Dangol

If you are familiar with the game Guitar Hero, if you love to rock to the rhythm in virtual reality, Beat Saber is the perfect game for you. Beat Saber is an immersive rhythm experience like no others. As we’ve seen, things will only get better for Virtual Reality on Mac in 2020. At the moment, the HTC Vive Pro is still the only game in town for Mac users as it’s the only one to officially supports Macs including macOS Catalina.

Every digital art form has its breakthrough moments, when the right experience arrives at the right time to show us what's possible and inspires many others to chase their lead.

Beat Saber, quite simply, is the rhythm game we needed to show just how wonderful a virtual reality game experience can be - without the need to just translate things we've already seen on 2D screens into a 3D world.

Rhythm games were a huge success a decade ago. Guitar Hero and Rock Band brought all our rockstar dreams to life in our living rooms, letting us play and sing along to the biggest hits.

And it felt real! Those plastic guitars and drums let us synchronise with the music, and failure broke the songs down. If you did it right, the music played right and you were in the zone.

That era faded. The instruments got dusty.

They didn't work with the newest generation of consoles - you had to buy all new gear if you wanted to move forward. They'd gotten harder to synchronise nicely with the latest TVs and sound systems.

As great as those games had been at parties, they were relegated to history and only the most dedicated fans.

Now we're entering the VR era. It's been a slow start - expensive equipment and only a handful of truly exciting experiences mean it's not really worth buying in yet unless you want to get a piece of the future now.

Most VR games so far have been environment experiences. Spaces to explore and interact, to feel the immersion of the alternate world. Some shooters and adventure games have been translated into VR, and some are fast and fun but still feel like a translation of one form into another.

Beat Saber really does feel different.

It's a game where, like the great rhythm games, you synchronise with the music. But you are also fully immersed in a 3D environment that will demand smart, fluid movements to get into a flow.

As the music starts, your VR wands are now like lightsabers - one red, one blue. Blocks begin to flow toward you in space, with markers showing the direction you must slice the block through to score a hit. And walls appear you have to dodge with your whole body.

All the music has been designed specifically for the game, and each level designed to suit the music. And it is really, really good.

Watch a level and imagine being inside it.

The original soundtrack is now on Spotify and the quality of the electronic dance music is so good the playlist sees pretty high rotation in my household.

Audioshield is another VR rhythm game with a similar edge, and you can put music of your choice into the game as well. But levels in Audioshield are not hand designed.

The music, the targets, the required movements... they're not all synchronised as beautifully as the experience found in Beat Saber.

Beat Saber is a first for needing to truly immerse into the 3D world you're visiting in VR. To actually forget that you're not in a real environment, to just be in the space and react with impulse and really be in the moment.

Until Beat Saber, I had two 'go to' VR experiences I would show people to give them a sense of how good VR can be.

The Blu, for the non-gamers who wanted to experience a pleasant, minimally-demanding VR world.

Job Simulator, for a sandbox interactive play space to explore.

And now Beat Saber, as the truest, most immersive VR game experience to date.

/Beyond is ScienceAlert's new section covering the wider world of gadgets, games, and digital culture.

Ragnaröck — rhythm-VR-game in the world of the Vikings

Ragnaröck is a single-player or multiplayer rhythm game with immersion in virtual reality where you control a Viking boat. Your goal is to win the race. Or abuse the runes appearing two hammers, under the epic music in the spirit of the Vikings. Getting exactly the runes you collect combos, charge with energy and your hammers will be able to activate the acceleration!

• Music of the Vikings: In the game, a list of tracks with love and care for the developers and it is planned to be regularly updated. Uncover the talents of the drummer and play the legendary rock and metal songs Alestorm, Gloryhammer, Wind Rose and beyond. Impressive style of the Vikings, the Celts or the pirates will charge you by the power of the Vikings.

• The gameplay is simple: As is common in arcade games in Ragnaröck easy to play but difficult to progress. Only a sense of rhythm will help to move forward. To win the race, you will have to practice and correctly apply their skills. The variety of settings of the difficulty levels will help over time to improve skills. Only the most skilled players will be able to collect all the gold medals, earn a record number of points and enter your name in leaderboard!

Virtual Reality Rhythm Game Machine

• Multiplayer: In multiplayer mode you can arrange a competition with your friends or with other people in real time. Play public or private games (up to 6 players), defeat all and win the race! In single user mode, you can compete with the Ghost ship (which represents your maximum result in the game) to add competitive spirit.

• Mythological locations: Ragnaröck will take you to the land of the Vikings — a world created based on Norse mythology. The options of locations will be added gradually.

• You can add your songs: Want to add music from your playlist? You can add to play any song from your collection and play it in solo mode.

• Regular updates: Compositions and locations will be added regularly as new functions following the discussion in the community.

Virtual Reality Rhythm Game Machines

Support and the project sponsor SurReality - VR/AR Software and Game Development