Tag: Playstation VR

Immersive VR Education’s Apollo 11: A technological achievement that brings a moon landing to your livingroom

I treated myself to some catching up by New Year’s Eve to welcome 2018 with as clean a slate as possible.  I finished reading seven books over the last two weeks, some of them quite difficult reads—and I did it by not turning on the Playstation 4 except for once.  As everyone had parties celebrating the New Year I took a trip to the moon utilizing Immersive’s VR Education LTD fine triumph—their Apollo 11 VR experience.  I’ve talked about this before and have been excited about it—but until recently hadn’t had time to get into it.  The project was a big one, and was mostly funded with private Kick Starter investment that was credited at the end.  It was an educational documentary virtual reality experience that put you in the left seat of the Apollo 11 launch vehicle out of Kennedy Space center and into the command module during the approach to the moon.  Then landing on the moon you are in the left seat of the Lander standing next to Neil Armstrong.  Once there you get to stand on the moon and have a look at the Sea of Tranquility like it’s never been shown in a museum exhibit that I’ve seen.  It was simply amazing.  You also get to witness the return to earth and the perspective of the astronauts as they reentered the atmosphere awaiting splashdown.

I think where the 3D environments of the Playstation VR system really shine is within cockpits, such as cars and aircraft.  I have been amazed by the graphic displays of games like Battlefront VR and Driveclub where every little toggle switch is shown just as it would in a vehicle with such photorealistic display that you feel you can reach out and touch them.  So the same method works brilliantly in the Apollo 11 experience.  Graphics that might otherwise look terrible in 2D are easily forgivable in 3D so the ride up the elevator to the top of the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center was something I thought was also very impressive.  I’ve been there several times and know what things look like and even though a lot of details were missing, the overall feel of the area was certainly captured. Getting the feel of the height and the relationship to the surrounding terrain was what mattered and once inside the Apollo capsule awaiting launch that is where the VR part of the experience really shined.

As the launch occurred you could see out the windows as the rocket blasted through the various cloud layers and watch the earth fall behind.  Out the front window you could also see the sky go from a blue to black as stars gradually came into view—just as it would.  You could look at all the dancing lights on the control panel and look over at the other two astronauts as they answered alarms shaking in their seats from the momentum.  The radio chatter was ever-present and was synced up to the mouths of the pilots.  Occasionally I’d find myself staring at their faces and they’d look you in the eye as if they knew you were there pulling you into the experience.  It was all very thrilling and unexpectedly brilliant.

http://immersivevreducation.com/

Questions I’ve always had like where is the moon in relation to their perspective on the actual trip and how did it look were easily confirmed by me just by looking out the windows like a kid in the car first arriving at Disney World.  I was free to look out any window I could to see the relative positioning of the vessel as it plunged through space toward the moon.  Once on the moon I enjoyed much more than I would have expected at looking up into the earth as it just floated there in the dark of space. I’ve seen many picture of the earth from the moon in good resolution, but the presentation in VR was so much better—because it gave depth to the craters and the mountains surrounding the landing site that pictures just couldn’t capture in any way. I’ve also heard all the recordings of this epic landing seemingly hundreds of times, but being there in a VR world was a much better way to experience them.  First the speech by Kennedy at the beginning sounded like I had heard it for the first time.  It was presented in a very unusual way that sounded fresh to me.  Then the well-known speech of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon for the first time was particularly gripping as I was already out of the vessel watching him do it and looking all around me for perspective.  Shockingly I heard the voice of Nixon as he called from the Oval Office to talk about the experience.  As he spoke I was looking at the earth trying to see if Washington D.C. was pointed at us as he spoke considering the distance in between.  It was very easy to get caught up in the whole thing.  What this VR experience did particularly well was give depth and scale to the world we were exploring, which I think really opens up the way we can educate ourselves in the future.

Education is essentially the strength of this new VR technology.  The ability to go to places from the comfort of your living room and see things on a grand scale and interact with objects of history are the keys to our future.  What Immersive Education is doing I think is one of the most powerful education tools I’ve seen yet ever presented.  I often advocate that there is nothing that teaches better than a good book, because reading requires work and personal investment so that the information tends to stay with you longer as a participant.  Passively watching a television documentary doesn’t have the same effect.  It can still be good, but it’s not as effective.  However, with the kind of work Immersive Education is doing, you have no choice but to participate, because your mind actually thinks you are in those environments.  Even poorly rendered graphics in VR become sellable realities because the way our eyes participate in reality lends strength to the technology.  I can see the future of learning foreign languages within the countries of origin, and interaction with environments that would otherwise be exotic to be the strengths of this exciting new technology.  There is real potential here that is extremely new and creates so many options.

I would have never thought that I’d be able to spend a New Year’s Eve going to the moon then still having time to usher in the New Year in the traditional way.  But that is the world we are living in now.  Technology brings us options that curious minds can indulge in, and I consider that a real privilege.  For as many times as I’ve heard about man’s first trip to the moon, and heard the various speeches, Immersive Education managed to make it a fresh experience which was thrilling for any science buff.  But for the general public it is a real gift that can be easily downloaded into any living room that has a Playstation VR device.  I would go so far to say that I’d buy a Playstation VR just to take this one trip to the moon; it is that good, and revolutionary.  And what thrills me more is that it is just a sign of things yet to come.

Rich Hoffman

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Playstation VR is Simply Fantastic: ‘Rush of Blood’ pushes the market to a new game changing standard that is simply amazing

Even though the topics range often from one extremity to another, the basic theme of this information site is that of culture building—what makes us who we are in the realm of science, politics, art, history, and philosophy.  And these days one of the strongest influences on our culture is the video game industry and I find it infinitely fascinating to watch how innovation and achievement is transforming our society in very positive ways.  For instance, I am very impressed with the Leap Frog tablets which my grandchildren use for pre kindergarten learning.  I think it’s an amazing device that really is a game changer in the field of education.  I’m also very keen to get my hands on a Nintendo Switch which is next on my to-do list in the realm of video gaming.  But for the last six months I have been all about the new Playstation VR which I think is simply amazing.  It far exceeded my expectations upon getting it and now that the smoke has cleared my current favorite game over any of the personal entertainment systems is Until Dawn’s Rush of Blood VR.  What an experience that is and after playing it now since October of 2016 I think it’s time to talk about it in a very macro way—the impact it has on our culture going forward and what it means—because there’s a lot going on with it that I haven’t seen reflected in any review of the game as of yet.  It’s such a new thing that I don’t think anybody quite knows how to articulate the phenomenal impact that is going on with Playstation VR.

It started innocently enough, my wife and I during lunch one day in October just a few days after the official launch of the hot new Playstation VR game system which supplements the PS4 base unit, picked one up because I wanted to play two of the games, the upcoming Battlefront game for Star Wars where you get to fly an X-Wing into battle and this arcade shooter Rush of Blood which was kind of a mix of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mixed with John Carpenters, The Thing from what I could tell.  Being a guy who likes to shoot guns, I thought this game would be a great way to try shooting in a virtual environment because Playstation has these cool little motion controllers that simulate guns very well.  We spent about $600 getting everything needed which was cheaper than a new gun, so I thought it was a pretty good deal.  I went home and set it all up not really sure what I was going to be experiencing and after playing Rush of Blood the first time my jaw was on the ground.  It was an incredible experience.

I don’t think the game is for everyone, but it does reflect the way I think—so I enjoy it immensely from a conceptual level.  For my readers, it you want to take a journey through my mind, play Rush of Blood levels 5 and 7 and you’ll know.  Watching videos of the events of the game really don’t pay the technology justice.  For instance, as seen on the level 5 video, the giant spider which is the main antagonist specifically designed to exploit the arachnophobia in all of us at a primal level, physically looks like it crawls up and over you.  The closest thing I’ve ever seen to something like this was in Orlando’s Universal Studios at the Spiderman ride.  For me that ride is a benchmark in 3D technology and physical effects because Spiderman physically interacts with you on the ride and it’s very convincing.  I’ve always been amazed by what they’ve done with 3D projections at Universal Studios and look forward to every visit there.  But Kings Island is where I spend most of my time in Cincinnati during the warm months.  I love the place and after hundreds of rides on The Adventure Express, I still like the feel of riding in those wooden roller coasters.  I particularly enjoy the October Haunts that they have at Kings Island where they combine haunted houses with roller coaster riding and if you combine that with the shooting gallery type rides they have at Universal, Kings Island and Disney World you essentially get what you experience with Rush of Blood mixed with the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios.  On that level 5 round the spiders climb into your car with you—the little roller coaster that you ride in during the game—and they are very convincing.  They look a lot better in VR than they do on a 2D YouTube screen.

And that’s what makes Rush of Blood so amazing—I’m comparing it to my experiences at Kings Island, Universal Studios, and Disney World yet the whole thing is available for the home entertainment market.  You literally get to bring an amusement park level experience to you PS4 home game console.  Also, keep in mind that I’m a guy who shoots real guns every day—literally, so the gun work in the game is very good.  The Playstation motion controllers work extremely well, shockingly so.  With all those elements combined, the technical leap that Supermassive Games utilized to make such a thing a reality is simply jaw dropping to me.  The graphics are just superb, the physics of the game amazing, and the sound design is insanely good.  What Playstation VR does that the big amusement parks in Orlando can’t is completely put their guests into an immersive environment.  Playstation VR covers your entire face comfortably, so you forget you are wearing a head set.  Then they have these stereoscopic 360 degree ear phones which provide sound from all around you in pure projection meaning there is no spillover noise the way you might get from a home theater system with surround sound. This is piped perfectly into your ears with great effect so noises behind you, or to your right and left are unnervingly realistic.

It took me several months to really think about this exciting new technology and I have to say that if Uncharted 4 was my favorite video game of 2016 this Rush of Blood is my current favorite for entirely different reasons.  It’s really in a category of its own.  It’s a theme park/haunted house right in your living room because you really do forget that you are on a couch instead of an actual roller coaster on a cold October evening at the Haunts at Kings Island.  And what’s even worse—or better in regard to Rush of Blood is that the monsters do invade your personal space they way real monsters at a haunted house can’t legally do—which is certainly unnerving.  I enjoy the chaos because it actually helps me practice staying calm under extreme pressure—because the monsters in Rush of Blood often get right in your face and the sounds that accompany them can be truly scary.  Your mind doesn’t know the difference between reality and fantasy when your senses are overloaded the way that Playstation VR can do.  The 3D environments are the best I’ve ever seen—there is real length, width, and depth to them instead of the flat planed look you get from most 3D movies.  In Rush of Blood, as well as other Playstation VR titles the graphics are photographically distinct meaning all the little details look the way they would in real life.  The graphics might look a bit cartoony, but it’s the proximity of things that sell it—such as a long corridor holding its depth in relation to our perspective the way it would in real life.  And as you go by rooms the depth of adjacent structures stream away and toward each other the way they do to the naked eye. I can’t imagine the computer calculations it takes to pull off this effect but Playstation VR so far in every title I’ve seen has pulled this off flawlessly, which makes Rush of Blood that much more terrifying because there aren’t little physics problems to give your mind a hint that this is only a game.  You have to consciously remind yourself of it because your subconscious accepts it as a reality which is a tremendous testament to the game designers.

What excites me as an adrenaline junkie—and let me say that is exactly why I love Rush of Blood—it’s not for everyone.  But for me, it is the perfect thing—just my speed.  I manage my stress in life with adrenaline.  I love taking chances and living on the edge—but to manage a productive life I need to get those experiences in ways that don’t wreck cars and destroy people’s lives.  So I go often to Kings Island to ride roller coasters and I get down to Florida to the Orlando parks when I can—and I play video games often.  I mean I’m an adult professional who shoots lots of guns, spends a lot of time with family and reads at least one book a week.  Professionally I work about 70 hours a week but I still have managed to put in about 840 hours into my Playstation 4 this year.  So that gives some indication of how important it is to me.  Rush of Blood lets me live at the highest adrenaline levels very personably—in a completely immersive environment and that lets me act responsibly in other parts of my life without having to give up that nature in myself—for the benefit of mankind.  This PS4 VR system really lets me live out a dangerous life without having to actually go to an amusement park—its literally in my living room now, so it will be interesting to see how other entertainment venues grapple with this new technology.  I am certainly a believer and I think Rush of Blood is the best of the best in regard to pushing the technology forward.  When I’m playing it, I’m convinced I’m there shooting inter-dimensional beings and giant monsters with all the swashbuckling appeal of the mine car chase from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Playstation was the first to game console market with their VR and it’s difficult to know how they might improve on it because if Rush of Blood is the starting point, where things will be two or three years from now is ungodly exciting.  And for the $600 or so, it was one of the best things I’ve bought in a while just because it feeds my inner adrenaline junkie copious amounts of joy.  The shooting alone is worth the money I’d save in real ammunition if I could ever sit in a real roller coaster and practice shooting from a moving condition at actual targets.  The process of shooting alone is enjoyable in Rush of Blood, let alone all the other elements.  I can only say that it’s a fun time to be alive where options like Rush of Blood for Playstation VR are available for a home market and not some special exhibit at the Epcot Center as a potential technology.  This technology is here and now, and it is just something special that I never thought I’d ever see—let alone to see it available in my living room.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Sign up for Second Call Defense here:  http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707  Use my name to get added benefits.

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Playstation VR: The future of education

I’ve had it for a while now but given all the news of the day haven’t really had a chance that was justifiable to discuss it, but I have to say, the new Playstation VR system is an absolutely stunning evolution for home video game play.  I have a rather insatiable appetite for adventure and violence with an emphasis on competitive necessity so video game play is actually a time management tool for me which I enjoy immensely.  For instance, I am proud to be a grown man with many intense responsibilities who can still reach level 90 on Star Wars: Battlefront and being one of the top players in the ship to ship combat even against the best in the entire world—who have nothing else to do in life but play video games.  I don’t have that luxury and I still manage in some games to have 30 or more kills per game—which is quite high.  Video games are a nice outlet for my aggressive nature so when Sony came out with the new Playstation VR in October I was one of the first to get it—because honestly, I couldn’t wait.  However, I was highly skeptical about how well it would actually work so let me report that it is absolutely mind-blowing.

For context, my video game playing days began almost 40 years ago with the Atari 2400 set up on a spare black and white television that had a very small 10” or so screen.  When my family wanted to do something really nice for me on a special weekend when I had friends over, or for a birthday, my dad would hook up that old Atari on a slightly larger 24” color television and we could see colors in our video games—so that was my point of reference.  Of those old Atari games one of my favorites was the game called Adventure—which was a story of dragon slaying and treasure hunting that needed a lot of imagination to buy into—since the game play was some really primitive graphics.  My other favorite game was The Empire Strikes Back which was essentially a Star Wars version of the popular game Defender.  So I was around at the beginning of home video game play and it’s been something I’ve done now for four decades.  I’ve never been one of those people who only play video games in what little spare time that I have—it’s always been a supplement to my life—but I have always enjoyed them.  I remember fondly growing up and playing games at the arcade for 25 cents each play then coming home and playing games on our home system.  So when Sony beat everyone else to the market with an affordable VR system for the counsole market, I had to get it mainly for the sentiment.  I didn’t expect it to work very well, and I thought it would have some bright spots—but my expectations were pretty low.

So I get this thing home and spent a lot of time setting it up—and getting to know it since much of the motion control stuff were things I wasn’t familiar with.  To be honest I bought the Playstation VR so that I could play the Star Wars: Battlefront VR mission that was coming out on December 6th, and at the time, that was still a few months away, so I wasn’t in any real hurry.  I picked up a few games to try out with it, like VR Worlds and a horror game called Rush Blood, but otherwise had my target on that extension of Battlefront during the upcoming Holiday Season.  Once it was all hooked up one of the first games I played was Ocean Decent on the VR Worlds disk and I was immediately enraptured.  The graphics were so jaw dropping real that I felt immediately that the concept of video game play had just changed forever.  By the time I played a game called The London Heist, I was sure of it.  The graphics were stunning, the game play intensely real and the entire platform truly did take your mind to a different place.  I took the headset off and put it down for a little while thinking of all the nice things I had said earlier in the year about the latest Uncharted game for Playstation and I found myself looking very much forward to the first wave of adventure games that surely would hit the market because the VR game play truly did put a player into another world while sitting in the middle of your living room.  You can easily be transported to another place and time with the Playstation VR because honestly, your mind doesn’t know the difference.  We are so used to accepting realities with our eyes and ears and the Playstation VR does a great job of giving those two senses enough information to convince your brain that what you are seeing is truly real.  It is quite astonishing.

I found the Playstation VR to be a real hit during our Thanksgiving celebrations as it was a real ice breaker.  People visiting our house for dinner were able to go on a deep ocean dive or battle robotic monstrosities in the safety of my couch and as each person took off the headset there was a look of wonder on their faces.  That alone would have made the cost of the whole enterprise worth it to me.  But coming up still was my Battlefront DLC so the adventure was just getting started.  It seemed unbelievable that such a thing would even be available for the home market.  It would seem that the VR technology should be so expensive that you could only get the experience at a place like Dave and Busters or the Main Event.

Recently I was at the Main Event in West Chester enjoying the video games they have there during a lunch break on a rather intense day of work and I couldn’t help but think that the Playstation VR made all the games exhibited there seem clunky.   What I had at my house far exceeded what the best of the video game market had to offer and that is saying something. I have been in contact with the people at VR Immersive Education who are about to present their Apollo 11 Experience to the Playstation market.  They already offer their VR documentary of an Apollo 11 moon landing on the Oculus Rift and HTC Hive systems.  They told me they plan to release their wonderful software to the Playstation community around Christmas time.  To me, projects like their Apollo 11 Experience are where VR really thrives and is certainly the future of that technology.  The games are fun, but what VR does best is put you into places that might otherwise be prohibitive, such as on a conference call with a contact in another country where you can see what they do and look around the room at things you couldn’t see unless you are actually there.   Or visit a city or museum in a far away place and look at things in the same fashion as you would if you were just strolling around.  That makes all VR technology extremely education oriented because it can put you in places you otherwise couldn’t get to.  Regarding this Apollo 11 VR Experience, it puts you on the moon realistically which is as close as you’re going to get aside from actually being there.

http://immersivevreducation.com/the-apollo-11-experience/

Not only is this new VR technology fun for gaming, it is the most powerful tool we have now for education.  On the Playstation VR headset there is voice activation, so this would be the best way to learn a new language, get a pilot’s license, learn to drive a car or interact with an environment that is not around your home.  The potential is just jaw dropping.  Needless to say, I am deeply impressed.  What I thought would just be a gimmick turned out to be a technical game changer.  I am still looking forward to the Star Wars: VR Mission coming up, but now more than anything I am looking forward to the education programs like Apollo 11 and voyages to Mars that are coming up for VR headsets.  For kids, there is no better ways to learn about space, or even the inner workings of the human body, geography, or human interactions through speech than with the VR technology that is being unleashed before us now.  My respect extends beyond evolutionary nostalgia derived from my first youthful aphorisms—it comes from the recognition that VR is the best education tool that we currently have for all ages of learning and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  To those who worked hard to bring that technology forth, fantastic job.  You have opened the world to everyone and made it so the only limit to filling our minds with good things is our own personal restrictions based on effort.  Because VR does most of the heavy lifting in a spectacular way.  Every home should have some version of a VR headset for education purposes primarily.  It is a fantastic invention that will fill minds with experiences it otherwise couldn’t get.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Sign up for Second Call Defense here:  http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707  Use my name to get added benefits.

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