From Ashes

Although scientists can study the universe and get a very clear idea about how things were right after The Big Bang, it’s pretty difficult to imagine the events and explain them to someone who’s not familiar with the intricacies of multiple scientific fields, such as mathematics and physics. Hence, all the equations in the world would be useless in this regard, but the answer may not be that difficult after all.

From Ashes is a virtual reality game for Oculus Rift in which you get to see how everything started and evolved, which is a lot easier to understand than a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper. It’s not an interactive experience, unfortunately, but you think of it as a documentary instead, except that you are right there in the middle of everything, instead of looking at your flat monitor.

As you might expect, everything starts with the Big Bang, and it slowly builds up from there. After the elementary particles are explained and you come to understand how basic elements form, larger things come to existence, such as planets and stars. Granted, the process is accelerated very much, which means that a lot more information is skipped.

The history of our planet is presented as well, starting from when it was a fiery ball of volcanoes and geysers. You get to almost touch faces with primordial fishes, dinosaurs, huge prehistoric bears, and finally apes and humans. Unfortunately, the history stops after humans discover fire and weapons, although it would be nice for it to go on until contemporary times.

As far as the graphics are concerned, everything is surprisingly well animated and scripted, although you shouldn’t expect too much in the quality department. The textures are low-res and the models are low-poly, yet somehow they look quite convincing. The narrator does a good job of distracting you from all this as well, since he is always telling you something interesting.

In the end, From Ashes is certainly worth having in your VR library, especially if you’ve just received your Oculus Rift and you want to see it in action. Thanks to the mostly static environment, you shouldn’t have trouble getting sick from too much movement.