Chances are, if you remember virtual reality’s first, ultimately abortive attempt to gain traction back in the 90s, you’ll also be a child of the 80s. This means you lived through (and survived) drainpipe jeans, luminous socks, Footloose, Ronald Reagan and BMX Bikes. The latter of course never really went away and found it’s place among fans across the world where the specific type of cycling style lives on.
A small team of developers who still hold a burning passion for the sport are working on what they call “a physics based BMX game”, which might not inspire much enthusiasm in you, gaming history is replete with examples of the genre. Except this particular example, named ‘BMXRide’, promises Oculus Rift support. And to demonstrate how this looks, the team have released a video from an early alpha version of the game – and it certainly looks like an ambitious attempt at bringing a gaming style almost universally represented in the 3rd person.
The results, as you can see from the video above, are certainly interesting – with your BMX riding avatar negotiating various themed obstacles and even pulling off some tricks. It does seem to me that tackling any sort of cycle riding in VR without positional tracking is going to be pretty tough and given that your centre of gravity and body orientation is constantly changing, probably spells a recipe for simulator sickness. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued and look forward to seeing where this goes.
For now, any other details are thin on the ground but the games website does state that an alpha version of the game will be released in August – whether or not this will include the Oculus Rift support demonstrated above is unclear however.
We’ll keep an eye on the title and in the mean time, you can check out BMX Ride’s website here.
