GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Best VR introduction I could have hoped for

The chaos of last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is behind us, but we still have a major duty to fulfill: the non-awards!

You see, while most publications will focus on mentioning the games with the best graphics or interesting gameplay, we like to give shout-outs for the sort of stuff that no one else is really bothering with. Some of our non-awards recognize cool moments, some focus on awkward gaffes, and some even complain about donuts.

Welcome to the GamesBeat E3 2015 Non-Award Awards!  (Here’s last year’s choices).

I was a little salty going into this year’s E3. Everyone is talking about how virtual reality is the future of gaming, but I haven’t really had a chance to try any of it.

Luckily, Sony gave me an opportunity to check out its VR device for the PlayStation 4, Project Morpheus. Of course, since so many people wanted to try the helmet on, I didn’t really get to pick which game I’d get to play. I simply had to check out whichever demo became available first.

That demo happened to be Wayward Sky, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better introduction to VR. You see, I grew up with point-and-click adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. Wayward Sky was like those, but you actually looked and clicked. A cursor would stay in the middle of your vision, so you just had to tilt your head to highlight points of interest. It was easy and intuitive.

Still, the actual VR stuff really made me smile during the entire demo. I had always envisioned VR as a strictly first-person affair, but Wayward Sky has you looking down on the hero character. This makes it easy to see her surroundings and direct her around the area. An area, by the way, that just so happened to be a bunch of platforms located high above the clouds. I could look down and actually get that “oh-god-I’m-going-to-fall” feeling. But, you know, in a safe, fun kind of way.

Overall, Wayward Sky has me super excited for Morpheus. I also know that it would be the first VR game I would buy when the device comes out.