Pool Nation

I think they could push the boat out a little further and have a Bowling Lane at the far rear of the bar ;)

So I've only played a few games so far in multiplayer in Pool Nation. My first match was a lot of fun, met a nice girl from the UK and we chatted, and I'm pretty sure she even tried to let me win but then when I sunk the 8 ball I scratched too and lost. It was a really enjoyable time though.

Then a few games later I get matched against a player by the name of "Vape Nation CEO". He's rank 14 and apparently really cares about his rank. I miraculously was actually winning so he proceeded to throw junk all over the table, move his avatar over the location of where I was aiming so I couldn't see, and pretty much every other thing he could possibly think of to make it impossible for me to make a shot.

When that still wasn't enough for him to take back the lead, he started spam creating bottles; it was happening so fast I feel like it must have been macroed. My headset was apparently unable to keep up with the spam and I basically forfeit my turn because my headset stopped displaying Pool Nation and fell back to the SteamVR splash.

Of course once it was his turn he entered the clear table command.

I guess I don't care that much, but like, why do that?

When I discovered two key things that totally fixed my uncomfortable, bland experience.

The table height is absurdly low initially, and the height makes for an incredibly uncomfortable experience. Pressing the up or down arrows on your keyboard raises and lowers the height of the table. Soooo much better!

Turning off aim assist and ghost ball unlocks advanced ball physics.

I was blown away at the difference these two things make. The best part about the game is the ball physics. It is almost perfect. There needs to be some information in game about this. I was very close to refunding the game and now it might be my favorite thing in VR.

I apologize if this is common knowledge, but I did not know about it so I thought I'd share.

This game is fantastic. One thing I really wanted to thank you for was the world adjustment capabilities you get when you hold the grips on both controllers. Being able to adjust the world and spin it around to make things comfortable is a fantastic addition to plain old teleporting. It is HUGE for me right now, since one of my lighthouses is out for repair, so being able to turn the world to keep me facing the remaining lighthouse makes this game completely playable, while so many others aren't. Thanks!

Pool Nation VR is amazing. Easily one of the best Vive experiences yet. If you haven't purchased it yet and you even remotely enjoy Pool - get it immediately. Here's a quick breakdown of my thoughts:

Performance issues - to preface this, I am running an i5 4590 and a Tri-x OC R9 290x. I can run the game with no jutter on "medium" settings but only if "Allow Reprojection" is checked. This is super important for anyone else out there who is having any judder or low fps in this game. Reprojection seems to work flawlessly here...

Multiplayer - This is really where PNVR truly shines. The multiplayer is seamless and extremely immersive. It really does feel like the other person is there in your room with you. Throw bottles at their heads, toss around a jukebox, bash the lights overhead to distract their shot... everything is 1:1 and it's amazing. Out of all the multiplayer/social stuff I've tried on the Vive, this beats it all!

AI Single Player - The AI works fine and I didn't run into any performance issues or memory leaks over time like some here have reported. Maybe the new version helped? But my main complaint with the AI is the difficulty. Maybe I just suck at pool, but I lost like 3 games in a row with the AI on 'easy', with one game where the AI hit in every shot from break down to like 1 ball left.

Extras - What really surprised me with this game is all the nice extras that were added in here, including unlockable hats, pool cues, tables, and level progression. Everything in the environment is modeled really well and the pool physics are extremely accurate.

Overall - As a testament to the realism of this game, I played with a guy from Maryland who used to own a pool hall, and he claimed it was the closest to the real thing he's ever seen of a pool game. I'd have to agree. For $16.99 (sale) it's worth every penny.

Even though it seemed like the two of us were in the same room, I managed to play a full game of Pool against a stranger in Australia (I live in the US). I wasn't aware there was integrated voice chat so it definitely took me by surprise when I could just talk to my opponent with no noticable latency.

Because of this I may try AltSpace at some point, but it was just such a cool feeling to play a normal game with someone who lives halfway across the world. Both the Vive and PoolNationVR were worthy purchases and I still hold to the fact that this is one of the best purchases I've ever made. Props to HTC and Valve, you guys really outdid yourselves with this thing. I can't wait to see what VR holds for the future :D

EDIT: Forgot to include the PoolNationVR devs in the props. This is a great game and I'll be playing a lot of it :)

I've personally only hit a wall once when throwing a knife in Budget Cuts, but I experienced something truly special today. I purchased Pool Nation VR, and was playing with this awesome guy with a mic. Mine wasn't set up unfortunately, but we were still having an excellent time through body language communication. From what I could gather from hearing him on the mic, he was trying out a friends Vive system; his friend was telling him some things we could do, such as picking up the entire juke box. Some time passed and the game was progressing smoothly -- only a few balls left to pocket. Suddenly, my opponent wanders to the side of the pool table and picks up one of the chairs. "I wonder if the people will react if I hit them with this", he says. He proceeds to wind back his arm over his head and hurl the chair toward the bystanders in game. Mid throw this guy smashes the Vive controller in to some glass object and all you could hear over the mic was glass flying everywhere. He goes, "Oh shit... Shit... I think I just broke something. What did I break? Maybe I shouldn't play this anymore. I'm so sorry dude, I'm sorry." (Apologizing to his friend I assume). You could even see the way he reacted in disbelief because of the controller tracking. Honestly, it was such an incredible experience. I really hope the guy's controller is good and whatever was broken wasn't to expensive, but damn was that funny.

TLDR: Guy tries to throw a virtual chair in Pool Nation VR and destroys a glass object in his friend's house.

Also, if you're out there Pool Nation guy we need to hear your side of the story!