The latest attraction at JBR's The Beach promises users a 'hyper-reality' experience, based on the popular adventures of the fearless ghost hunters, Ghostbusters. Straight out of New York — the home of both the first Void and Ghostbusters themselves — the Dubai branch is the first global Void location outside the United States.
So what is hyper-reality you may ask? We weren’t quite sure ourselves, so we headed down to road test the attraction out ahead of its official opening on tomorrow [March 24].
Although the attraction hadn't even opened yet, there were already crowds of curious beachgoers gathered around as the much-loved Ghostbusters theme tune rang out over the boardwalk — the recent Ghostbusters movie reboot may not have drawn the crowds, but it looks like the chance of an interactive encounter with the original movie's popular spirits and monsters including Slimer and The Stay Puft Marshmallow man just might.
On entering, you’re shown a brief safety video before being strapped into a vest and given a blaster (technically a proton gun, neutrona wand or particle thrower if we’re being faithful to Ghostbuster’s lore, but The Void can be forgiven for sticking to the catch all “blaster” for simplicity’s sake) and helmet, along with a few more instructions. It’s a pretty simple affair, and our instructor probably put it most succinctly when she advised: “You’ll see three colours on your blaster — red, orange and green. When it’s red, you can’t shoot because you don’t need to. When it goes green, just destroy everything.”
With that we're ready to go, and as our visors came down everything starts to make sense. Suddenly, my suit and T-shirt-clad team members are gone and I'm surrounded by fully kitted out Ghostbusters, their moves all corresponding to my teammates'. A creaky door opens, and we're into ghostbusting territory.
At its heart, this is a multiplayer VR video game, though it takes things a step further. Players are required to physically move through the game rather than sitting in a chair or standing in an empty room with a headset on. As they do so, the physical interacts with the virtual.
There are the cold winds, smells and raindrops that will be familiar to fans of 4DX cinema, but more than this, many parts of the set that you see in your headset are actually tactile and, unlike your usual VR experience can be touched or held.
This proved a useful realisation when I found myself zapping gargoyles from a precarious section of scaffolding high above the New York streets. As someone who’s not particularly comfortable with heights, I could hold onto the scaffolding in front of me for support. The view was genuinely gut churning, even though I was logically aware that I was merely at sea level, wearing a headset.
On the subject of the headset, though the visuals are impressive, the down side is that I found the VR experience a little disorienting, in common with other VR and 3D experiences I’ve tried. This is seemingly very much an individual thing, so if you’ve tried VR before you probably already know whether it affects you or not, and if so whether it does so sufficiently enough to put you off trying the Ghostbusters Experience. The actual VR part of the experience lasts just under 10 minutes, and the wooziness does settle down with perseverance, so I’d certainly be prepared to revisit.
Players battle through five scenarios, including travelling up and down virtual lifts, moving in and out of virtual buildings and, of course, blasting pesky spirits, and anything else in your way, with your blaster.
Fans of the films will be familiar with many of the scenarios, such as Capture Gertrude and Roasted Marshmallow, and will be pleased to hear that the experience was developed in association with Ghostbusters creator Ivan Reitman. The Void’s CEO back in the States, meanwhile, is former Lucasfilm technologist Chris Plumer, so the attraction certainly has pedigree that shows in the quality of the VR. Plumer told the New York Times confidently last month: “I have seen a lot of great VR experiences, and nothing comes close to what the Void is doing. If anything is going to inspire mass consumer adoption of virtual reality, this is it.”
The Void Ghostbusters: Dimension is open 10am till 10pm on weekdays and 10am till midnight on weekends. Tickets cost Dh110 from www.thevoid.com or in person at The Void, The Beach, JBR (close to Roxy Cinemas). Visitors should be at least 1.2 metres tall and 10 years old to experience it, due to the weight of equipment and mildly scary sequences. The Void can accommodate groups of one to four at a time.
cnewbould@thenational.ae