I’m not really sure what’s going on here. This video seems to be demonstrating the mind-blowing virtual reality capabilities of Oculus Rift by taking people on a stroll through a virtual land. But it’s not an alien landscape, a grizzly battlefield, or even a national monument. It’s the damned supermarket. Huh?
It turns out, this is a project developed for Tesco (sort of the UK’s version of Coles) by ad agency Figure Digital. Things just begin to get exciting at the very end, when we’ve ditched the supermarket for a bright, sunny soccer stadium (coincidentally, sponsored by Tesco).
Then, like waking from a dream just as things were starting to get awesome, it’s all over.
Maybe there’s something to be said for virtual reality that recreates our corporeal world so accurately. Sure, it’s one thing to put a gamer in the middle of an imaginary land that can’t be compared to anything real. But mimicking the mundane things we see every day? That takes some skill.
Though truth be told, I probably won’t be buying any supermarket-themed video games when Oculus Rift shows up later this year. [Figure Digital via Digg]