Forget the fisheye, this is the best way to watch VR games

You've probably seen those weird fisheye videos that show you what virtual reality looks from the user's point of view. But the trouble with those videos is that it's impossible to recreate the experience of VR just by watching a video on a flat display - otherwise you wouldn't need to drop $599 on a special headset.

The developers of upcoming VR game Fantastic Contraption used a HTC Vive headset, a camera, and a couch to come up with something way cooler than the usual first-person view: a window into a virtual reality world, perfect for observing from a mundane, 2D display. Take a look at this video, carved out from a lengthier dev stream by Road to VR.

A fairly abstract concept like a VR building game becomes instantly concrete when you can watch a real person acting in the virtual space. In this case he's building an odd little vehicle out of rods and sticky wheels, but it could work for any VR game that lets players move around in a limited space. Fantastic Contraption creator Colin Northway calls these "mixed reality" streams, and you can subscribe to his Twitch channel if you want to catch more as they go live.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.