Death Star Trench Run: More Fun With The Oculus Rift VR Headset
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As a kid, there are many things that top the bucket list that don’t quite go away once you reach adulthood. One is to ride a dinosaur, one is to personally go through the Death Star Trench run, and the third is to get to second base with Hannah Deshotels. Two of those are probably impossible, but now humankind is closer than ever before to filling Luke Skywalker’s pilot boots, as developer/designer Boone Calhoun has created a mock-up of the Trench run for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, one of the coolest objects currently on Earth. They won’t let me use it because I’m always losing the keys to the X-wing.
Not only is this thing designed with a pretty snazzy front console (that better be able to Bluetooth with my phone), but when you turn around, you can even see R2 in the back. Probably complaining. Wherever your sight line is focused, the crosshairs go, and pyoo-pyoo, you get to take out enemy weapons. I’m not sure if you ever actually die, so I’d spend at least a half an hour just taking in the sights.
Below is a video of the demo itself, without the player commentary. No one will judge you for dressing up in a Star Wars costume before watching.
If you wanted to step out of classic cinema and into the world of online gaming, EVE Online creators CCP games have been working on an Oculus Rift game called EVE: Valkyrie, with a primary focus on dogfights in space. That sounds amazing! That sounds nauseating!
They hope to have the game on the market in 2014, and while it’s only a demo that they’ve been allowing people to get their hands on, it still looks like an impressive demo. A gameplay video can be seen below, and it’s worth pointing out that the demo used was for the standard definition version of the headset, whereas the HD version is supposed to look much better. It all looks superb to me, even though the sound is pretty grating.
I can imagine playing that once it’s been completed, hopefully without any RPG elements. Just good old fashioned space battles. I need an Oculus Rift.
For those more into the horror scene, the meta game-within-a-game paranormal-themed Alone sounds like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Check out that video below.
