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I’ve just come back from a walk, downtown Montreal, with my friend and co-worker Eric, whom you might remember, was my companion during the Nintendo 3DS misadventure (from which I only just almost completely regained my full, straight eyesight). We decided to take advantage of the mild weather and quiet Easter Monday to go outdoors, for a brief test of a few augmented reality (AR) video games on our respective Android phones.
Mine is an LG Optimus One, while in a blatant display of monetary prowess (he lives with his parents) Eric splunged on a more expensive, faster and larger screened, HTC Desire.
We tested Zombie, Run! first, Spec Trek (Free edition) second and Droid Shooting last.
During our Zombie, Run! test, we were asked to determine an “ending point” where a supposed “safe house” (think Left 4 Dead minus the elaborate weaponry) would be, basically the game shows you a Google map of your immediate area, with an added bonus; some red zombies converging towards your GPS location. Imagine a Pac Man game with a real person (you) as Pac Man, no pellets or pills and no real boundaries. Also sadly, no Mrs Pac Man… The point of the game is to safely get to your destination (the safe house) before having your brain served for dinner to a virtual zombie. I can’t stress enough that it’s impossible to play this game without running, and I don’t mean jogging or walking fastly, I mean RUNNING! We died on both games we attempted, even though our goal was relatively close by.
We then tested Spec Trek and that was even more fun. In Zombie, Run! all you see are zombies on a map, and I imagine that in the right setting, like Halloween night, or after having had a couple of beers, it could be genuinely scary to imagine yourself being chased by zombies. However the impressive part of augmented reality is of course the reality part. And when I saw the first little ghost floating around the corner of President Kennedy Avenue and Union street, I instinctively looked up from the phone screen to try and spot the ghost with my own eyes, and felt like an idiot. Moments later, as I was chasing it down Union towards the Starbucks Coffee, to the furious horns of passing cars, I realized how dangerous it was to chase a non existing object, smack downtown, by using a 4″ screen as a camera. Still I caught my ghost and was later awarded a “Longest distance walked” trophy.
Spec Trek is probably meant to be played in a remote, isolated area, like a farm or a suburban street, at night. I can’t wait to try it in one of those settings, as it must be awesome to play in the dark. We’ve also been having fun with Droid Shoot, a fun little game where you shoot waves of flying androids while flailing around like a complete tool. This last one is better played indoors.
Is this the future of portable video games? I hope so. All three games are addictive and free.
[…] We have augmented reality video games and apps for our Android and iPhones, but imagine being able to drop some contact lenses onto your eyes and not be forced to see the modded world thru a camera phone. This is what researchers at Washington University are planning to achieve in the near future. Their plan, to allow the wearers to see a TV show, movie, pictures, and even HUDs right in their field of vision, all that without the need for a screen, simply by projecting the images directly into the eyeball. […]