If you have a pre-booked appointment to try out the Oculus at E3 2015, the booth staff take you into a room and give you your choice from one of nine titles. There are no surprises in the lineup, as we all had a chance to hear about them during the Oculus retail announcement last week. The demo lasts about ten minutes and you only get to try one game, so it's important to choose wisely.

As tempting as titles like Damage Core and Edge of Nowhere were, my mind was made up right away. I had to try the goofy-looking hockey game that is part of VR Sports Challenge.

So I played it. And it was awesome.

Watch the puck

You know how sometimes games claim to be able to make you better at the real-wold activities they simulate? Like how Rocksmith can teach you to play guitar and pool games can help you learn to judge angles on a real table? Well in its own funny little way, the hockey portion of VR Sports Challenge might actually help you become a better hockey player -- or at least a better spectator. That's because one of the core gameplay elements of the title involves keeping your eyes focused on the puck.

You play as the goalie for most of the game, and if you aren't looking at the puck you can't make saves. So you move your head to keep your vision trained on the puck as it is passed and deflected around and weaves through traffic. It's a good thing the final version of the Oculus feels so light and comfortable on your head, because otherwise the amount of rapid back and forth motion necessary to play a game like this could be a pain. As it was, I never even thought about it.

In the demo I played (which I got the sense might be close to the final gameplay experience), you control a goalie facing a five minute penalty kill. That means you'll be facing frequent shots, and you need to track the puck and hit the corresponding bumper on your controller at the right time in order to make a save. If the shot is coming in on the right, for example, you need to hit the right bumper just at the correct moment. Too early or late and you won't make the save, and exactly the right moment scores you extra points. It would seem like a natural use of the Xbox One controller to employ both the bumpers and triggers to make high and low saves on each side, respectively, but in the demo I played only the bumpers were used.

It didn't take long to get the hang of making saves, and it was probably a bit easier than it should be, but boy oh boy did it feel satisfying to stop pucks. And it all felt so natural, too. I didn't think twice about glancing up at the scoreboard to check how much time was left on the clock, or dividing my attention between the puck and an opposing player moving into a position to receive a pass. It was all both entertaining gameplay and an authentic part of hockey we've never seen this way before in a video game.

About a half-dozen times during the five minute penalty kill, a breakout pass sent one my team's players in on a breakaway. This is the offensive portion of the game, and when it happens time slows down and you have a few moments to direct your vision to a corner of the net the opposing goalie isn't fully covering. You then release your shot, and if you've picked the right opening, you should score. It was simplistic, sure, but it was also a lot of fun -- and it felt a lot more like scoring an actual goal than anything I've ever done in a traditional hockey game.

Simple, but fun

Once VR Sports Challenge actually comes out, there's a good chance it will be full of small sports experiences like this that are engaging and entertaining but can grow stale with repeated play. If there isn't anything more to the hockey portion of the title than what I saw in the demo, I doubt I'd play it for more than a couple of hours at most -- but it would be a fun couple of hours. And it would definitely be a game I'd show any friend who came over to try out the Oculus, whether they are a hockey fan or not.

As a hockey fan frustrated by the current state of EA's NHL series, I would be thrilled to see enough depth put into VR Sports Challenge to make it the kind of game you play long term. If the final game features variable difficulty levels, speed options, slightly more in-depth controls, or even (serious wishful thinking here) some kind of head-to-head multiplayer, it won't matter if the title doesn't have real NHL teams in it -- it could very well end up being the hockey game to beat in 2016 in terms of pure fun.

Check out more E3 2015 coverage here!