[pkcable]

Folks,

Today, or yesterday as the case may be since it's after midnight here, on Saturday 4/29, several Philadelphia area VRHeads' members meet up at the Centertec VR place in the Oxford Valley Mall in Langhorne PA. (near Philadelphia) In attendance was @pkcable (Rich) (his nephew Will) @MainFragger (Brian), @pjs37 (Paul), (Paul's wife), and @jamesbharp (James).

As we arrived we were greeted by Liz the manager of Centertec who had made our reservations. Her and the staff were lovely and assisted us with checking in. We had to of course pay and sign some waivers, and then it was off to pick out our games and begin playing. At this point I also distributed VRHeads swag to those attending the meetup as well as each Centertec staffer. One of the staffers even put his VRHeads shirt on immediately!

Ok it was off to play some games. We got to pick from a wide selection of games, BUT to my disappointment Eagles Flight has been discontinued. HOWEVER I did get to try several other cool games and experiences, including but not limited to "Rick & Morty, Project Cars, and Dirty Rally. Staff was available and attentive to our needs. They were also generous with our hour and did not rush us.

At the conclusion of our visit (and during) we took some pictures and videos including some VR pictures and videos. I just took a few regular pictures which I will post in the next post, BUT some of the other guys had better equipment. There stuff should be coming soon!

Rich

[pkcable]

Here's my photos.....

[jamesbharp]

It was a blast meeting some other VR enthusiasts and checking out Centertec. I'm attaching a Google "Cardboard Camera" panoramic image, it should be viewable in 360º 3D using the Cardboard Camera app.

As you can see Centertec is quite spacious with ample space for room-scale experiences. I own a Vive but have never even seen an Oculus up close so I took the opportunity to try out their Oculus offerings. I'm impressed with the field of view and clarity of the Oculus image. Unfortunately they did not have the Oculus touch controllers on hand. I imagine keeping up with new technology without going broke is going to be an ongoing challenge for this type of business. Also we weren't able to set up a three-way multi-player game.

The highlight of the hour was playing Project Cars on a racing chair with steering wheel and pedals. The staff told me that this was the first and only Centertec but they are hoping to franchise. Are enough people going to be willing to pay $30/hour for VR experiences to make this a viable business? Time will tell.

[Firegold21]

Looks like you had a great time. Can't wait till something like that is available in Michigan.

On a side note, I see Centertec also does esports ... wonder when VR titles will be included in esports events. That would be cool.

[Russell Holly]

This looks like a lot of fun! I can't wait to see VR become a part of eSports. There are already several great games planned that will do well in that kind of environment.

[pjs37]

Some photos from the event:

[iThunderbirt]

Very cool! I learned about a local VR gaming room that opened up here in Ottawa. When I get a chance I will look them up.

[pjs37]

So a little write up about my adventure:
We have an Oculus Rift so of course, we had to try the Vive more (which wasn't my first time) I chose to try the illustrious Rick and Morty VR game which I have seen but not yet played. It was really good though I had a lot of issues grabbing at things on the floor and I don't know if its due to the sensor set up or not. They have the lighthouse in the ceiling pointing down with a black cardboard used to delineate the corners of the virtual room. It works well enough for room scale but I think it may be a bit too high for the floor stuff, or it just needs to be recalibrated.

I also got to try Space Pirate Simulator which is of course also good though a bit hard for me. The Project Cars Racing Setup (Which is on the Rift) was good but I feel makes me a bit too motion sick sadly. I thought an hour wouldn't be enough time but they pause your timers when you break and what not and in all honesty an hour felt pretty generous by the end. Just enough to get around a lot of games to feel like an arcade but not too short at to feel rushed through it.

I know this is currently their only location but they did mention some thought into maybe making it a franchise. I hope they do because it was pretty busy while we were there and I think it is a great way to get people interested in VR without breaking the bank.

Of course, it was wonderful seeing all these people from the forums (shoutout to PKCable to keeping this whole thing organized) and we really need to do a dinner or something someday so we can discuss all our views on VR!

[MainFragger]

I have the HTC Vive. So I decided to go with Rift stuff first. Mostly, Lightsaber based games (I'm kind of in a Star Wars gaming zone lately). I had a lot of fun using a light saber and deflecting laser bolt fire back at the Storm Troopers and Droids. I then move to the Vive for Climber. This was a pretty challenging demo, and the beauty of the area where you are climbinhg when you reach the top is a pretty decent pay off! It took me a bit to get use to, but once I did, I enjoyed that game..and I think I may even buy the game (which you almost have to twist my arm to do)...

OK..that said, picture time! I'm not sure how this will work for the pano's..but here goes nothing.