3 Days In....My Impressions

After watching a guy on youtube review Lands End on Tuesday and the glee on his face, I instantly rang Harvey Norman (I live in Australia) and asked the tech dept, “Do you have a gear VR in stock” and they replied, yes…1 left. I said, “Hold it, I’m on my way”

I actually had an S7 for about a month when they were first released and getting a Gear VR wasn’t really a priority. So, I got the Gear, then went on the hunt for a Bluetooth game controller. After 5 separate tech shops..nothing. So, I decided to go home and start using it.

I have to admit, when I first put it on, it didn’t blow me away, I could see the screen door effect, it was a little blurry, so I tweaked it a bit, went into the oculus lounge and started looking around. Wow, this is pretty cool. Then I started looking into some of the apps.

I was looking at the 3d videos in the Oculus Video area, and then it started to get really cool. The immersion was amazing. Then, I came across one the “Dreams of Dali: video and it absolutely blew me away. It was fricken amazing, I had goosebumps.

I rang my mate (who was also into the VR thing and was hounding me to buy a GearVR cos I had an S7) and told him this is fricken amazing. But, what I thought was, you really have to experience this to comprehend how cool this is. (I hadn’t even tried a game yet)

So I rang him back and said, “I’m coming to your place tonight and you can see for yourself”. (He lives about 120k away btw) Before I left, I bought lands end..and what a fun fun fun game that is and the experience is brilliant.

So, I got to his place about 6.30pm. He, his wife and 2 kids were there and all eager to see what this was all about. Being the veteran…(I have used it for a good 3 hours) I was guiding him through where to go and get him used to the controls.

COOOOOOOOOOOL….was his response. As he navigated around the oculus home, the library, watching 3d videos, experiencing the cinemas in oculus video, playing with some of the demos, he had a child like grin on his face the whole time, looking up, down, sideways…and intermittently saying.....THIS IS SOOOO COOL. Then his wife and kids all proceeded to all have turns and checking out the videos, watching the Jurassic park vids, playing with the oculus video area and there was one thing I noticed on all of them….they all had this big smile on their faces with their mouths open.

Then another mate of ours came around. He had pre-ordered the Rift, and his isn’t arriving until July and he proceeded to experience it. Again…big…child like grin. Then I said, play this game Lands End…and then we proceeded to watch him for about half an hour, just standing in the middle of the room, moving his head around, spinning around. The whole time with a huge child like grin and not making a sound.

After the 30 mins…he took off the headset and said…”WOW, THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN”

We fired up Rick and Morty and watched it in the Netflix app, simply amazing. So, at 11.45pm, we decided, we better call it a night. The phone was at 3%, it didn’t overheat and we all had a freaking awesome time.

Needless to say, he went out the next day, changed his plan to an S7 and bought the Gear VR.

Since then, I have ordered a game controller (homefully arriving today) and played darknet…(Wow..that is soooo cool too)

I am so excited about the future of VR. The immersion, the visual stimulation is like nothing I have ever experienced. And this is all using the Gear VR, with no motion tracking and at the very start of apps and gaming for VR.

I can only imagine what we will be doing in 1,2,3 years with this technology. My excitement has rekindled for gaming again. If you area reading this and wondering if the Gear VR is for you…do it…it is amazing.

Well…I’m going to have another bash of Darknet and keep my ears out for the postie.