Adam Hendricks enthusiastically dives in at Vrbar. | Stefano Giovannini
No, you’re not dreaming. In the era of virtual reality, you can zip through space, survive zombie-infested streets or bust a ghost — all while wide awake.
It might feel like VR has been promised to us for as long as hoverboards and tourist rockets to Mars, but this past year has brought the first boom of real VR to New York City. While you can experience VR at home right from your smartphone with a cheap Google Cardboard viewer, a number of dedicated new venues around the city allow you to experience a more immersive VR for the price of a movie ticket.
“Finally, it’s here, and it’s accessible to almost everyone,” says Mehow Skalski, one of the founders of Jump Into the Light, a new VR cinema and arcade on the Bowery.
Here’s where to ditch this reality and escape into a virtual one.
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Writer Tim Donnelly gets ready to take on some ghosts.Stefano Giovannini
Movie magic
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more awesome and intense VR experience this side of “The Matrix” than the “Ghostbusters: Dimension” game at Madame Tussauds. Unlike other stand-still VR, this cutting-edge tech outfits you with a proton pack (a backpack and vest that rumbles when you get hit by debris) and lets you loose on a virtual ghost hunt through a building.
The actual space is about 1,000 square feet, but the magic of VR makes you feel like you’re exploring multiple floors of an apartment building, where everything around you — from the dials on the TV to the moose head on the wall — is interactive.
The gun in your hand lets you blast ghosts just like in the movies, and the action leads you onto a rickety platform outside a window overlooking the Manhattan skyline, with real-feeling wind blowing through your hair (don’t worry — you’re still in the room the whole time). Once you get off the platform, you have to defeat the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to escape, and, no, you’re not imagining that: It really does smell like marshmallows in there. $55 (includes museum admission and a souvenir wax hand). Madame Tussauds, 234 W. 42nd St., between Seventh and Eighth avenues;Ghostbusters.MadameTussauds.com
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Source: MyPost