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Plano is one of the few places you can try this awesome 'Star Wars' VR experience

It's a common childhood dream for any big geek: Disguise yourself as a Stormtrooper, sneak into an Imperial base and have an epic Star Wars adventure -- preferably without actually putting your life on the line in an attempt to take down a Death Star.

Video games and theme park rides have gotten us closer and closer to that dream over the years, but few things have felt as real as Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, a unique virtual reality (or, as they say, "hyper-reality") experience from VR company The Void. Set around the same time as the movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the half-hour experience puts you in the shoes of an undercover rebel on a secret mission behind enemy lines.

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While The Void has made waves in pockets of the world with other experiences (including one based on Ghostbusters), Cinemark West Plano is the only place in Texas where you will be able to find it right now. This is the first time The Void has ever been available in a movie theater, and Cinemark wanted to pilot the experience close to its Plano HQ.

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What makes it different than other VR experiences you might have had? The best word for that might be "presence." The Void is not a simple headset that you put over your eyes before sitting on your couch. It's a physical space that you see through a virtual world.

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This means that if you see a lever on the wall through the headset, you can physically reach out and pull it. See a wall? There is really a wall there. A chair? Yep, you can really sit in it.

That sounds like a simple thing, but it's one of the key problems people have with other VR experiences. You can find a lot of videos online of people trying to sit down in a virtual space and falling over instead, because there was no real chair underneath them. Here, if you want to lean against a wall, you actually can.

Here, you can see your own hands, and you don't even need to hold controllers to do so. The fidelity isn't perfect, but it's more impressive than I expected, because it detected individual fingers. While dressed (virtually) as a Stormtrooper, I was able to throw up peace signs and point at specific things to my teammates. Given that I wasn't wearing any special equipment on my hands (no gloves required), this little detail helps The Void feel magical.

(The Void)

To take things even further into theme park territory, as your ship door opens up to the lava-filled planet of Mustafar, you can feel heat on your face and smell smoke in the air. It's little bits of detail that help you feel immersed.

Those details also stave off another big problem some people experience with VR: Motion sickness. With more "traditional" VR experiences, the effect of seeing one thing while your body experiences something else can wreak havoc on your brain, making some people sick (even when they're not moving). While The Void might still make some players feel ill (which is one reason why you have to sign a long waiver before putting the headset on), the fact that your body moves exactly how your brain is expecting it to move is a tremendous help.

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Four people at a time can go through the experience, so it can be great for friends and families (though not for little kids -- there's an age restriction of 10+, and a minimum height requirement of four feet). The only downside? The price. If you thought current movie ticket prices were high enough, tickets to Secrets of the Empire are a whopping $29.99 per person, which is not cheap for something that will be over in half an hour.

That said, it's an experience you will struggle to find anywhere else (especially in the Lone Star State), even if you've got a fancy VR rig in your home. If you've got the money and if you're a big Star Wars nerd, it makes for a pretty awesome time.