A new cover based shooter using the Oculus Rift looks incredible

I’ve been slow getting on the Oculus Rift bandwagon as I didn’t really see how slapping a helmet on with a screen in my face could really be that exciting. But my mind has just been changed thanks to a video posted up by an Australian developer.

Teddy Lipowitz, the developer behind Hydra Cover Shooter, has uploaded a video of himself testing out his game and it is really something to behold.

Now remember this is an indie developer and the game is obviously not as polished as what we would expect from a top draw development house but at the same time it is honestly the most exciting game that I’ve seen in a very long time. Teddy has joined the Oculus Rift with two Razer Hydra motion controllers with one being in his hand to move around and fire and the other strapped to his chest to detect crouching and standing.

Now how cool is that where you have to physically duck behind barrels and lean out to take shots. Also the blind fire really does become true blind fire as you can’t see where the bullets are going.

The code is available for download and it comes with this awesome warning

“Please be careful when playing this demo, lots of people try to support themselves on the crates when they try to stand up or when leaning up against a column, but find there is nothing there.”

I just love that. So this is exciting enough for a post but it gets even better. One of my personal development heroes, John Carmack the  brains behind the Quake series, has joined Oculus Rift as their head of technology. However, this doesn’t mean that he is leaving his role at id Software where he will continue to provide technical leadership.

After it came to light that John was joining Oculus the following statement was sent out

“I have fond memories of the development work that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming — the intensity of the first person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It’s going to be awesome!”

I think he may be onto something…

Apparently I’m going to get some hands on time with the Rift at Gamescom, to say I’m excited right now would be a massive understatement. Can you imagine joining the Oculus Rift with a Kinect 2.0 system along with a Virtua Omni? And then pulled all together with a solid development effort.

Beam me up Scotty

Last Updated: August 8, 2013