The novelty of Portal’s humor certainly made it a memorable demo, but in making it feel natural and normal to pick apart a robot inside a fictional factory, Valve proved to me that VR really works, and more importantly, matters to the sort of experiences I want to have. The controllers are simple but versatile. Much as I dread the cost of owning them, I wanted to try all of my demos again (Aperture Science in particular, because it’s a world I adore so much).
I wanted to see how else I could change things, what I might have missed, and to generally just exist in a game world in a way I never have. Other VR initiatives are succeeding in their own right, but I can’t think of anything that’s had such a profound effect on my own existence as Valve and HTC’s Vive.