Event: VRCade - The VR Arcade In Cape Town & Now Open In Johannesburg

Published November 30, 2016

Virtual Reality (VR) is out. It’s out in a big way and showing signs of becoming seriously mainstream in a year or two.

If you think it’s a passing fad, you will have to convince Zach Joubert of that. His VR Cade is full of people that look like they are straight out of some sort of futuristic movie. Grabbing air with their hands and ducking and swiping at nothing.

Then you see the screens….Ah… climbing mountains, shooting zombies, driving cars etc in Virtual Reality.

VR back in the day was silly and boring with big setups and crude graphics representing objects on screen but it wasn’t immersive or well done at all. Usually costing major money and used by mainly, the military.

Zach is seeing that the future would one day be Augmented Reality (AR) where people are running around shooting each other in virtual film sets/AR Arcade parks. Obviously the development for that is still a long way away but in the apple of Microsoft’s eye as they already have the HoloLense, giving us a glimpse of that future. “VR is making games fun again”, these words from Zach really made me realize that VR is breathing some much needed fresh air into the gaming industry.

The VR Cade set up in Workshop 17 at the V&A Waterfront Cape Town. The setup consist of multiple HTC Vive and Oculus Rift devices, both catering for their unique experiences. Zach tells me that there will be a PSVR unit very soon with more planned for the future. There are VR assistants to help, so there is nothing to worry about regarding the technology / setup or safety. Zach and the team are very vigilant about that and are planning even more upgrades.

VR Cade is opening another branch up in Johannesburg at the Vodacom Dome very soon.

A funny coincidence is that one of the first VR Arcades in Canada was set up in an old Blackberry warehouse, the next VR Cade will be in an old Blackberry shop. VR Cade was the first South African company to reach out to developers for content licence holders that negotiate commercial licences. This shows that VR Cade knows the business and are aware of the legalities of the use of games publicly. This comes as no surprise as Zach is an advocate after all.

There are plenty of games and experiences to choose from and VR Cade seems to cater for all able ages. I saw a little girl loving the undersea experience there with her proud dad staring in amazement that she took to it like a fish to water.

Dirt Rally is a completely different experience and my favorite. I also liked The Climb from Crytek, and actually got vertigo a few times before I fell off a cliff.

I didn’t get to try Hover Junkers but I’m told it’s fantastic.

There is a game called Quiver where a group of people can play together to defend their castle against hordes of Ogre’s and this is a massive hit with kids. This reminds me of games back in the LAND days.

This type of gaming will be very expensive and quite complicated to set up at home. It’s a great plan to grab a few mates and go to VR Cade for a bit of VR gaming experience or even team building. The space is dedicated and everything is set up for LAN etc. Instant fun, just add players.

A great thing about VR Cade is that they provide special sweat covers for the VR Goggles! A much needed accessory when you have people climbing about, ducking and diving and shooting Zombies.

In my opinion Virtual Reality and also Augmented Reality is here to stay. Do yourself a favor and contact VR Cade to make a booking and go see for yourself.

The details…

When: Weekdays: 09h00 to 18h00

Saturdays: 09h00 to 17h00

Sundays: 09h00 to 14h00

Where: Vodaworld, Midrand – 7 Vodaworld, 082 Vodacom Boulevard, Midrand

Cost: tickets can be purchased at www.vrarcade.co.za for

R50 for 5 mins

R100 for 15 mins

R175 for 30 mins

R250 for 1 hour

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Havok_ZA

Contributor at Geek Node

Has delusions of adequacy, wishes time travel existed, really gets angry logic and plays a sarcastic devil's advocate on occasion.

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