philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

12Oct/14Off

Alien: Isolation in VR is Beautiful and Terrifying

1060399920The design immediately calls up memories of the first Alien (1979) movie, bright whites and distinctive sculpted walls glide past your eyes in glorious low persistence. Then it hits you; the rooms and corridors on these ships are really small! This is perhaps a statement of dazzling obviousness, but it’s not until you’re put into the ship, completely surrounded by it does it really come home. The power of VR to convey scale is really drawn upon here...

Skipping story spoilers, you eventually end up on the vast space stationSevastopol where the mood shifts sharply and where A:I excellent lighting system starts to become the real monster of the game. The station’s in trouble, broken fiery gas jets, severed electrical cables spitting sparks and, most of all, acres of dark shadows. I mention this last point as here is where the Oculus Rift DK2′s OLED panel and the enclosed nature of the headset becomes absolutely critical – when it’s dark it’s really dark! Another seemingly fatuous statement, but when you wander off the beaten track or the room’s lighting system fails and you’re plunged into blackness, it is truly terrifying even without the presence of anything or anyone nearby. In VR, your human responses are evoked much more readily and being dropped into darkness on a scary distant space station will naturally evoke fear, I just wasn’t quite prepared for how much fear.

See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/alien-isolation-dk2-beautiful-terrifying/

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