Zero Latency Ireland opens it’s doors to cool new VR gaming experience

Guest post by Aaron Faulker

Zero Latency is an indoor virtual reality centre located across the world. It is the first of its kind in Ireland and opened March 5th. We had the pleasure of being invited to the centres media preview. We came expecting fun and games and got a fast-paced immersive experience that we all agreed went by too fast.

We went in and were greeted by cheerful welcoming staff and was directed to the kit room where we donned the actual kit we would be using for the experience, the kit was hi-tech and running on some impressive specifications. The rifle we were handed was meaty and satisfying to hold. With a simple system of use and a totally hands-free rig, it was easy to get immersed in whatever you were playing, whether it be zombie survival, shooting robots in the dead or space, or exploring a beautifully realised world in Engineerium.

The game mode we experimented with was zombie survival, which began with you and three other people being dropped into a decently sized arena and being tasked with defending until extraction. This started off well as it gives you about 40 seconds to acclimate and then it sends in the hoard. This is done in a way which means you have to constantly be turning around and looking behind you. This is done seamlessly and with no motion blur, which If you’ve experienced VR before, you would know that without a decent computer your prone to lag and jumps which cause motion sickness.

This leads us to our next point, how they do it without wires. Unlike most other setups zero latency has no big computer running in the back and instead has each player have their own computer running the game which is strapped to the back of a harness and allows for quick, on the fly computing directly at the score, how it tracks where you are is done through a mix of motion capture cameras in the roof and the headset tracking its position as well the gun also has 2 balls which the cameras also track similar to the system used in Playstations VR remotes, this leads to a set up that has nearly no latency, which is apt for a company called Zero Latency and a slick fast-paced experience that has you and your friends blasting zombies while screaming at each other.

Finally, all I can say is I look forward to the opening and see great things in the future of the franchise. 9/10 would go again.

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