Back in the early ’90s, virtual reality seemed like the greatest thing ever. By simply bolting a ton of electronics to your head, dosing up on motion sickness pills and looking utterly ridiculous as you waved your arms around and tried to get used to the feeling of your eyes seeing movement but your legs being locked to the ground, you could enter a whole new world.
A whole new 3D world rendered on an Amiga, admittedly, with no tactile feedback. But still, we were impressed. Virtual reality was clearly the future of gaming. Except it wasn’t.
A mix of unimpressive games and phenomenally expensive kit quickly put an end to things. The technology simply wasn’t good enough – not just the VR, but also the computers that were serving up the games – and mainstream interest started to fade.
What might have been the future quickly became just a fad, and VR became no more than a footnote in the history of gaming. These days, augmented reality – laying artificially-generated images over real-life ones using tools like GPS – has taken over as the next big thing. Will it work? Ask us in 2020… Next >>
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