Gadgetory

I've been waiting for this headset the oculus rift since I tried a prototype for the very first time three years ago but the rift also represents something we've been waiting on for decades real high-quality virtual reality Mars take a trek through a prehistoric jungle tore a house that has not yet been built it's called virtual reality and as Jay Shafer found out all it takes is a special helmet the glove and you're off your guess the first really powerful VR headset you can buy a piece of technology that feels like something out of science fiction but the rift isn't at the cutting edge of virtual reality right now the most revolutionary VR brings your whole body into a game that oculus motion controllers aren't coming out until later this year when that happens the rift could feel a little like the holodeck right now it's more like those nutrient pods from the matrix but you know what those nutrient pods are a lot of fun before we actually plug into virtual reality we should talk about how the rift looks because oculus has some excellent design work here before you even open it all the parts come in a black carrying case with a magnetic top I'm not sure how durable it is but it has a great texture and the actual hardware looks even better the rift doesn't look like a gaming device or an old sci-fi movie prop it looks classy for a big face mask anyway the most important part here is the headset but there's also a tracking camera plus an Xbox one controller that you'll use for most of the games the last thing is a little remote that you can use for very simple games or for controlling video oculus has its own app with a game catalog which you can use either inside or outside VR the oculus rift is launching with 30 games which cost anywhere from $5 to $60 the cheapest ones are mostly ported over from the gear VR and playing them on the rift has mixed results this kind of dead secret and it's a point-and-click adventure game that I actually really liked on gear VR also it's kind of a case where the gear VR is actually better than the oculus rift for it because the whole point of this game is that you're supposed to be able to turn 360 degrees and look at whatever you need to they here that would get me tangled up in this cord really horribly so instead you can press a button and you'll sort of blink around it's done the the sort of blinking motion is there to cut down on motion sickness and it'll actually work pretty well it just doesn't feel quite as good this is also a game I really like to play with the remote because the whole idea is that it's very very simple you're supposed to use or if the equivalent of a mouse in VR so a food game controller just sort of seems weird so this is exactly why they put it there loud one of the most fun obvious things to do in the rift is pretend your chair is some kind of cockpit whether that's a jetpack a spaceship or a car on some weird 360 degree racing mobius strip so the really interesting thing about radial-g is that it's a 360-degree track and you're trying to outrace everyone else while not falling off it occasionally and trying to find the fastest path it is a super intense game with super intense techno music and that's what makes it fun in VR and no matter how crazy this looks I actually don't really get motion sickness in it because it's kind of like driving a car those games are all first-person but there are actually a lot of titles that make you an invisible observer The rifts tracking system means you can lean around like you're looking over a tabletop model it's a smart system and it's probably the least likely to make you motion sick the camera isn't moving until you move your physical body I've wondered for a while how long I'd be able to stay in the oculus rift at a time and it's actually pretty long if I adjust the headset too tight I'll get a headache and until somebody installs a hands-free Soylent tube here I might end up missing a lot of meals while I'm playing a few experiences do make me sick mostly ones that weren't originally imagined as VR games but otherwise I can spend hours without taking it off and more importantly I really want to spend hours so if you've ever played Dark Souls Chronos is pretty much exactly like Dark Souls in that you know the third person character you have shield you've got heavy attacks you get to dodge and you have to fight a bunch of monsters and it's sort of unclear what they are but you're this dark fairytale Kingdom that has much more going on plot wise than I am willing to reveal here but it's actually incredibly interesting the sort of big difference between this and how we probably work if it weren't in VR is that you'll see there's not a camera following you there's just one in various directions as I move around this can actually get sort of complicated because it means that if a monster comes up in a taxi and I'm trying to dodge right here okay then backs me up and then suddenly they've got this entire different camera angle to go through it is maybe not the best decision but that's alright because this game is fun enough the elephant in the room here is that you could play a lot of these games just as easily on a normal PC or console screen even if it wouldn't feel the same there's nothing stopping you from getting up and moving around in the headset I can take a few steps to either side and still have it track me but oculus is launched lineup is a lot of games that you'll want to sit in a chair and play they don't take advantage of the thing I like most about VR the fact that it can put your body into an experience especially when I don't have an avatar I start feeling like a disembodied brain hooked up to an Xbox controller of course virtual reality isn't just about video games oculus has photo and video apps so you can see 360 degree movies and pictures you can also watch 2d video like twitch streams or anything stored on your hard drive in a virtual movie theater it's got a few interactive animated shorts like lost in Henry but for now that's about all oculus has put a lot of non gaming apps on the gear VR and it makes sense that we could see things like Netflix come out to the riff after launch and everything will change later this year when the oculus touch controllers are released touch let you do things like sculpt with your hands realistically grab and throw things and play action games that involve real physical action at its best the oculus rift lets you have new experiences that would be totally impossible outside virtual reality right now it's mostly adding an extra dimension to more familiar ones but that extra dimension is still worth seeing especially with the game's oculus has lined up the rift isn't nearly as cool as it might be in six months but that doesn't mean it well blow your mind just a little