Review Rundown: The One With Sci-Fi Cocktails, Space Stations & Superheroes

This week’s rundown has an accidental running theme: space exploration and the frontiers of human endevor. This manifests it in the fictional experiences of Avora in London (which, if you ask me, looks to be aiming to vibe with a certain upcoming film sequel) and the Quest release of Iron Man VR from Camouflaj (who rumors have making a Batman VR game at present), and the monumental accomplishment that is Space Explorers: The Infinite.

Another obvious theme is VR, with this edition being 75% VR experiences. That’s including the lineup at FilmGate’s Interactive Festival in Miami. All in all an accidental, but fascinating pulse taking on the state of the art in a field whose potential is still being unlocked.

If somehow you want more our most recent Rundown “The One With Nightmares in Tokyo, Triumphs in Croatia, and Vampires in New Orleans” is quite innocently lurking in the shadows over here.

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Avora — Inventive Productions
£40–47; London UK; Through 31 January 2023

A fresh addition to the London nightlife scene pops its cork in Hackney this month: Avora, the latest in Inventive Productions’ lineup of immersive bar experiences, joining Alcotraz and Moonshine Saloon as one of the funkiest places to grab drinks on a night out.

Upon arrival my companion and I are assigned branded jumpsuits to wear: safety gear, our scientist host explains, for a while we traverse the newly discovered alien world. We’re just grateful for the extra warmth. I do struggle to get it on over my boots and wouldn’t advise others to sport complex footwear, until perhaps the team updates the design to include ankle zippers.

Once the narrative begins it falls into a standard alien-movie plot: explore new world, make contact with local species, promote knowledge and trade, be suspicious of the malevolently-hovering special ops mercenary who’s keen on learning where the source of natural superpower grows, etc. Predictable, but trope for a reason — it works. It serves as a means to the end: a strong focus on hands-on participation in our experience, getting us practicing hand gestures to communicate with the native species, mixing test tubes, harvesting ingredients to compose our regular doses of immunization supplements.

And what lovely doses they are: using presentation notes one doesn’t typically see in the standard cocktail bar, we’re treated to dry ice, popping boba bubbles, glowing ice cubes, blooming tea flowers. In the atmosphere of the eye-catching and slickly-designed sets they feel particularly luxurious and special; little surprise that Inventive Productions just received accreditation from the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

As the price of drinking out in town continues to skyrocket, you could do a hell of a lot worse than 3 complex cocktails with specialty ingredients plus a 90-minute participatory processional performance with live actors for only £40. In fact it feels like a steal. Revisit value is technically low: the narrative is unaffected by audience interaction, but this is the type of experience that you’d bring out-of-town pals to for that “only in London” type of night.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

Iron Man VR — Camouflaj
$39.99; Remote (VR); Available Now

After decades of manufacturing weapons and a near death experience, billionaire Tony Stark wants to make the world a better place. With newfound purpose, he ceases making weapons, focusing on being the superhero Iron Man. But someone is using Stark’s old weapons for destruction, forcing Stark not only into battle but to question his legacy.

When originally released in 2020 on PlayStation VR, Iron Man VR received mixed reviews from the gaming community. Criticism focused on load times, graphics, the story, and enemy variety, making me nervous to play it with its recent release on Oculus Quest. And while it’s not the most polished video game, Iron Man VR soars high as an immersive experience with character ownership and dramatic presentation.

Foremost, Iron Man VR’s story is stereotypical, retreading ground featured in movies and comics. A few plot twists can be predicted early on as well. But the plethora of high-octane action set pieces constantly featured elevates the story. It’s thrilling rescuing Pepper Potts from a plane crashing mid-flight, reaching to grab her outstretched hand. Chasing after villains Ghost and Living Laser, navigating tight canyons as they release deadly obstacles, is intensely pulse pounding. While fighting waves of drones is tedious, the cinematic moments laid in throughout are enthralling.

Yet, it’s the smaller character and agency moments that I absolutely love in the game. Throughout I’m prompted to choose between a mindful or snarky response with other characters. While clunkily executed, the light roleplaying fosters action ownership. Additionally, there are constant moments of environmental interaction, ranging from swiping tablets for worldbuilding details to passing the time shooting hoops. My favorite moment is when dire circumstances require building an arc reactor on the fly out of missile parts and a thermos. As important as being the superhero, Iron Man VR nails the sensation of being an actual person under the mask.

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Finally, depending on the player, the gameplay can be a mixed bag. While it can be completely overwhelming with images and iconography, the Iron Man suit’s heads-up display is utterly successful in fostering total immersion. Similarly, suit customization is allowed early on, enabling the player to “build” a suit, including its color. Flying is tricky to pick up, but the game’s first several levels help build confidence. But I never mastered the combat controls, struggling to move my wrist correctly when switching between primary and secondary weapons.

While lacking an original story with initiative controls, Iron Man VR successfully empowers the player into believing they are Iron Man.

– Patrick B. McLean, Chicago Curator

The FilmGate Interactive Media Festival
$0 to $75; Miami; Run concluded

“Walking sim” has become a dirty word in gaming circles — it’s a term that refers to a certain kind of Art Game (tm) where the primary method the player has with interacting with the world is… walking. They’re often maligned as being lazy overly simplistic. I however must confess a great deal of fondness for the Proteus and Sewer Raves of the world, which left me feeling very well-equipped for this VR-focused exhibition.

The thing about VR is, in the technology’s current state, it’s prohibitively expensive to most consumers and often causes nausea and headaches. That means every experience built for VR is put in the uncomfortable position of needing to justify itself. Unfortunately, of the six VR pieces I experienced over my two days at the festival, only one — Victoria Bousis’s adaptation of Pin Yathay’s memoir “Stay Alive, My Son” — would not be left unchanged or even improved by the removal of VR.

The memoir adaptation is masterfully done, employing excellent vocal performance, as well as environmental and sound design. The player enters Yathay’s memories, and the choice of VR (and the 1:1 movement between player and game this entails) is exploited in novel ways: for example, your initial choice of “hand” is deliberately made pointless as the models are swapped during the game’s introduction and you become Yathay, gaining his rough, aged hands. This philosophy of resonance between design and content persist throughout the work, and serve it very well.

The rest of the experiences I was able to participate in, however, failed to justify their platform. Bomsok Ku’s “Poet’s Room” was moving and charmingly directed, but the team behind it seems to visibly struggle with how best to make use of the VR, with most scenes essentially being animated dioramas with softly dynamic camera movement, and subtitles that badly needed text-stroke (I had to aim at darker objects to read them in certain scenes). Demian Albers and Micha Hamel’s “Together Apart” comes across more like a tech demo, constantly teasing at more interesting plot threads and past history in a fashion that eventually becomes frustrating rather than intriguing. Chloe Alexandra Thompson and Matthew Edwards’s “House of Moiré” is a beautiful audiovisual landscape experience, but my inability to do anything but walk forward (and the lack of tangible effect my movement really had on the sound and visuals) is a frustrating missed opportunity. Line Katcho’s “Immortelle” clearly had a lot of work put into it as a tour through vistas of sight and sound, but unfortunately Seo Kim Youngho Myung’s “Transition of the Moon” — another piece in the exhibition — accomplishes many of the same goals with much more success.

As a devotee of “art games”, from more complex pieces to the humble walking sim, I confess to being a little disappointed by the offerings on display at the festival. The kind of work that seemed fresh on itch.io six years ago is being marketed as cutting-edge, and I can’t help but feel a little baffled. If video games aren’t a hobby of yours, I imagine a lot of the work is pretty revelatory, but if you, like me, are indie gamer trash, I think you can give it a miss.

— Nicholas Krug, Miami Correspondent

Space Explorers: The Infinite — Felix & Paul
$44; Richmond, CA; through January 29, 2023

There will always be a part of me that regrets abandoning my childhood determination to become an astronaut. And though the march of time has dulled the occasional pangs of regret of my terrestrial existence, my experience floating weightlessly through Space Explorers: The Infinite successfully renewed the gravity of my earthbound dismay.

The Infinite is a large virtual reality installation in the Craneway Pavilion, a converted warehouse in the East Bay. Visitors are onboarded, and the mood and themes are efficiently established as travelers pass through the airlock prior to donning their Meta Quest headsets. Stepping through a large glowing gateway into the infinite recess of space, the International Space Station floats majestically down out of the darkness to greet them.

The experience consists of VR footage that was shot in an epic undertaking about the ISS, one of the largest VR shoots ever undertaken. Over 200 hours of footage of life aboard and around the ISS was collected. Previously, some of this footage was compiled for the award winning VR documentary, Space Explorers, which is available for purchase on the Quest, but the Infinite takes it a step further, creating an immersive and interactive experience. Visitors roam freely within a quiet, ethereal semi-transparent recreation of the station. Along the way, countless glowing orbs light the way, which, when swiped, snap travelers from the serenity of the virtual station to the 360 degree reality of the ISS vignettes. One is as likely to find themselves watching the astronauts diligently working in a lab or horticulture garden, as they are to find themselves watching a social celebration or mealtime. Some moments are narrated by the crew, while others are quiet moments of reflection, taking in the expansive view from 250 miles above the earth. In one vignette, we saw the group gathering to bid farewell to a departing crewmember, and, in a moment of almost cruel irony, passing mention is made of the brewing “Covid-19 situation” on Earth.

The free roaming portion of the experience lasts about 35 minutes and is separated into four chapters — not nearly enough time to experience the hours of footage available, so visitors could be well served by multiple visits. The space itself was vast enough that it never felt crowded, aided by an efficient system, whereupon visitors could only sense other parties as smaller, differently colored orbs, unless they came close enough for a collision and then took the form of starry human figures.

A starry pathway leads travelers out of the free-roaming area to individual seats for the culmination of the experience — the first ever spacewalk captured on VR. It’s a stunning conclusion, taking advantage of the vastness of the virtual environment, bringing us as close to the actual experience of space as so many of us not named Shatner or Bezos will ever experience. My inner child has never kicked me so hard for giving up that dream.

From there, our headsets are returned, and the return to earth is conceptually conveyed by a series of three art installations, and you’re left arguing with your inner child — about why you ever thought you could be truly happy doing anything else other than traveling through the stars.

— Brian Resler, San Francisco Bay Area curator

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