VR continues its mainstream invasion as a new pack of virtual content makes its way to the prestigious award ceremony.
This September the Primetime Emmy Awards will celebrate its legendary 70th anniversary, once again honoring the absolute finest in U.S. television entertainment. For the last two years, VR content has managed to quietly infiltrate its way into the awards through various interactive categories.
This year marks a record seven nominations for virtual reality content spread across two categories. Let’s take a peek at the incredible projects nominated for these distinguished honors.
Up for award of Outstanding Original Interactive Program:
Back to The Moon by Google
We instantly fell in love with this adorable 360 animation honoring French film director, illusionist, actor, mime, sfx artist, magician, and overall outstanding human being, Georges Méliès.
Originally created to compliment a special Google Doodle featured on Google’s homepage, this Google Spotlight Story is a beautifully animated two-minute love story that simultaneously pays tribute to some of Georges greatest films, such as À la conquête du pôle (The Conquest of the Pole), The Living Playing Cards, The Four Troublesome Heads and more.
Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab by Oculus
A single player mystery adventure set within the Blade Runner 2049 timeline, this Oculus-exclusive detective-style experience was a refreshing change of pace from the multiple wave-based shooters present at the time.
Players step into the shoes of a Blade Runner undergoing a mental scan in order to relive the moments of a particularly interesting assignment. What follows is an action-packed mystery where players will have to collect clues and hide evidence in order to succeed.
Interactive elements and volumetric characters played by real humans made this one of the more polished and interesting VR releases of 2017.
Coco VR by Disney Pixar
Originally released November of 2017 for the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, Disney’s first foray into VR was much more than a simple promotional tool for the Disney Pixar animated film, Coco.
Players are free to customize the look of their skeleton avatars before participating in a variety of fun activities scattered around the gorgeous City of the Dead. The fully-interactive VR game also features multiplayer functionality for a variety of social experiences to engage in with friends.
Grand Finale at Saturn by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
A 360-degree out-of-this-world experience, Grand Finale at Saturn takes users along for the ride as NASA’s Cassini spacecraft makes its final pass between Saturn’s rings at tens of thousands of mile per hour.
The highly-accurate visualization developed by NASA places users between the massive planet and its surrounding rings for a jaw-dropping sense of scale as the bleeding-edge spacecraft makes one of its 22 planned dives through the mysterious gap.
Spider-Man Homecoming VR Experience by CreateVR
I think it’s pretty safe to say any VR experience that lets you suit up as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is sure to gain some accolades. Spider-Man Homecoming VR Experience did just that as players donned the iconic Stark Industries spidey-suite and discovered how to harness the power of their upgraded web shooters.
Various time-trials test the players web-slinging abilities as they compete against the clock to strike as many targets as possible. Players will then sling across the city skylines as they hunt down New York Cities biggest threat, The Vulture.
Here are the VR experiences up for the award of Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program:
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality by Owlchemy Labs
Developer Owlchemy Labs made waves with their original hit VR game, Job Simulator. However, it was with Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality that the team really stretched their legs and showed their creative chops as VR developers.
Based on the massively-popular animated television series, Rick and Morty, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality finally gives angst-ridden teenagers the opportunity to join narcissistic genius, Rick Sanchez, on one of his outrageous, morally-questionable adventures. Players will play the role of a Morty clone and portal jump from dimension to dimension as they use their motion controllers to assist Rick in a variety of insane experiments.
Of course the entire experience is voice by Justin Roiland, co-creator and original voice of both Rick and Morty.
Silicon Valley: Inside the Hacker Hostel by Rewind
As the characters of HBO’s hit show Silicon Valley continued interacting with VR technology more and more throughout the show, I suppose it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise that the tech startup-based television series would eventually try its hands at its own VR experience.
Silicon Valley, Inside the Hacker Hostel is a meticulously-crafted interactive VR tour of the shows infamous incubator space (aka a filthy ranch home tucked in the California valley). While at first glance the messy virtual recreation may appear to be a simple 3D rendering of the original location, the experience is actually composed of over 756 items to interact with. This includes everything from playing with food in the kitchen and throwing darts in the living room, to smoking a two-foot bong.
Truly this is Emmy-worthy content at its finest.
The historic 70th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards takes place September 17th, 2018 on NBC.
Image Credit: Disney Pixar / NASA / Rewind / Owlchemy Labs / CreateVR
