Get up close and personal with the demon monkeys of Temple Run VR

By Will Fulton December 25, 2014

get close personal demon monkeys temple run vr

Temple Run VR, a first-person version of Imangi’s popular infinite runner game, is now available as a free download for the Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition headset. The casual, Sisyphean dash to safety that never comes is amplified with an immersive perspective designed to give you the feeling that skull-faced demon monkeys are really breathing down your neck in hot pursuit after you snatch an idol from the eponymous temple.

This time the action is transposed to perilous, snowy peaks, where one false step can send you plummeting into the valleys below. The opening has been greatly expanded to increase the player’s sense of immersion. You begin inside the temple and are free to look around before snatching the idol and incurring the wrath of its primate guardians.

As you run through endless mountain paths and temple tunnels, it is now possible to look down into the pits you avoid, or look back over your shoulder and see just how close you are to being mauled. You can control the game with an attached gamepad or the Gear VR’s built-in touch pad, though Polygon reports that the latter is somewhat unwieldy.

The Samsung Gear VR headset is one of the first consumer virtual reality headsets to hit the market after Oculus VR revitalized the long-promised field. It requires a Galaxy Note 4 phone which plugs in to serve as the screen and processor for the headset. The quad HD 5.7-inch screen and Snapdragon 805 processor give this phone enough muscle to provide a convincing virtual reality experience on the go. The Gear VR was developed in partnership with Oculus.

“This wave of VR is in its infancy,” explained Imangi co-founder Keith Shepard to VentureBeat. “There’s tremendous buzz around Oculus. This is the first stab at having a dedicated platform for VR games. We’re excited to see how many are going to play this thing,” The Gear VR Innovator Edition is available for purchase now through Samsung or AT&T for $200. Temple Run VR is available as a free download for early adopters.

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PSVR vs. PSVR 2: The difference between the Sony VR headsets

Playstation VR2 headset on a PlayStation-themed wallpaper.

Sony jumped in fairly early to the virtual reality market with its first PSVR unit in 2017. It was, and still is, the only console manufacturer to have dedicated VR hardware that uses the power of its systems to power its headsets. The PSVR, at the time, was the bestselling headset on the market, but this was many years ago.

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A side view of the PlayStation VR2, which sits on a wood table.

Before my PlayStation VR2 arrived at my doorstep last week, my experience playing in VR was minimal. I'd reported on the industry and its games for years, but my actual playtime in a headset was limited to an Eve: Valkyrie demo at a GameStop ahead of PlayStation VR's launch, a couple of demos at trade shows, and one 15-minute session of Phantom: Covert Ops on Meta Quest 2 while hanging out with a friend.
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My first thought when I got my PSVR2 was that the package was much smaller and lighter than I expected. VR always seemed large and clunky from an outside perspective, so I was impressed by the sleek and easy-to-unbox packaging and the headset's manageable size. Next, I had to set up the headset, which was something I was dreading as a first-time user. Surprisingly, the setup process was pretty quick after I plugged in the headset.
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