Virtual reality continues to aim for a more and more immersive experience, and Facebook’s Oculus Rift is doing its best to lead the charge. Immersion, however, requires that a player use more than just a controller to run the game, which is where motion controls come in.

At F8, the Facebook Developers Conference, I had the chance to try out the still unreleased Oculus Touch, which combines the Oculus headset with a pair of motion controls, and the VR Sports Challenge game from Sanzaru Games. Here’s what I found.

Before even putting on the headset, I had to make sure I had enough room to move around. There was a small matted platform for me to stand on, and the volunteer running the demo assured me that he’d help make sure I stayed on it. But there was also a risk of smacking my hands on the ceiling if I attempted any ill-advised jump shots, so I had to check just how far my head and hands were from the ceiling.

The VR Sports Challenge demo available at F8 had three mini-games available: one football game and two basketball games. I began with the basketball game, which was a free throw contest.

The motion sensor controllers tracked by hand movements, and I could use the trigger buttons to pick up and let go of the basketballs. I then had to “throw” then in the right direction to try and arc them towards the basket. I was not particularly good at aiming properly, but frankly, I’m not much better in actual reality than I was in a virtual one.

Inside the headset, everything looked right. I was fully immersed in the virtual world, my eyes and ears covered by the headset to perfect the illusion. Of course, the graphics weren’t entirely photorealistic, but still impressive, and not quite at the point of “uncanny valley.”

The second game I tried was the slam dunk contest. That one occasionally switched perspective, from third-person to first-person as the player character moved closer to the basket. My hands presumably held a basketball, and tracked my motion as I attempted to make the most impressive dunk possible and properly get the virtual ball into the net I saw in front of me.

The third and final mini-game was the football one, which had a somewhat more interactive intro. It set the scene, with the last minute of a big game, and I, the player character, was to take the place of the quarterback, whose arm was broken to an almost cartoonish extent. As the coach, who was designed to be a little bit shorter than the player, continued yelling and demanded I look him in the eye, I actually bent down a bit to try that, and could see the detail that went into the digital rendering. The action and noise around me helped set the scene and the mood, and even though I know little about football, I was still ready to go.

I am not very good at football either, and while the controls involved mainly pressing the left and right triggers while holding your hand where the ball was or should go, it wasn’t as responsive as I’d have like to properly make me feel like I was part of the game. Still, it properly integrated motion sensors, a full 3D field of vision, and head tracking to improve the immersion.

Motion tracking for sports games is nothing new. Nintendo beat everyone to the punch years ago with the Wii and the various “Wii Sports” games that came with it. But adding the VR element to it made them all the more engaging, although the controls still required pressing buttons rather than full hand movements. Still, for another step forward in virtual reality, it’s a good sign of things to come.

All photos by Robert Pleasant