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[Afro Republican]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessed...lease-new-monstercat-music-pack/#3e2e14e43a28

Record-breaking VR game officially eclipses the 1M units-sold mark in just under a year.

In the lore of Virtual Reality, there’s the industry before Beat Saber and there’s after. As the first truly viral VR game, Beat Saber spawned a host of mainstream attention through Mixed Reality videos on YouTube and Twitch – garnering the top spot in the author’s “Top 25 VR Games” list on Forbes and briefly becoming the best user-rated game of all time on Steam (including 2D/PC titles).

Now, the game is making news all over again by reaching its millionth download, just two weeks under a year since its launch.

For those unfamiliar, Beat Saber follows in the footsteps of Rez, Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band in marrying game mechanics with music. But unlike the above, Beat Saber is a rhythm “slasher.” Two differently colored boxes fly toward the user, denoting which hand to slash with, and arrows on the boxes indicate the direction of the slash.

While the first viral video introduced the insider VR community to the game, it was SwanVR’s rendition of the game’s song, “Escape” that truly catapulted Beat Saber into the public eye, reaching over 100M viewsacross syndicated videos.

I've never had a chance to play it but I've heard about t for awhile. it's now become one of the biggest VR games of all time, and seems to be one of the "hospitalization apps" for VR, which means it sells VR's, but still not as much as a "killer app" would.

But if there's a sequel, and I'm going to assume there will be, that may do even better and possibly lead the charge for VR as the price goes down or be the head of the spear for the 2nd generation of VR headsets.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

My wife loves the game to the point where she’s probably going to hospitalize herself (from exhaustion) or one of the children (from a face full of Move controller). The game has increased the number of showers taken in my household by 10% and we have dedicated wipes for cleaning off the sweat. Already have DLC pack. Water usage will be up this week for sure.

 

[Shin]

Needed to research what it is, the experience wouldn't be the same without VR.

 

[Afro Republican]

My wife loves the game to the point where she’s probably going to hospitalize herself (from exhaustion) or one of the children (from a face full of Move controller). The game has increased the number of showers taken in my household by 10% and we have dedicated wipes for cleaning off the sweat. Already have DLC pack. Water usage will be up this week for sure.

Just grab some moist towelettes from the convenient store, that's more protection than standard wipes.

 

[ROMhack]

Do the controllers vibrate when you hit the targets? I can imagine it being some sweet tactile feedback.

 

[DocEbok]

Do the controllers vibrate when you hit the targets? I can imagine it being some sweet tactile feedback.

Yup

 

[CloudStrife_ca]

I grabbed the song pack and will try it out tonight, great game and if you push yourself to raise your own ceiling it becomes pretty addictive much like Rock Band has been for me personally for years. If you get stuck in the campaign as everyone does at some point, play free play at faster speeds and then go back to where you were stuck and things get easier. Also while you are playing it definitely is bound to garner some reactions, from friends and family, especially if they are not overly aware of VR.

I had some friends over a couple weeks ago and a few of them had never tried VR at all, some previously owned PSVR but never tried Beat Saber and so I let everyone try it out and they loved it, nobody really was able to play through a full level (normal difficulty) I set up a couple rounds with arrow blocks and a round with just free blocks (no arrows) and thats understandable, there is a learning curve. Then I played, apparently from what my friends visiting from out of town said my fiances reaction was both shock and disbelieve as she hadn't actually seen me play before. The general reaction was that nobody had ever seen me move that fast or that I could be so coordinated.

From what I could hear with the headphones slightly just off my ear, there was alot of laughter followed by like holy fuck... I only played once on hard difficultly but it was a fun night with a few drinks in.

It can get pretty warm in that headset as others have mentioned, so short breaks are good, then Lysol wipes after every intense session is pretty much required, then a dry cloth. Highly recommended for anyone who hasn't played it, you're stationary so even for new VR users theres no motion sickness, although you'll dodge left/ right with a quick side step and duck under obstacles.

 

[Grinchy]

Really happy for their success. It's not easy to make it in the VR world right now so it's nice when you see a massive success story like this. Imagine how relatively simple this was to make and how few people it would have required. And then it goes on to sell a million copies.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Fantastic game, but I wish they had more diversity in their music. Would love to get some metal and progressive stuff in there. Dream Theater, Rush, maybe some Symphony X. Imagine 45 minutes straight of "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" by Dream Theater on Extreme.

 

[pr0cs]

Lots of fun but can't help but think it's due to ease of procuring songs. Yea they're crowd generated but there are so many that it's easy to find something you like. Being free is what is giving the popularity