Sweating it up in a VR headset might not be the easiest way to get some exercise while gaming, but its ability to transport you to other worlds certainly helps when it comes to workout motivation. And if simply jogging on the spot is your morning exercise of choice, why not pretend you're Sonic the Hedgehog while you're at it?
Sonic VR is definitely not an official Sega project, but it's got a fully working demo made by Nimso Ny - a developer who typically tackles in-game movement (locomotion) in a far more natural way.
While it pains me to point out a personal negative, Sonic VR uses Green Hill Zone - Sonic's debut stage that has, in my opinion, been re-used and re-created far more than it really needed. It's an iconic stage for sure, but it's not the first time we've been able to run through a 3D version of it in first-person. That being said, VR certainly does add a new element to it. I know Green Hill is likely a far quicker place to accurately model; I just want to see something a little more 'original'. Emerald Coast would be incredible (and hard).
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Available completely free through this site, Sonic VR transforms a simple on-the-spot jogging session into a tour of Sonic's original outing. Though it requires the Oculus Touch motion controllers, most of the movement tracking it handled by the headset - meaning you don't have frantically crunch your arms for it to decide you're actually doing something. Just jog how you usually would (sans the bulky HMD on your face) and you should start to collect rings, bash robots and, more uncomfortably, run around those iconic loops.
We'll never know if the massive Virtuix Omni treadmill adds to the experience - because it doesn't need it. Just like the Super Mario VR demo released by the same guy, it focuses on a far more natural and intuitive VR locomotion experience that doesn't require complicated setups and additional hardware. Thankfully the robots look far better than those Goombas.
There's no word on how far this demo will progress in terms of gameplay, but it's a prototype project we suspect will follow the same fate at the Mario VR demo. There are plenty more worlds that would benefit from this system, after all.