Virtual Reality Versus Lance Montana

A few weeks ago, the Lance Montana team ventured out to Zero Latency - a global leader in free-roam virtual reality games. In just a few short years, virtual reality has evolved from an Internet buzzword to something even the worst of technophobes are eager to experience. So, is this new form of digital entertainment all it’s cracked up to be?

The State of Virtual Reality Today

Most virtual reality games today work by using a headset with LCD displays in front of your eyes, and sensors that track head movements to alter what the game shows to you. So when you move your head up, down and side-to-side, you’ll see a 360 degree, immersive environment around you.

But what the big players in VR are working on, is motion tracking, so that when you move your arms and legs, the game displays this. Zero Latency did a pretty great job of motion tracking from a headset alone, something Laurence and Adam noticed when they gave each other a high five after defeating an army of hungry zombies.

As for how lifelike the game felt? The animation of people/zombies is definitely closer to Fortnite than Avatar. And we did notice the occasional glitch when a team member accidentally bumped into a wall (we’re looking at you Pav). But we were all very surprised and impressed by how real the environment, and your movements within it felt. One stage of the game had us jump onto a helicopter before it took off, and hand on heart, it felt like Zero Latency had somehow cunningly thrown us onto a rollercoaster.

Motion sickness aside, would we do it again? Abso-bloody-lutely.

Where Virtual Reality is Heading

There’s no doubt virtual reality has improved in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years. But what’s really exciting, is where it’s heading.

While we couldn’t rave more about our experience at Zero Latency, the fact that a multiplayer game required a 400 square meter open space clearly limits the accessibility of VR to a wider audience. What VR obsessives are losing their techy minds over, is omnidirectional VR treadmills. These futuristic contraptions let you experience VR in all its glory, but from a significantly smaller space. Check out the tech here:

And once VR has well and truly ensconced itself into our everyday lives, you can bet that it’ll change the face of advertising as we know it. If you’re not quite up to date on Black Mirror and need a little help picturing this scenario, we love this description from Forbes;

You are online at your favourite virtual jazz bar. You look across the table and see your friend drinking a cold beer. At that exact moment, the AI system will recognise that beer and make a purchase suggestion to you. You will then be prompted with a one-hour delivery option of that same brand of beer via Amazon drone, and a simple yes or no will complete the transaction or cancel it.

For those of you who hate data tracking and targeted remarketing, we’d suggest picking a new pet peeve. Something tells us VR is going to bring an entire universe of new advertising and marketing mediums to our virtual lives.