VRis greatforwishfulfilment.We’ve
alreadyseengamesthatletyoudodge
bulletslikeNeoandswinga lightsaber
likeLukeSkywalker(seeopposite).
NowtheBBChopestofulfilthewishes
ofeveryBritishsci-Fifan,witha Doctor
WhogamethatletsyouflytheTARDIS.
DoctorWho:TheEdgeofTimeis being
developedin conjunctionwithMazeTheory.
It’sa ‘featurelength’VRgamethatputsyouin
theshoesoftheDoctor’slatestcompanion,
astheTimeLordembarksonanother
adventureacrossspaceandtime,withJodie
Whitakerlendinghervoicetohervirtualself.SIZEISN’T
EVERYTHING
OPINION
NEWS
One of the perceived limitations of VR is
the brevity of the experiences it offers.
Most VR games last only a few hours,
while those that offer longer experiences,
such as Fallout 4 or Elite Dangerous, tend
to be standard games adapted for VR.
However, VR also offers an opportunity for
us to get out of some bad gaming habits.
Most modern games are far too long,
to the point where finishing any game
from a major publisher can dominate your
evenings for weeks, even months on end.
What’s more, very few of these games
justify that size, with many revolving
around the same handful of half-hour
feedback loops repeated ad nauseum.
Now imagine that, rather than lying on
the sofa with a controller for 30-40 hours,you have to stand up, wave your arms
around, clamber over objects, physically
dodge sword strikes and gunshots.
Playing in VR makes you sweaty and
tired. It isn’t built for life-absorbing
games. It makes sense for VR
experiences to last as long as you
can keep up with them.
And that’s good! Games should be
built to fit into our lives, not monopolise
them. Why spend 40 hours doing one
activity over and over again, when you
could do three or four for approximately
the same price? As long as VR
games don’t overestimate their
value, their shorter runtimes could
provide a valuable opportunity
to adjust our expectations.FLY THE TARDIS
The main draw here, however, is the
opportunity to get hands on with one of
sci-fi’s most iconic vehicles. To this effect,
Maze Theory claims to have put ‘12,000
hours’ into its replication of the current
BBC TARDIS set, based on hundreds of
photos taken by members of the team.
Moreover, the intention is not merely to
recreate the look of the TARDIS, but also
its function, ensuring that every knob and
dial on its alien dashboard is functional
and interactive. Doctor Who: The Edge of
Time will phase onto all the major PC VR
headsets (and the Quest) in September.BackinJanuary,HTCannouncedits
newest headset, the Vive Cosmos, but
the announcement was light on details.
We knew the Cosmos would use an
inside-out tracking system similar to
the Oculus Quest (but with six cameras
instead of four), and we knew that it
would cost round £700, but that was it.
Now, HTC has shed more light on the
headset’s specs. The Cosmos’ display will
include a combined resolution of 2,800
x 1,700 (1,440 x 1,700 per eye) – an 88
per cent increase over the original Vive.
It will also run at the same 90Hz refresh
rate as the Vive. A big change is that the
Cosmos will use RGB LCDs instead of the
more popular OLED displays used by most
other headsets. The general drive is to
reduce the screen-door effect as much as
possible, which HTC claims the Vive does
by around 40 per cent, although we don’t
know how HTC has arrived at that figure.
The Cosmos’ display puts it above every
other headset currently on the market,
including the Valve Index, which runs
at 1,440 x 1,600 per eye. The Cosmos
is due for release this autumn.EXPLORING
THE COSMOS
NEWS