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Echo Arenais basically ultimate frisbee VR,Short film Archives and it completely consumed me at E3.

In a demo station at E3, I turn my head to watch a disc float by and activate my wrist jets to chase after it, weaving past floating obstacles and using my hands to guide me.

Reaching the disc, I grab it with my dominant hand and look up toward the diamond-shaped goal, about 30 feet away. With a flick, I launch the disc toward the open, glowing goal and nail it right in the middle, setting off sparks and a ripping guitar riff, earning my team three points.

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In my ear a teammate says, "Nice throw, Kellen!"

They're moving toward me pumping their arms up and down, gliding through an arena that looks like it's been ripped right out of the Tronuniverse, etched with bold luminescent lines of blue and orange.

I raise my own arms in victory, only to realize that the disc is back in play. I jet my way back toward my team's side of the arena to play some defense.

Echo Arenais a competitive, multiplayer, virtual reality game for the Oculus Rift, and out of everything I played at E3 this year, it left the biggest impression on me.

That impression: VR has the potential to be amazing, and really good VR can make you completely forget that you're making an ass of yourself in front of a crowd of onlookers.

Echo Arena is basically zero-gravity ultimate frisbee with goals instead of endzones and you can punch people in the head to stun them. Here's a look at how it works:

The match I played at E3 was facilitated by two team captains who were well-versed on the ins and outs of the game. After we put on our headsets and grabbed our touch controllers, they floated around the game's starting area and gave each one of us a run-down of the controls, which were pretty simple.

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You look around by moving your head, and move your arms by, well, moving your arms. Everything is motion-tracked pretty seamlessly.

One button on each controller allows you to grab the disc, grab walls, or even grab other people with that hand. Grabbing onto walls or people lets you steady yourself, and then you can push off and float away in your desired direction.

Another button closes your hand into a fist, which you can use to punch opponents in the head, stunning them momentarily and causing them to drop the disc if they're holding it. Alternatively, you can hold up both fist in front of your face to block punches.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Each controller also has a button to fire up the jets on your wrists, your main mode of locomotion. You move in the direction that your wrists are pointing, which is an interesting and tactile way to handle movement in VR. You can also flick the stick left or right on the right controller to turn around.

Finally, there's a button to stop moving completely.

The controls, and the way my avatar floated around without gravity, took a few minutes to get used to. At first, I was acutely aware that I was playing a game and constantly worried that I was going to fall over in real life and cause one of several handlers at the booth to come running to my help -- something I actually witnessed while I was waiting for my turn with Echo Arena.

After getting the hang of the game's movement and tossing the disc back and forth with my fellow players in the warm-up area, I started getting comfortable. My brain adjusted to the fact that what I was looking at wasn't happening to my corporeal self -- I even almost completely forgot that I was in VR.

Part of what helped me lose myself in Echo Arenawas the realness of my fellow players. Because the game reacts to your arm and head movements, everything they're doing in real life is coming through in the game. Someone waved at me with their real arm and their game arm waved right back. There's an element of humanity that artificial intelligence can't really capture, but seeing other people digitally rendered in a game with their human movements translated 1:1but down that wall that separated me and the game.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

By the time the match started, I was fully engaged.

Aside from the visceral joy of floating around with other people in an arena, the game is really fun. Working together to stop the opposing team from scoring on your goal and getting a breakaway toward their open goal is very satisfying, just like in any traditional sport.

You can race toward your opponents' goal and hand the disc through it for a single point, or if you're confident in your throw you can toss the disc from a distance for more points.

The mechanics all work very well and the system of movement is a perfect way to handle VR's lack of leg detection. It's the first VR game that I've played that really felt like it took advantage of everything VR has to offer, and boiled it down into a relatively simple game that feels like it belongs in VR.

Echo Arenagoes into open beta this weekend and is scheduled for a full release in July.

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Topics Esports Gaming Oculus Virtual Reality