First Contact was incredible because, like Toybox before it, it focused on satisfying precise two-handed interactions in the near-field that are simply not possible on flatscreen platforms.
Far too much of VR gaming over the past decade has instead tried to just tack VR onto far-field locomotion-focused flatscreen game design. That can be a lot of fun in its own right, but fundamentally misses the "magic" unique to XR.
The strongest “I’m living in the future” moment was the First Contact demo on the Oculus CV1 in ~2016 and I’ve been chasing it ever since.
Yeah yeah we’ve got AI and self driving cars and stuff now, but it doesn’t hit the same.
Shame that the space kind of fizzled out…but here’s to hoping there’s a resurgence soon.
There’s got to be other technologies that had an extreme “wow future” moment that never panned out. What would your “oculus” moment be in the 90s, 80s, 70s?