And Here’s Something That I Sure As Hell Won’t Be Doing In VR

So while I don’t typically have any issues with virtual reality, one demo at Computex this year left me heavily, heavily nauseous. But that’s OK. Maybe it’s a once-off; maybe the calibration was bad. Maybe something else was to blame. It hasn’t soured me on VR one iota.

That said, this next experience can bugger right off.

It’s basically skydiving, albeit substantially slower and in VR. The real trick with it is the rig that’s reminiscent of ones used in proper simulators. It’s called Para Parachute, according to Coolermaster’s Twitter account anyway.

This doesn’t have a variety of photo-realistic drop zones or the ability to recreate a variety of weather conditions. But what it does take you from a standing start and whisk you up in the air so you can pretend to navigate through a series of hoops. Which is more than plenty for me, thanks.

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Like everything else to do with VR at a convention, there’s screens nearby so the crowd can get the view from inside the headset. It’s a pretty effective rig from a marketing perspective. Foot traffic repeatedly came to a standstill just to snap a photo or three of the demo in action, to the point where it started to clog up the intersection completely.

But I’ve got no desire to be hoiked into the air. Mind you, it did remind me of that other time someone was held aloft for the sake of virtual reality.

The author travelled to Computex 2016 as a guest of Intel.