Oculus VR brings Chuck E. Cheese’s into the 21st century

By Will Fulton May 20, 2014

oculus vr coming to chuck e cheese ticket blaster — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Chuck E. Cheese’s, America’s leading purveyor of noisy children’s entertainment, plastic spider rings, and mediocre pizza, has announced that it will be introducing the Oculus Rift to birthday parties in select markets. For the next six weeks, lucky birthday boys and girls in Dallas, San Diego, and Orlando, will be able to don the VR headset for a turn in “Chuck E. Cheese’s Virtual Ticket Blaster Experience.”

The Analog Ticket Blaster Experience, already a staple of Chuck E. Cheese’s birthday parties, places the child into a large plastic tube that pneumatic air blasters fill with a terrifying maelstrom of tickets. The child frantically snatches as many tickets as they are able to in the allotted time, which they can then go spend on the aforementioned spider rings and snap bracelets (my image of Chuck E. Cheese’s is fossilized from the early 90s – they probably get iPhones now). Now with the addition of Oculus VR headset, the child can collect virtual tickets inside a virtual tube – O brave new world!

“Kids today have unprecedented access to game consoles and tablets,” said Roger Cardinale, president, CEC Entertainment, Inc. “Our challenge is to deliver an experience not available at home, and there is no doubt virtual reality does just that. Oculus Rift technology is the next frontier in the gaming industry, and we’re thrilled to be able to say it’s part of the Chuck E. Cheese’s lineup.”

I recall having my young mind blown by a crude VR game at a Dave & Buster’s in 1994 – choppy head-tracking and unrecognizable polygonal enemies did nothing to detract from my Tron and Lawnmower Man fantasies. If anything, the rough edges made clearer the outline of the striving ingenuity involved. Now that the technology has improved so drastically, will children be all the more enthralled to enter cyberspace, or will that very seamlessness render the magic invisible and commonplace to a generation raised on iPads? Book your child’s party now to see for yourself.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Virtual Reality

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Gaming

The next Batman: Arkham game is a Meta Quest 3 exclusive

Batman stands in front of a bat shadow in Batman: Arkham Shadow.

A new Batman: Arkham was just announced, but it's not what you'd expect. Titled Batman: Arkham Shadow, it's a VR title made exclusively for the Meta Quest 3.

Not much is known about the game's story, with the tagline in a Meta blog post simply stating the following: "Evil stalks the streets. Gotham City is in danger. And you’re the only one who can save it." Shortly after the announcement, Geoff Keighley confirmed on X that we'll get more details on the game during his Summer Game Fest 2024 showcase on June 7. For now, the following teaser, which ends with Batman setting off a smoke bomb to get away from a horde of rats (is Ratcatcher in this game?), will have to suffice.

Gaming

A Nintendo emulator is Apple’s top downloaded app after ban reversal

Nintendo Entertainment System with controller.

The iOS App Store has a new No. 1 app, and it's Delta -- Game Emulator. Recently unbanned by Apple, the app allows players to emulate games from several different Nintendo systems, even though it isn't officially backed by Nintendo.

As a report from The Washington Post outlines, Apple recently loosened its App Store restrictions, which allowed game emulators to return to the storefront even though they were previously banned. Emulators populate a murky gray area in the video game industry, as they are fantastic for game preservation, but also give people ways to play games illegally if they find the ROM online.

Computing

Best GPU deals: MSI, XFX, EVGA

An AMD graphics card in an external GPU enclosure.

Getting into gaming can be an expensive hobby, especially if you're building a new PC from scratch and want to get the best GPU that you possibly can. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, GPU prices have skyrocketed, especially for RTX 40-series cards, and they don't look to be coming down any time soon, whether you're going for AMD or Nvidia. Luckily, there are still quite a lot of great deals you can take advantage of that will let you snag a card for a great price, and we've collected some of our favorites below. That said if you'd rather go for something that's already been put together, check out these gaming PC deals instead.
XFX SPEEDSTER SWFT210 AMD Radeon RX 6600 Core 8GB GDDR6 -- $230, was $280

XFX is a pretty well-known brand that makes AMD Radeon GPUs, so you're getting a good-quality device right out of the gate. It has an impressive 8GB GDDR6, at least for this price bracket, and will give you a bit longer life out of it when games start using up a lot more VRAM, even at lower graphical settings. While the base clock runs at 2.0 GHz, the boosted clock speed is 2.5 GHz which is pretty good, and the whole thing is unlocked, so you could theoretically boost it higher if you have the right cooling. This RTX 6600 can support resolutions up to 8K, but really, this is an ideal 1080p gaming GPU.