Preparing for VR: Bioshock Infinite played with LEAP Motion and Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED headtracker

Bioshock infinite is as close as art gets to gaming and gaming gets to art . 

Before launching into how it plays with head tracking and LEAP Motion I need to ponder that  for a few moments, out of respect.. and consider:How did this happen and who is responsible?

Irrational Games are responsible for this and some of the finest games in almost every decade of modern video gaming since a young Master Gates talked IBM into placing a PC running his code on every desk in the 'verse. Unlike their contemporaries iD , Digital Extremes , Ion Storm they.. Irrational Games.. traversed with not only ease, the PC to next gen console shift, they have thrived in it . Nay ..illuminated it ..

From Looking Glass / later Irrational Games we got  Ultima Underworld I & 2,    Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri , System Shock , System Shock 2 , the Thief series , yes even Tribes Vengeance , the Freedom Force series and now the Bioshock series  all of which still have fans and critics and collectors raving about them. A single big box copy of System Shock 2 can go for $200.. this is respect , you can get it from GOG for $10.. but to own that box ..that is kudos..

This is no mean feat : For consider the karmic fate of Irrational's contemporaries...

Where Carmack went coding phone game RAGE , being trounced by Angry Birds and Green Pigs, Blezsinski scored initially with Gears on console and grew steadily tired and now is thankfully free to innovate again and of course the greatest of all PC game designers Warren Spector ended up dumbing down Deus Exs sequel for consoles being duly punished by ending up and hopefully not ending at Epic Mickey 1 and 2....   Irrational Games transcended..

What did Irrational do different to all of the above ( who for any trolls out there I consider coding heroes by the way ) ... ? Irrational stayed true to their gaming design  and with the greatest of respect towards the then new gen of console gamers , gave them the same core gaming experience that was in their PC games. When you play a Bioshock game on PC or Xbox 360 or PS3 it is the same experience , they did not dumb anything down as did Spector for Deus Ex 2 , they did not sit down and try to transfer and dumb down the  FPS genre onto a phone which cannot reproduce the FPS gaming experience and thus produce an on rails shooter like RAGE al a Carmack. And they were not constrained or trapped  by  exclusivity in the console gaming design realm as our hero Cliffy B.

This is a shame because we as gamers lost out on what Mr Carmack, Spector and Cliffy B could have given us ....and may still !  If they took a peak through  Irrational's looking glass perhaps....

Irrational also thrive on being a pure design team, exploiting along the way engines that John Carmack and Cliff  Bleszinski were involved in..including the Unreal Engine used in Bioshock Infinite .

 Deus Ex Machina ...but it takes a Michel Angelo to illuminate this for us sometimes ....Irrational certainly seem to have a few of those around who can make art with any engine whether Quake 2 or Unreal ...

Bioshock Infinite also manages to weave a  warning message of the ultimate doom of a society  that turns a blind eye to, exploits and is riddled with prejudice, fascism and narcissism and based around the personality cult of an unflinching tyrant  ..though some may miss the point altogether...of that sentence and the game...more power to the developers for tackling these issues ..

So that is the how , you can make yourself feel good by reading the standard reviews on Metacritic if you need to but really if you are reading this you already have the game...dontcha?

I am on a quest to use and combine VR leaning controls, yes this dappy English kernigghit is on a VR Grail quest too...And on hardware that every one can have access to..

HMDs like the Cinemizer OLED will work with minimal spec hardware . as well as of course traditional gaming hardware. The  pictures and videos you see here of Bioshock Infinite are Intel HD3000 powered.  No nVidia Vision or AMDHD3D  required for 3D gaming or headtracking or handtracking..




I need to test how a sustained headtracking game session works with and changes how I play Bioshock Infinite and as we can we are also going to play in Tridef 3D, which explains these funny pictures you see around this post . Set your 3D viewers to over under to check them out... in 3D! 

Aiming and moving a field of view with a headtracker is different to mouse control in many ways , you are not really conscious you use it for a start, the first 30 minutes of Bioshock Infinite are a very good demo of how gaming changes when you play a FPS , in OLED 3D on a hmd with headtracking . In the video above which is a recording of that 3D gameplay , you will see me move the field of view with the headtracker only and also aim with the headtracker only. I find with the ability to look, you actually spend a lot more of your time doing it than you would with a mouse or joypad..

You can play this way for a significant time without noticing you are wearing the Cinemizer OLED , on which these colours rock of course. There is no better way to play a 3D FPS than using a HMD , absolutely nothing can interfere with you being in the game and with the Cinemizer OLED it can be any game on any device outputting a hmd signal..

If aiming with your head is not your thing , then don't hanker none Tex for you can also shoot with your hand...

VR is never going to be achieved if we just stick to headtracking though, so also I took the opportunity to test LEAP Motions new 1.76 sdk and firmware update which has improved finger tracking ( which was none to shabby before the update!) .Here I play looking for hooks for future   VR control...as explained in the video ...

I have not had time to combine these yet, but that will come more to follow @ thegameveda 

I need to get my blog up and running after recent events ! 

If  VR gaming as opposed to professional grade VR is going to take off and turn profits in an ailing economy , the answers to how we design those VR games do not lie in creating new VR experiences from the ground up alone , they lie in the existing body of the art of video gaming almost 4 decades of it, in gems like Irrational's latest and greatest Bioshock Infinite . Players gotta play and when you do and as you do you will pick up the hooks where VR can enhance gaming and wake up jaded games designers too.  

After all a virtual wheel in your fancy VR  world just needs to turn like the real thing ...no need to reinvent it .. and anyone that tells you different IS trying to sell you something...the question is are you buying?


which reminds me ...

Collectors check out some Irrational and Looking Glass classics here 

 Purchase  in the UK/EU the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED 3D iPack including iPhone adapter and in the USA the Cinemizer OLED , 

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