What I learned from playing video games with my sons (Part 2)

First, I have to apologize. I lied when I said I was next going to tell you about my experiences playing “old school” video games with my sons.?I didn’t lie to you intentionally, it’s just that before going old school, we played on my son’s new virtual reality headset and I wanted to tell you about that “new(est) school” experience as a lead-in to the old school video games.?However, the VR story got a little long, so here it is first.?You’ll get the old school stuff in Part 3.

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You likely already read about my experiences playing video games with my sons as a way to connect with them.?That was a few years ago.?While my sons and I enjoyed our few sessions of video game play together, it never really stuck--I just couldn't hang at their level...and didn't have the time to build up the necessary skills to get their level.

Then, this past Christmas break, one of my sons brought his new Virtual Reality (VR) system to the family gathering. This is the story of that experience.

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Yet another gaming system?

When eldest my son told me that he bought a VR system, I was torn.?Though I was curious and excited about its potential, I was also concerned that it would be yet another time-suck that threatened to derail his college studies. In part to connect with us as a family, and in part to assuage our fears about the VR set, he brought it home for the Christmas holidays for us to try.

After clearing a 10-foot by 10-foot space of breakable things (moving around in a virtual three-dimensional world requires moving around in a real-life world, at least to some degree), my son got all the sensors put in place, got the headset connected to the computer he brought, and he booted everything up.?All of that alone was a serious undertaking; thankfully we had Christmas cookies I could eat while watching him.?

Next, he familiarized everyone with how things worked, and we elected the most agile and technologically proficient person in the room to try it first—grandma.

What can I say??It was comical. Watching her shuffle cautiously forward across the floor, then quickly back up as she virtually walked to the edge of a mountain top was amusing.?She stretched her arms out into the air, swiped at things, picked up imaginary objects, and cringed as creatures came toward her. We all had a good laugh at her expense (love you grandma).

Then it was my turn.

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“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda

I inserted my hands into the controls, donned the headset, and was transported into a three-dimensional space that was completely immersive.?The cliff edge made my stomach tighten, the space app made me realize how empty space really is, the cartoon shooting app caused my heart rate to rise as the enemies got closer, and the zombie killing game was so realistic that I now know how difficult the zombie apocalypse will be to survive—we’re not going to make it. I hate to tell you this, folks, but it’s one thing to watch The Walking Dead from your couch, it’s a completely different thing when you’re the one toting a shot gun around, constantly looking behind you, straining to tell if that sound is water dripping from the basement ceiling or footsteps of a brain-eating beast lurking in the dark.

Then there’s Beat Saber. Let’s talk about Beat Saber for a minute…or more.

Beat Saber is a game where you stand on an elevated platform, and armed with two virtual light sabers, strike at blocks that come flying toward you to the beat of the song you’re listening to.?You choose the song and the difficulty (i.e. speed and quantity) of the blocks coming at you.?The goal is to strike at and destroy the blocks in time with the beat.?Some blocks can be hit from any direction, but most require you to hit them from a specific direction.

This game is awesome. The environment is so real feeling that you just want to look around and live in that room.?The swatting, squatting, and ducking to destroy blocks and avoid walls becomes super fun, so much so, that you begin to feel like a ninja.??

No, seriously, I really felt like a ninja.?Or a Jedi.?Or a Jedi Ninja, if that were a thing. Because you must destroy the blocks from a specific direction, and because that direction changes from block to block, there’s this fluid up-down, left-right rhythm that develops.

I’ve never taken any martial arts classes--save for one that wore me out so badly that I threw up afterwards--but after playing this game, I no longer felt like I needed any self-defense classes.?Like Neo from the Matrix movie, the knowledge and skills of a black belt were downloaded into my brain. “I know kung fu,” I said out loud.

For a good perspective of what a Jedi Ninja looks like in action, check out this video of a guy (not me) playing Beat Saber: https://youtu.be/kSa2syteyg8?t=25

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“Great satisfaction comes from sharing with others” – said no one who played Beat Saber

Eventually, I took off the VR so my wife could play, which she did, for far longer that I liked.?“Sheesh, can’t you give other people a chance?” I thought, then quickly snatched up the headset again when she finished.?Unfortunately, unless you have another VR headset, there’s no “cooperative” mode to the gaming system, and VR headsets are not as cheap as just buying another game controller like you might for a Nintendo, PlayStation, or Xbox.

After watching me, my son gave me some pointers then asked if I’d like to see him tackle an Expert level.?I handed it over to him and watched as he proceeded to show me “how it’s really done.”?He toggled the menu options to one of the fastest songs and proceeded to slice through blocks with ease. It was impressive, but honestly, it didn’t look that much more difficult than the songs I was playing.?So, I pushed him aside and put on the headset again.

It turns out that the Expert level is no joke. The blocks came at me so fast, that all I could do was violently swing my arms around in hopes of not getting hit in the face by one of them.?On my first try, I missed the first four notes, which caused me to immediately fail. On my second try I managed to make it to the fifth note. “Ok, ok, I get now,” I said to my son, who, at this point had already walked out of the room, but I didn’t know that because I had a headset on.

Eventually I think I lasted 10 seconds before downshifting to an easier song.?Remember the video above of that guy playing??Well, that was on Expert level.?After trying the Expert level, I realized that I was merely a Jedi Padawan and had much training to do before hoping to be a Black Belt Jedi Ninja. And to further mix metaphors, it occurred to me that me that my Matrix-esque kung fu would have to advance to where I could see blocks coming at me in slow motion. So, I trained, and over the course of our vacation, I leveled-up from Easy to Normal to Hard (well, at least on one or two songs).?

The left-right, up-down slicing motion drives you to move in step to the tune. And let me tell you, there’s nothing more exhilarating than destroying blocks that are speeding toward you while you move back and forth in time with Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off.”?I couldn’t help but think that this game might qualify me as a dancer for her concert tour. In fact, I considered going to audition, but that would’ve required me to take off the headset.?Dang that game is addictive.??

At some point, my wife came over to ask if I was going to join the family for Christmas dinner.?I think my singing along to “Shake it off” was misinterpreted as a response to her question when I blurted out, “Players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” Taylor Swift needed me to destroy blocks and finish the song, even if it meant sacrifice on my end.

When I eventually peeled off the gear (which yes, had accumulated volumes of sweat we shall not discuss here), I smiled to accept adulation from my family, who I assumed where watching my impressive skills.?But they were not.?The fact is, unless you’re playing the game, it’s really not that fun to watch someone else play…imagine that.?

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Which brings us to some of the things I learned while playing VR

You likely already caught some of my lessons-learned sprinkled throughout the story. Here are a few I’ll highlight.

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You are not as cool as you think you are.

This, I’m afraid, is one of the biggest down-sides to living in a virtual world—your body is still in the real world. To illustrate this point, please watch this video of a mother (not mine) playing Beat Saber.?Unlike the video above which showed that guy playing in the virtual world, this shows you what you look like in the real world.

A mom playing Beat Saber: https://youtu.be/Y2gXM-ir-JE?t=237

If you think you’d look better if you were more skilled and were playing the Expert level, you’d be wrong.?It’s just the same actions only faster—it’s like watching someone fight off a bee attack.

In general, this point relates to all things VR—you simply are not as cool in the real world as you are in a virtual world. And no matter how cool you get in the VR world, it will not make you cool in real life (or “IRL” as my sons would say).

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It can be gross.

In the real world, if you were to fight off a bee attack, or zombies, you would likely sweat a lot.?And the same is true when playing this game. It’s gross.?My son and my son’s roommates and friends had all played this game before I had, which means they had all sweated in the headset before me.?If you’ve ever worn one of those padded sumo wrestling suits, you know the feeling of wearing something that someone else has sweated in.?It’s not pleasant. Yes, the headsets can be wiped off, but still, someone else sweated in it.?(Also, as an aside, if there are any other examples of wearing something that someone else has sweated in, I don’t want to know.?I only have experience with sumo suits).

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It is immersive and seductive

I can see why, when VR is fully matured, it will be difficult to disconnect from.?Your brain doesn’t know the difference. The graphics are amazing—distant things looked distant, close things looked close; the controls are interactive—they allowed me to pick things up and experience haptic feedback as if I were actually holding the object; and the stereo headset created sounds in three dimensions as well.?

Because it was so immersive and seductive, and because by this time in our vacation it was almost New Year’s Eve, I realized I should probably never buy a VR for video gaming—I’m not sure I’d have the discipline to focus on the right priorities in life.

So, having put too much time into the virtual world and not enough into the real world, I took off the headset and looked longingly over to my family who was putting together a puzzle and enjoying time together.?“Some things just can’t be duplicated in the virtual world,” I thought to myself. Then I headed to the bathroom to attend to some real-world needs.

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A Final Note

Just so no one worries about my marriage or home life, I didn’t actually play VR that long or miss any major family events over the holidays. But the VR was fun, and addictive…and somewhat lonely.?Thus, I convinced my sons to go “old school” and play something more cooperative, and something my speed—video games from the 1980s. Doing so brought back great memories… and even created new ones.

You can read about that in Part 3, I promise...