyewearers amongst the heaving throng of bird wannabes?

The Wii was ridiculously profitable I might add, it just didn't have lasting power. That was a games console with an innovative controller though, not a new medium-experiencing-device (like a speaker or a tv), so i'm not sure the comparison holds water.

Vela wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

Vela wrote:

The backlash to wavy wavy waggle was led in part by a misinformed campaign by whingers for 6+ years of endless complaints in magazines, websites and forums by petulant tossers who hung their hat on an argument based on shovelware.

No, 100 million Wiis sold don't need to worry about whingers. There were only a handful of games that made good use of the controls. Skyward Sword is not one of them. For all the good the aiming in Metroid did, the lack of buttons gimped the weapon upgrade/switching mechanic. Mario Galaxy would've been as good if not better with a GameCube pad.

This reads like an opposite day comment.

some of the best levels in galaxy worked wonderful with the pointer for the grab stars, or shake for double jump or motion control for ray surfing and ball rolling.

And whining started the day the wiimote was unveiled and still hasn't ceased a good eight years later.

The shake in mario did have a vague similarity with the spin but it was a digital action. Button territory. There is merit n some of the other uses in Galaxy.

I'm not saying people didn't complain. I'm saying you don't need to worry about that unless they have a point.

Like the controls in Skyward Sword. If you have an exploration game where the recalibrate button is closer to your thumb than the map button, you do not have controls that "sing".