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This Is What It's Like To Experience Zero Latency's VR Arena At The MGM Grand, Las Vegas

This article is more than 6 years old.

Zero Latency

Three growling zombies approach me, heads askew, and arms outstretched. I take aim, raise my gun and bang, bang, bang — three headshots, three down. But I was so focused on my targets that I missed the guerilla zombies approaching from my rear, these ones wearing helmets, meaning I need multiple headshots to down these undead. I pop off two more rounds and then my gun sputters out — while I wait for it to reload, a zombie clocks me in the head and I scramble away, aware I’m being surrounded. But my teammate has my back, and as I dodge, he takes aim and shoots — knocking them down like skittles. We’re winning, barely, and after a quick reconnaissance, we decide we need higher ground and sprint to the elevator, sniping zombies as we go. My heart is racing, the gun is heavy against my chest and my feet fly across the floor.

What makes this virtual reality experience different from any number of zombie shooter games is the unencumbered nature of the gameplay. Nothing tethers me to the floor, no wires to remember to avoid, no controllers to learn combos on, just me, my gun, and my teammate.

I’m playing Zombie Survival at Zero Latency VR’s brand new Las Vegas location, situated in the Level Up lounge inside the MGM Grand Casino and hotel.

Zara Stone

They opened in September 2017, and for $50 a person you can battle zombies, drones or dance up and down shifting landscapes — with groups of up to eight people.

Virtual reality gaming has been around for some time now, but fully fledged VR experiences have yet to take a firm hold in America. Leaving aside, every gimmicky game available in malls, there are three big contenders in this space, as mentioned in my piece on how VR Arcades are a $45 billion dollar industry in the making. The names to know are The Void, with four locations, IMAX VR, currently in New York and Los Angeles, and Zero Latency, an Australian company that opened their first arena in 2015 and who is now in ten locations around the world — the MGM location being its sixth arena in America.

Billed as “free-roam virtual reality” I was interested to see how this would play out in person, and happily accepted Zero Latency’s Offer to fly out to Las Vegas to try it out. To date, over 110,000 people have played Zero Latency VR around the world, with 47,076 games played and over 16 million zombies killed. The experience was located on the ground floor, at the back of the casino, in an event space called Level Up; basically your average Barcade x 100 with gaming tables, interactive shuffleboard and human-sized Pacman to play.

Zara Stone

Here’s how it went down.

They have lockers to keep your belongings while you’re in the game and provide grippy blue socks to people who try and play in heels (oops). You sign a waiver, choose your gamer tag name (I opted for Zstarra) and then you enter the briefing room. Here, a group of up to eight people get taken through the options available and get the basic lowdown on the setup. Then I’m taken into the arena, a 2,000 square foot space that’s almost pitch black, with white grid lines marked on the floor. I’m given what feels like a lifejacket to shrug on — an Alienware laptop lies flat against my back and I unclip the headphones and goggles from the jacket and place them on my face. Both the headset and headphones are Razer brand, a gaming favorite, the headset being Razer’s OSVR HDK2, equipped with an OLED screen, a gyroscope, accelerometer and more.

I messed up, by not wearing contact lenses, as glasses have to be removed to play, due to the tight fit of the headset, but due to the wizard-like focusing power of the design, I saw perfectly through the headset. This was a real concern as my vision is definitely on the blurry side but I was very impressed by how crystal clear everything was.

Zero Latency

“I heard about it on the news and thought it would be fun,” said Anthony Jacobson, who was visiting with friends as part of his Las Vegas vacation. It’s his first time in virtual reality. “It’s a mind-bending wonderful journey!” Jacobson found Engineerium a ‘little nauseating’ but got really into the zombie game — but said he wouldn't think of doing VR at home. “My little girl wouldn't be into it, so I’d rather we do kids stuff there,” he said.

It’s important to note here that the Zero Latency experience is, in my opinion, best used by newbies to VR — you can still enjoy it if you play regularly with an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift, but you probably won’t be as satisfied with the cost/benefit ratio if you have a system at home. For me, the experience was fun and immersive and I loved the freedom of no cables and being able to talk to my teammates, but quality wise, it seemed comparable to my home Vive system. Bear in mind that’s a $2000 rig, and most people don’t have that option.

Zero Latency

“It’s more popular in the evenings,” Joslyn Garcia, Coordinator public relations for MGM Resorts International, told me. Currently, the experience runs from ten am. till midnight, with ages 13+ being allowed to play till 9pm. To get around the ‘no kids in the casino’ rule, there’s a separate entrance and the gaming tables are separated from the check-in desk. As its been open less than a week, they don’t have much data yet, but Garcia said that the zombie game is the most popular. “Here, we always want to offer guests the latest in technology and innovation,” she said. “This was something we thought people would really enjoy.”

Zara Stone

They currently have three games on offer, Zombie Survival, your typical zombie shooter, Engineerium, a world platform like game, which uses shifts in object location to mess with your sense of up and down and Singularity, a space game, that I didn't get to try. For competitive folk, as well as playing in a team you can also rank yourself against your friends — a quick look down in the headset will display your in-game score and position.

Zara Stone

For Zombie Survival, I’m handed a gun— that’s a physical gun, at least a foot long, with a trigger, a button to change weapon type (from shotgun to assault rifle) and that follows me into the game. The weight is comfortable and gives the scenario a realistic feel and it’s refreshing to play video games minus controllers. The gameplay is also breathtakingly seamless, with no lag or delay on any of the action, thanks to warehouse-scale tracking that’s installed in the arena, meaning your every move is captured instantly. Every game has a gamesmaster, a person seated in the corner of the room watching the action on monitors who can feed advice or encouragement to players through their headphones.

Zara Stone

When exiting the game, the process works in reverse, as you clip your headset and headphones to the jacket and then place it on the wall. Outside, there's a screen which displays your game score and stats — I could see that I came second, died twice — but got the most headshots.

For Las Vegas, this is a great attraction which has a built-in audience of kidults looking for some fun and great for group parties and events. Of course, it being a party town, you have to watch out for people overdoing it, but so far Garcia says there’s been no trouble with drunk people —- who wouldn't be allowed in if they were too intoxicated. While I was there, I saw a couple of folk who’d definitely had a few, but they were rambunctious rather than rowdy.

I think this is a great way to get new players into virtual reality and the team element combined with the party atmosphere makes it a long-term win.

For the future, Zero Latency is looking at world domination — they told Brisbane Times they plan to open five more locations in Asia by the end of the year. And no wonder — with a reported $12.5 million turnover, Asia is an obvious and lucrative next step.

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