On Friday evening, I played about an hour and a half of Half Life: Alyx. While some VR games can be played while sitting, some games are better played while standing, because you need to be able to take a step or two forwards, backwards, left and right. You might also need to duck, crouch, and lean in any direction. That type of motion is difficult while seated.
So I was on my bare feet for almost two hours on Friday. I got hard flooring put in about a year and a half ago, so that’s what I standing on. As soon as I stopped playing, my legs definitely let me know it. My legs were immediately sore. It kinda sucks to stand on hard floors in your bare feet.
I needed to solve this problem before continuing my VR gaming experience. One solution would be to get rug but that’s just not practical. The rug would be need to be large and thick enough to be comfortable to walk on. That would be expensive and I’d have to store it somewhere, unless I’d just leave it out all the time.
The more logical solution would be to wear shoes. All my shoes are outside shoes though. I really don’t want to have to clean the bottom of some shoes every single time I wanted to VR game. So, I guess I just need a pair of shoes just for inside my home.
The next day I went to Walmart, because I didn’t want to spend a lot of money to solve this obviously first-world problem. At first, I tried on pair of Crocs knock-offs. Let me tell you, whatever counterfeit or copycat Crocs Walmart has, is not worth the money. There were just $9 but no one should be buying these. Walmart made them out of some hard plastic, so it feels like you’re walking on stone slabs. There’s no cushioning or comfort at all. Authentic Crocs, while more expensive, feel so much better on your feet.
I settled on a pair of slip-on sneakers, which if I had to guess were Walmart’s version of Vessis. The label said the soles had “memory foam” but I found that hard to believe. They didn’t feel like I was walking on stone but there weren’t exactly Nike Airs either. It was somewhere in the middle. It was comfortable enough that I didn’t need to break them in and my feet felt supported. All of this at the reasonable price of $19.
I gamed with these shoes on for almost two hours this evening and they made a huge difference. My legs and feet felt fine afterwards, not sore at all.
I never thought I’d need a pair of shoes as a gaming peripheral but here we are.