IMAX Is Getting Into VR in a Big Way; Read About Our Trip to the Flagship VR Centre in Los Angeles
As a company, IMAX is all about creating a singular experience you can't get anywhere else. They've done that with movies using massive screens, epic sound, and crystal clear image quality, but now they're branching out into virtual reality and they're looking to bring that same experience-driven mindset to a newer medium. Earlier this week, IMAX invited me and some other press members to the company's already-operational flagship VR Centre in Los Angeles for a presentation of their plans and to let us play some games and experience some VR for ourselves. Read on to find out how it all went down.
The L.A. Centre is already open, but IMAX has announced that they'll be opening centers in New York, California, and Shanghai over the next few months during what they're calling the "pilot phase." Essentially everything they're doing in relation to VR right now is going to be tweaked until they find the perfect mixture that works for them — that goes for locations, content, hardware, pricing of the experiences, and more. They're aware they don't know everything about VR yet, but they're willing to try a lot of different methods of doing things until they get it right.
The L.A. location is inside what used to be an old hat factory that's located right across from a busy outdoor mall called The Grove. The interior was designed by some of the same people who worked on Apple and Tesla stores, and this also has a sleek, futuristic look that fits well with the tech they're looking to introduce people to. When you walk in the front door, you step into a lobby filled with digital posters for VR experiences you can play (similar to how you see movie posters in a theater lobby). There's also a big board displaying the games/experiences and times that are available that day; the company says they're experimenting with the pricing, but for right now, it's between $7 and $10 per 9-12 minute experience.
Once you have your tickets, you're taken to the main part of the Centre, which consists of 14 pods. That's where you actually enter the VR worlds of the games/experiences, and each one is manned by an employee who walks you through the process and suits you up with the hardware (which currently includes HTC Vive and Starbreeze's 5K display StarVR headsets, various controllers, and haptic backpacks that pulse for added effect). Even though the pods are isolated by nature — only one person can play at a time — they're designed to be a social space with sitting areas nearby and screens that broadcast what the player is seeing so friends can watch (and make fun of their friend who inevitably looks a little goofy doing a VR activity). Right now, the whole thing still feels a little too isolated for me to ever want to gather a big group of friends and check it out, but there is one multiplayer game available and the new Star Trek Bridge Crew VR is arriving soon, so once they get more multiplayer games/experience in there, it'd be much easier to justify going with a group; then you'd basically be guaranteed to at least play together instead of being stuck on the sidelines waiting as each person goes one at a time.
Let's talk briefly about the games/experiences themselves. First up, I played Knockout League, a boxing game that's extremely reminiscent of Wii boxing. The key difference, of course, is that you're not locked into a flat, 2D experience — you can physically dodge around your cartoonish, Mr. T-looking opponent in the ring, getting close in for jabs and upper cuts. Like the Wii game, it's physically exhausting but fun.
I then moved over to Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine, which starts with a cool cut scene where you're sort of standing around watching as the Millennium Falcon flies in, lands on top of you, and fights off a couple of TIE Fighters. The real fun starts when you actually get to control a lightsaber, and I won't spoil what you're able to do with it, but it's pretty damn immersive.
Next I checked out The Walk, based on Robert Zemeckis' movie about Philippe Petit's legendary walk between the Twin Towers. This was the most realistic experience by far, with incredible visuals that, no joke, really make you feel as if you're actually on the wire between the buildings. The haptic backpack pulses as the "wind" blows you around out there on the line, and the whole experience is nuts. There's a slightly raised cord that's embedded in the floor for you to walk on, so you have the physical sensation of having to balance on that as you walk, which adds a lot to the overall feel. The downside: you can only walk a few feet out across the virtual chasm since you're limited by the amount of physical space that's in the pod. I wish there was a way to actually cross between the two buildings and get the full rush of what that must have felt like for Petit.
Then I got into action mode and tried out Archangel, a new game from Ubisoft and Skydance Productions that is coming out this summer. In it, you pilot a 60-foot mech through a robot-infested city, battling flying bots and tanks as you travel through the urban sprawl with your team members. But the real standout was John Wick Chronicles, in which you carry a retrofitted gun controller and shoot your way through wave after wave of virtual bad guys who attack your character on a downtown rooftop. (I ended up with the high score for the day in that game.) You have to take cover behind ledges and potted plants, and can blind fire by raising your gun above those obstacles and shooting at your enemies. It's what a classic arcade game like Time Crisis would feel like if you were actually inside it. [Note: I did feel a little nauseated afterwards, but that may have been because I'd been doing VR stuff for multiple hours in a row at that point.]
The L.A. location is a standalone VR-specific centre, which I understand will be something of a rarity for the company. All of the other locations they're opening this year will be inside pre-existing multiplexes — either inside a gutted out auditorium, or as a part of the lobby if the building is big enough. IMAX's idea is that in addition to their premium content they currently have available, they'll be able to offer exclusive VR engagements that are tied to big blockbuster movies, and to be able to combine the ticket costs into one price. One example they cited would be that if you want to go see the latest Transformers movie, you might pay an additional $10, and after the movie is over you'd be ushered in to play the VR game where you're transformed into an Autobot. There's definitely potential for some cool tie-ins with a set-up like that. In the meantime, I'd recommend checking out the L.A. Centre if you're looking to see some of the best of what VR has to offer right now, and definitely keep it on your radar in the future as IMAX continues to add new experiences there over the coming months and years.
The L.A. IMAX VR Centre is located at 157 South Fairfax. Visit the official site for more information.