Hanging out in VR

A good friend of mine got Sony's PSVR at Christmas time, and last night we were finally able to get together online in virtual reality. We met in the game Arizona Sunshine, and it was surreal seeing his avatar standing there using his voice. We joked and talked as he figured out how to move around and manipulate items with his hands, and there were some funny moments when he tried to put a hat on his head—the hat first dropped in front of him to his feet, and when he tried again, he reached too far behind his head it dropped behind him. After adjusting to VR a bit more, we headed out into the desert canyon, shooting zombies together and scrounging for ammo by searching abandoned cars. Ammo was limited, and we found that it helped to call out which zombies we were targeting so we didn't both waste ammo shooting the same one full of holes. There were some scary moments when a large group of zombies started heading towards us, running from different directions. One even got up in my face as I scrambled to reload my gun, and my friend was unable to help because he was dealing with his own zombie horde. The scariest moment, though, was when we tried opening a car and it set off a car alarm—tons of zombies came running. We took shelter in a nearby sheriff's building, and left the door propped open slightly so we could shoot the zombies outside as they came near. After finally splattering the last zombie's head to pieces, my friend said he had to call it quits because he was getting nauseous from moving around in VR. It happened to me when I first started playing VR last year, so we agreed we'd do a little at a time as he developed his “VR Legs.” It takes a little practice, but now I'm running and jumping in VR with no nausea, staying in virtual reality worlds sometimes for 2 to 3 hours at a time! It was tons of fun hanging out in virtual reality with my friend, and I look forward to more social VR experiences in the future!