If you heard the Kitguru news/gossip the other day, I recently bought myself an Oculus Rift. It's not far away now but as with everyone that's ordered one, I've spent a lot of time doing two things: 1: refreshing the tracking page and staring at the “waiting at depot,” notice with completely unnecessary rage and looking up many of the cool things I'll be able to do once the Rift arrives. One of those things it turns out, is cycling around alien worlds, though you do need to hook up a bike and some magnets for it to work right.
It's called CityRip and you can control your speed and direction with the pedals and handlebars, just as you would with a normal bike, but in this game you're riding around fantastic alien planets. It's all in somewhat low-res because this is the devkit Rift we're talking about, but it looks fun. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDNFGVMac5c']
Of course with a virtual game, comes slightly more impressive bike based abilities than real life. As the developer puts it: “Fly through the air by pedalling like a mad-man and hitting the ramps, or use the bicycle bell to jump from building to building. Explore the city on the ground or navigate the twisting aerial pathways and cycle along the top floors of skyscrapers. You set your own goals and create your own challenges, and fun!”
There's a reasonable emphasis with this game on getting kids exercising
For more information on the project, check out the developer's website here.
KitGuru Says: Unfortunately this is one of those experiences I probably won't end up trying, as I just don't have a bike and borrowing one from someone under the pretense of not going anywhere on it and instead strapping a five inch screen to my face, is going to be a tough one to explain away.