It is rare that a game really wows me. Whether it is with sheer intensity, emotions of some kind, or offering something which feels truly new and fresh, the wow moments are pretty far between but of course totally worth looking and waiting for.
Wipeout omega collection has given me multiple wows.
I have wanted a Wipeout game ever since first hearing about them. Technically, I did play a demo of Wipeout 2097 a bit on a woefully underpowered Pentium 133, but for many years that was it. I knew what the games were like, and played several games inspired by them, but I never had a Playstation so the real thing was always sort of out of reach. Naturally, I immediately started anticipating Wipeout omega collection as soon as I found out about it.
When it was finally released (I am not sure how far ahead of release I heard about it, but it felt like ages) I was not disappointed. Actually, it was just what I expected and wanted to a surprising degree. Which brings us to that first wow: the sheer sense of speed on twisty futuristic tracks with house music pumping along with the explosions and engine sounds. There were several early races where I almost felt my head thrown back as I accelerated from the starting line.
Time passed. The wow faded away, replaced by pleasant familiarity. Months went by.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I checked my updates and found Sony had dropped the second, even more massive wow: Wipeout had gained full VR support.
Forget anything I said about the game feeling fast and pure on a 2D screen. VR is the way to play this game. There ought to be a bundle of the headset and the game. Sony ought to be promoting this everywhere.
I am reminded, for some reason, of learning to play first-person shooters using a mouse and WASD: a little bit of work getting used to, but just so much better than any other option it is not even funny. Wipeout feels like it was made for VR from the beginning, from the loading screens, which feel like floating in the white construct in the Matrix, to the menu to, of course, the races. When racing, you are in the cockpit. The HUD has been reworked and you have a lot of detail visible on your craft as well. The sense of scale is just right too. I have played some vechicle games where something about the scale was off and made me feel more like I was wearing a vechicle-shaped helmet. But here I really do feel like I am in the cockpit of a powerful antigravity racer, and like I have some room inside the cockpit too.
Being able to look around also gives a better sense of the tracks. I always knew there was a good deal of verticality to the tracks, but it was sometimes hard to really notice it in the heat of a race. It is that much easier to grasp with the added depth of VR. And whenever there is a climb, being able to look up to see more of what lies ahead is a great advantage.
(It probably does not hurt immersion that the headset feels a bit like wearing strange racing goggles or a helmet.)
So, yes. All games should be VR. Fast racers need not cause motion sickness. More, please.