If the new VR game Windlands is any indication, I’d be really good with a grappling hook. It’s probably not a good indication, but it’s fun, so I’m OK with that.
Over the next few days I’ll be playing a bunch more VR games to give people a sense of how they work and whether or not they’re fun. I’ll start mixing up Oculus Rift and HTC Vive videos, since both headsets are now available(ish). First up is Psytec’s platforming/exploration game Windlands.
Here’s a video of me playing some of the game:
What it is: Windlands is a pleasant platforming game that mostly tasks you with exploring a huge world full of cliff faces, precarious ledges and high mountain trees. Those trees are the crucial part: You have a grappling hook in each hand, which can attach to any green leafy surface you find. Between the hooks and your Spider-Man-like jump, you can get around pretty quickly, though the game does demand more precision than the controls sometimes make possible.
Windlands is also out on the Oculus Rift, but when I played it on that headset, I almost immediately got nauseous. It’s much more comfortable played on the Vive with the Vive’s hand controllers. Granted, VR nausea has almost completely stopped being a problem for me over the last week or so, but the Vive still makes this kind of active game feel much more natural.
We’ll be posting more short videos like this one to give an idea of how these VR games work. For more detailed thoughts on the VR headsets themselves, check out my writeup of the Oculus Rift and Nathan Grayson’s take on the HTC Vive.
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