At the PAX South Alienware booth, from a company called “Survios” (who I had never heard of), there was an amazing game called Sprint Vector. Sprint Vector is a VR game for the Oculus Rift. According to Maria, my contact at the booth, the idea was to create a VR game that “allows you to move in a different, faster way” than other VR games of today. Once I was dropped into the game, they gave me a test run to figure out how the controls work, and then pitted me against the player in the Oculus setup next to me.
It’s a racing game where you pump and swing your arms in order to propel yourself forward, as if you’re skiing or pulling yourself along on a rope. The race was exhilarating, and I was in first place for the first half of the race until I missed a turn, slammed into a wall, and got stuck. The racing experience is amazing, although there’s a slight bit of imbalance when going up or down hills. It threw my own balance off and made me lean back and forth a little bit. You can grab power ups as well as and turn and move by turning and moving your head.
When you’re racing against someone else, you can actually see them in-game, which is really cool. You have a choice between several characters and four color schemes within those characters to choose from. It’s very well designed, and a lot of fun. There is no release date yet, but there is a public beta being launched on the 19th. It’s playable in some VR arcades currently, and their first “esports tournament” (as Maria put it) was at CES, and I can definitely see the competitive aspect.
It was much more fun playing against another human being, and is apparently even more fun playing with people you know. I can only imagine how entertaining it would be for my friends and I to scream at each other while playing. The controls were a little wonky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s buttery smooth. While I did find myself accidentally “braking” when squeezing the controller, the game was absolutely amazing. If you have an opportunity, check it out.
