Previews

Hands-on with the Vrizzmo VR headset

Oculus thrift

Hands-on with the Vrizzmo VR headset
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In the case of the Vrizzmo, the term 'hands-on' is extremely misleading.

As you can see in the video above, this cheap and cheerful answer to Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus allowed me to use my head, my neck, my spine, my feet, my legs, and various other muscles, organs, and bones vital to the operation of standing up and spinning around on the spot.

But not my hands.

Zombieland

The game I'm playing in the video is a zombie shooter set at night on a grim patch of urban wasteground. The experience was very much like playing a game in Oculus Rift - only less so.

The Vrizzmo is essentially a pair of goggles with a frame at the back into which you can slot a gyroscope-equipped phone.

I'm not sure whether it's possible to have both gyroscope and physical controller support working simultaneously in a smartphone game. If it is possible, though, then this demo didn't showcase the facility.

All I could do in my virtual back alley was spin around, as if frozen to the spot by fear - which seems incredible given that I could fire bullets from my eyes (another necessity borne of the lack of a physical controller.)

To kill zombies, I just had to look at them. And if you listen carefully, you can hear this happening whenever I stand still in the video.

Dev support

Vrizzmo has obvious limitations, then, but it also advantages. When creator De JET Works releases the dev kit and SDK in the next month or so, it will only charge €50. The commercial build - which the company hopes to release by the end of the summer - won't cost much more.

De JET Works hopes to release the Vrizzmo with about five supported games in a variety of genres, including - hypothetically - first-person shooter, racer, and flying game.

Thereafter, it will make its own games and co-operate with developers in an attempt to ensure that the software library is well stocked.

Vrizzmo is unlikely to be a substitute for Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus. But if all goes to plan, it will at least enable mobile gamers to glimpse the splendour of VR gaming for a fraction of the cost.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.