The FOO Show featuring Will Smith

This is what modern talk shows should be. Will and crew are pioneering an amazing new experience and I can't wait to see where it goes. Happy to be able to say I watched the first one and will be tuning in for many more. Suggestion: Despite being room-scale, have a stool or chair ready or be prepared to sit on the floor. Simply standing around for the whole experience can get a bit tedious.

This is very disappointing. The first free episode they released (about Firewatch) was really good. The interface worked, the sound was good, etc. Sure, it needed some polish, but I would have been happy to pay for additional episodes of this quality. With the first for-pay episode basically everything has become worse which is really astonishing considering they worked about 6 months for this. They produced it in front of a live audience (who thought that was a good idea?). Because of that, the audio quality is really bad and you can hear the audience in the background which really destroys the immersion for me. They chose a game which looks like it is from the HalfLife-era, so there is also not much to look at. In addition, at least I have jump-cuts forward in mid sentence. The body model of the avatars seemingly also has gotten worse since the first episode (the hand postures etc. often look really terrible) and at least the Oculus motion controllers are very poorly supported (e.g. the "pointing-line" comes out of the top instead of the front, which is probably the stupidest choice for a controller you hold like a pistol). Taking an object from one hand to the other also does not work anymore. I can only suspect that some capable, important people left the project and they could not find a replacement for them. Lets see how this develops. I still think the idea is really good, but what they have delivered for their first episode is not really acceptable.

Amazing. I got to run around the tower from Firewatch with the Campo Santo guys. I'm really excited to see future episodes and visit places with Will as the tour guide.

Cool concept except it never went anywhere.

⠀

Never got the free episode working just me sitting in an empty room with no sound.

EDITED AT BOTTOM: This was an interesting idea. Basically they did a talk show with 3D virtual reality avatars. Unfortunately all the avatars were really low poly and occasionally you saw their arms and hands bend in awkward ways, but it was kinda neat. You could walk up next to them on stage, view them from a side stage, OR you could choose to view them from any row and seat in the house. The downside to viewing from the studio seats is that it looked like crap from a distance, plus it was harder to hear since the voices were farther away. The upside was that it felt more like you were sitting in the studio audience except you were the only one there. Later in the "show" they talked more in depth about the game "Fire Watch" and teleported everyone to the inside of one of the fire watchtowers. There were several glowing circles you could teleport yourself to so that you could see better from a different angle. You could stand next to (or partially inside) the hosts of the show as they talked, and neatest of all, you could grab things in the environment with the controller and examine them. The hosts demonstrated this to a somewhat comedic effect at times. I am not terribly interested in the game, but seeing it from the VR perspective was pretty neat. Presumably this is going to be a regular show with this Will Smith (not the fresh prince) talking about things IN virtual realtiy. The only thing that would make it neater is if you could have a friend join you and you could both appear to each other as the hosts did. I have no idea how they were set up to be recorded in VR though. Maybe I'd need one of them "ping-pong ball suits" so the lighthouse base stations would Motion capture me? Anyway, it's free, lasts about 20 minutes and if you have VR you might as well try it. It's pretty damn neat. I'm not sure I'd want to pay for these kinds of things though. I guess they had some grand vision for how to do this and then it turned out to be more than they expected. If you watch the "Foo Show" they mention how all during the summer they were going to do more, and yet I haven't heard anything about any further updates or episodes, or whatever. I wouldn't expect them to all be free. I certainly wouldn't pay more than $1 or $2 for something I have to just sit back and watch/listen to. I'd rather watch a youtube video or listen to a podcast. That's pretty much what this was really.. a podcast/VLOG only in VR. EDIT: They're finally releasing more episodes. $5 per episode might not be too bad depending on what's inside...if it's just a bunch of guys talking then no thanks. If it's $5 for some interviews, some kind of demonstration or cool new experience, or something unique then it might be worth paying for. There's also an option to pay for the whole season upfront for just over $20 but no word on how many epsiodes they're doing total. So is it like 5-6 episodes? How often will it be released? It would be nice if there was some kind of schedule and they could stick to it so you'd know when to expect your "updates".

I just simply hate Will Smith.