raycevick

Physical

Added 2021-11-05 13:00:07 +0000 UTC

Nothing big today. Not a huge point about the global gaming industry, just a personal little thing I noticed while I've been making Beat Saber a morning routine before hitting the showers. I experienced something entirely unique to VR, wanting to keep playing, but being unable to… I don't waddle down streets, but I'm not a Bodybuilder either.

Most of my days are spent typing on this keyboard, staring at these monitors, while sometimes moving a mouse.

I'm not exactly Tom Cruise.

So it's quite strange then to have both my enjoyment and ability be restricted physicality in a video-game. I've never been in the middle of a Call of Duty match, and find it harder to aim, because the tendons in my arm are being stretched like string. The only breaks I took on Guitar Hero were from raging at Metallica's One and it's fucking five minute build to a brick wall.

Is there such a thing as nostalgic rage? Because that's what I’m feeling right now.

But with VR games, Beat Saber in this case, that is a very real thing. I'll feel myself improving day by day only to get to the third play session and find myself unable getting worse. There's songs I've completed sections of, that since then, I can't.

Meanwhile, the opposite can also happen.

So many tracks that just one week ago made me sweat, now don't strain me at all.

One of the things that fascinates me about VR is how similar it is to gaming in the 90s, where the next big evolution didn't require money, resources, or an experienced team, just problem solving.

I wonder if and how games will need to adjust how they're paced in accordance to the physic of your average player. Will difficulties be about damage numbers or about how strenuous your activities are? Will quiet time become no longer just relate to mental exhaustion, but physical too? And are they combined or are they separate?

It poses so many questions that I don't have the answers for, but in an exciting way rather than concerning way.

In the meantime… I'll just have to let my arms rest for a day or two before I make another Expert+ attempt on Vol. 4.