Happy Gamer Tries out HTC Vive

I tried out the HTC Vive at my Microsoft Store today.

Hey there everyone, Happy Gamer here and I've been a little weary of VR since I tried the Wii and the Occulous Riff. I've already explained why I dislike the Wii, and why it left much to be desired. However, I don't know if I ever really explained why the Occulous Riff disappointed me. Well at my college the computer club had a demo unit and I tried it out when they were showing it off, and they had this roller coaster demo video. After a couple minutes I started feeling disoriented because my eyes were telling me I was moving, but my other senses were telling me I wasn't. It was a cool experience, but a rather negative one (even though when we were talking about it in class I was the only one able to say "I tried one out.")

Well at my local Microsoft store they had a demo unit of the HTC Vive. I got in line, signed a waver, and got to try out 3 demo games. Before the demos started, there was a "get oriented" thing where I inflated balloons and punched them away. The first game was "Deep Blue," I think it's called. It was just a "walk around and look at the fish" game. It was meant to get us used to the way things work. I had some fish fly right into my face. It was all pre-rendered as all the people in front of me had the same video. It was really cool.

Now we get into the actual games. The first game was a bow and arrow tower defense game. That was really fun. You use the 2 controllers to be the bow and arrows. Where you point is where you aim and where they fire. Now this is what I was expecting with the Wii back when that launched. It was really fun. I got quite into it, and I didn't let any of the enemies even hit my fortress door. I did quite well and probably could have kept going but my 3 minutes were up.

Next was the "space pirates" shooter. Now this, this is what the HTC Vive was made for. With the 2 controllers, you get the guns that you aim 1 to 1. I got REALLY into it. I used the 3 shot automatic. I was moving, dodging, crouching on the ground, all of it. When you see VR in cartoons, this is what it is like. Like, even the VR gags you would see in cartoons from 10 years ago on Danny Phantom, this is what it was like.

So now I think I should talk about the hardware. It was really comfortable. The face pads were soft and the headset wasn't really heavy like the Occulous was. It also requires a long cable to be connected to the computer, which wasn't that bad. I didn't find myself tripping over it at all. The controllers were also very comfortable, much better than the Wii and PS Move. The screen was a little pixelated, like if I get less than 1 inch away from the TV, but that is to be expected some, I guess.

So yeah, the HTC Vive is REALLY cool, but I don't think it's 3 grand cool. The HTC Vive headset, controllers, and sensors cost $800 alone. Then you need a PC that is powerful enough to run it. The store was using a $2500 Alienware with like top of the line components. The demo unit assistant said he knew a guy that built one himself for like $1000, but you still need a rather high end gaming PC. My sack of potatoes won't be able to run it, so I would need to buy all new hardware, plus all the games. Plus, I don't know how often I would play it since it is a VERY active experience.

So will I buy one? Definitely not yet. It's a really fun experience, but it's not $3000 fun. I'll wait until the Vive is $100 and the computing hardware I need is standard computer components. Well this has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and lets see what comes from the HTC Vive.

Cross Platform Online is Good for Consumers, Bad for Platforms AKA Why I Own an XBOX360

Microsoft wants to do cross platform online with Sony, and that's a bad idea for them.

Hey there everyone, Happy Gamer hear and I heard that Microsoft is going to do cross platform online with the XBOX ONE and Windows 10 (not Steam, Windows 10 store), and they are trying to get Sony to do cross platform online with them, so if you have a PS4 and your friend has an XBOX ONE, both of you can play online so long as the game is on both consoles. This is something that online gamers have been dreaming about since online gaming became mainstream. However, this is a REALLY bad idea for Sony and Microsoft, and here's why.

First, lets go back to 2008; the XBOX 360 and PS3 were the current gen consoles. My brother and I were looking to get one of them (the Wii was off the table for reasons explained in numerous different posts). Since we were coming of the PS2, I said "hey let's get a PS3 because we liked the PS2 so much." He said "no let's get an XBOX 360 because that's what all my friends have and I want to play online with them," and while every online game he wanted was also available on PS3, he couldn't play with his friends on the PS3. Online didn't really matter to me since I prefer single player games, and since all I really cared about were multi-plats, we got an XBOX 360. Sure, I wanted the blu-ray and rumored Sly 4, but pretty much every game I wanted on the PS3 I could get on the 360. However, I didn't play it much because the 7th gen didn't do much for me since most games were shooters or sports (2 genres I don't care for). And even though I wanted to use the streaming services like Hulu Plus and Crackle, I couldn't because I needed Xbox Live Gold to do that, and by the time I got into streaming services neither my brother nor I wanted to pay for gold anymore.

Well in 2011 Wreck it Ralph came out and I said "I refuse to get this movie on DVD, I am getting a blu-ray player of some kind so I can watch this movie right." Since there was a killer deal on a black friday PS3, we bought a PS3. From then on, the PS3 was our primary gaming machine. Every multi-plat from then on we bought was for the PS3. We bought multiple exclusives like Last of Us and Sly 4. Once we bought the PS3, it became our primary gaming device with our XBOX 360 collecting dust. We bought maybe 3 XBOX360 games since buying the PS3, and those were exclusives I got for cheap at garage sales. Even after Microsoft dropped the whole "you need XBL Gold for streaming services" we prefer to use the PS3 for streaming. If it wasn't for platform locked online, we probably wouldn't have an XBOX 360. (Well, we wouldn't have an XBOX 360 as our 7th gen console. I'm a collector, I would have bought an XBOX 360 eventually because I want every console, but it wouldn't have been before I got a PS3).

And there you have it. My family wouldn't have bought an XBOX 360 if my brother could have played with his XBOX 360 friends from a PS3. It would have been great for us, but it would have cost Microsoft a sale. If I were an online gamer, I would be really happy about this because it is great for consumers. However, we honestly wouldn't have bought an XBOX 360 as our primary platform and bought all our games and live gold if cross platform online was an option in the 7th gen. Well, this has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and if I were Sony I wouldn't agree to cross platform online.

Physical Games Will Never Die for Me

So I watched ReviewTechUSA's video on "physical media is dying" and this is the comment I left.



I still buy physical and I will as long as I can, because I love seeing the game on my wall. I don't care "how easy to use" and "installs" and all that, I like looking over at my DVD rack and seeing my Wii U, PS3, and XBOX 360 games along my wall. I love looking at my (3)DS game cases lined up on my (3)DS game shelf. I love flipping through my 3DS game case to get to my game. I play mostly single player games so 15 years from now my games will still be mostly functional.

Now for my "burned" story with digital, a story I plan on turning into skit video. I have a bunch of demos on my PS3 and 360 that I downloaded when I didn't really have money back in high school. When I finally got a job to buy games, I tried getting the full games from PSN and XBL. Oh, those games are no longer on the servers, and this was before PS4 and XBOX ONE. Then around the same time, I wanted to buy some launch DS games that I didn't have (Feel the Magic and Sprung to be specific). What did I do? I went on amazon and bought used copies. Now lets look at a more recent example. PT? Yeah, that digital Konami game that was only available for like 9 months and now it's impossible to get if you don't already have it. Now if only it was released physically. Even if there's game breaking bugs and the patches are no longer available, well it's still playable up to a point.

I will ALWAYS prefer physical.

Here's Why the Wii is so "Underrated"

So I saw this post on 9gag and I felt compelled explain why. This is the comment I left.

Lets see; not HD, no REAL 3rd party support, more than half of the games are shovelware, the motion controls ruin most games, no standard gamepad option (VC and gamecube controllers were exceptions, not norms), stupid name, it's hardware and architecture was almost identical to the PS2 (a console from the previous generation), it's the reason Microsoft pushed the kinect so much, Nintendo didn't care about "the gamer" at all with how they marketed it, online was terrible, the only decent games on it were nintendo first party and guitar hero (and that's being generous), Netflix was like the ONLY media app available, no DVD or Blu-Ray playback (my PS3 is my primary movie watching device), the controls were unresponsive and laggy in many situations, and was the most OVERRATED console of the generation. And that is why "the Wii is so 'underrated.'"