Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift – a lot of money for sure, an extra £190 for the Touch controllers, a £1000 computer to run the Rift….sounds crazy doesn’t it? Let me tell you though, if you have the money, the Rift is worth every penny.To be fair, I already had a machine powerful enough to run the Oculus system but even so, an outlay of £700 (including the Touch controllers) is still significant. However, world-leading VR was never going to be cheap and whatever they may tell you about the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift is better and, even with buying an extra sensor for ‘room scale’ VR, is about the same price as the Vive.So, what makes the Rift so good? The simple answer is to find a store demo and go and try it, then you’ll understand. However, in case you live far from the nearest demo, here are the salient points and pros and cons:The Pros1. The Rift is totally convincing, once you allow your brain to take over. You really will believe you are standing on a skyscraper gantry hundreds of feet up; in fact, many people immediately grasp for something to hold onto as they feel themselves about to fall.2. The Rift’s head tracking is smooth and utterly reliable. It is also easy to set up and, unlike the Vive, does not require you to purchase an electric drill to make holes in the wall. The Rift sensor simply sits on your desk.3. The whole setup takes less than an hour. Took me just 33 minutes.4. The infamous ‘God rays’ that people complain about are almost unnoticeable. If you had a DK2 headset, forget it; the Rift is a hundred times better.5. The resolution is as excellent as possible, though there is still slight blurring around the edges, as there is with any device that uses a Fresnel lens.6. The Rift is super light. The HTC Vive on the other hand, feels like a brick. You can spend hours in the Rift. Try that with a Vive and you will have a massive headache and sore neck.7. The sound from the built in headphones (which are easily removed if preferred) is superb. Almost too high a quality to be credible but credible it is.8. The built-in microphone is high quality and crystal clear and appears to have noise-cancelling qualities.9. The headset itself is amazing to wear and, given the technology involved, well worth the significant substantial outlay.10. The included wireless xBox controller makes for easy control of games, while the Oculus BigScreen application (it’s free) enables you to sit in a totally convincing virtual cinema and watch any type of movie (or anything else) through the Rift headset.2D, 3D - no problem; and it feels just as though you were sitting in a real cinema…but thankfully without all the sweet and crisp packet-scrunching idiots around you who normally disturb your viewing. If you don’t like your seat, you can go sit in a different one! Watching a 3 hour blockbuster in 3D on the big screen in my own private cinema was no effort at all. No headache, no discomfort, fabulous sound; just slightly annoying that there was no usherette and I had to break halfway to get my own drink!21. With the free applications available from Oculus Home, you can even go and sit in someone else’s room and talk to them, or set up your own room for others to join. Either way, they will be sitting next to you and you’ll find yourself turning to talk to their virtual ‘head’. Honestly, you can’t resist it!The ConsActually, there are not many:1. The headset takes a little getting used to, rather like a new pair of shoes. Once adjusted properly however (there are many ways to adjust it specifically for your head) the Rift headset is as easy to put on and take off as a baseball cap; honestly.2. Unlike the Vive, there is thankfully a slight ventilation space under the nose which prevents any restriction on breathing and also ensures minimal misting-up of the lenses. Again however, it takes a little time to get used to but once familiar with the Rift, you really won’t notice its presence.3. That’s it.What about Oculus Touch?The Touch controllers will be released on December 6th. They look futuristic and are apparently so well designed that anyone can pick them up and more or less immediately control the virtual hands that are attached to your brain.If I get a chance to review the Oculus Touch, I will publish a subsequent review; I already suspect however that the Touch controllers will be of the same high quality as the Oculus Rift headset. It is simply about how or even if you personally feel the need to ‘touch’ things in VR.The truth is however, reaching out and touching is the first – and totally natural – thing you want to do, just as a child does when exploring new experiences.VR however actually makes you WANT to reach out and touch simply everything…which means that VR is incomplete without hand controllers.The Vive ‘wands’ are OK but not in the same league as Oculus Touch when it come to interactivity and naturalness of use. That much is clear just from looking at the Touch controllers. Who wants to carry two sticks around when you can have Oculus controllers that form part of your hands?The question really is whether or not the Rift controllers can be used with non-touch specific games/applications and, crucially, whether they offer you added value. Such value is of course dependent on the games or applications you use.For example, I participate in online motor racing on a semi-professional basis. Consequently, VR for me is the best thing ever. However, for racing I have a specialised steering wheel, gear shift and pedal hardware setup to enable me to race at that level. Virtual hands in that respect would be largely useless.I have also flown real aeroplanes however and love flight simulation. Yes, I have special controls for that as well but, when sitting on the VR flight deck of an A320 Airbus, a pair of ‘virtual hands’ would enable me to fly much more realistically, with hand access to all the many controls around the pilot area.ConclusionMany people say that VR is still evolving and you should wait before spending such a lot of money on Oculus Rift. I totally disagree. You can wait forever. All you will do is miss out on one of the best (and in terms of learning, valuable) entertainment experiences of your life.Including the Touch controllers (assuming they do what they say – I haven’t had the chance to review them yet but will let you know if I do) and assuming you already have a powerful gaming computer, £700 is very reasonable for what you get; both in terms of the advanced technology and more importantly, the experiences that will entertain, inform and thrill you.Sitting in my racing car simulator now FEELS almost the same as when I first drove a real Formula 3 car. Your brain fills in the gaps where the G-force should be. Looking out of my aeroplane cockpit window FEELS real. Sitting in the cockpit of a fictional space-fighter at a star base in a fictional galaxy FEELS real. Totally. Absolutely. And the possibilities are endless as more developers design new experiences and games.So often, you don’t get much for £700 nowadays (paid for a football ticket or an F1 ticket lately??) but in my view, Oculus Rift is worth every penny.Even if you decide against buying the controllers – which means missing out on having a ‘complete’ VR setup - don’t let that put you off buying the Rift headset itself. The experiences you will enjoy are both stunning and exhilarating, whilst the headset itself is comfortable to wear, extremely high quality, effective, highly efficient and in no way intrusive.I must say that I cannot possibly say the same of the Rift’s main competitor, the HTC Vive for reasons outlined above. The Vive may have its fans but personally speaking, I found it heavy, cumbersome, complex to setup (and expensive if you have to buy drills, mountings etc) and truly, unbelievably uncomfortable.The forthcoming PlayStation VR is a cheaper alternative but, as with most cheap things in life, it is cheap for a reason.I thoroughly recommend the Oculus Rift. If you have the money and already have or are prepared to get a sufficiently powerful computer to run it, get yourself an Oculus Rift. Be prepared though for the fact that when you next see or do anything on your computer in ‘boring old 2D’, you will feel dissatisfied and cheated.Oculus Rift VR really is that good.

After spending months researching the Oculus Rift (and saving up sufficient conkers) I finally decided to bite the bullet and order one. As a 40-something lifelong gamer I'm always curious to try out new technologies that can offer a fresh experience to something I've always enjoyed doing as a pastime (I was inline day 1 when the Nintendo 3DS was launched). If you're thinking of getting one you should ask yourself the following questions, as this may help you reach a decision as to whether you will feel it's a piece of technology that will not only make you feel like you got your money's worth (even at £550) but will also be something you will keep using and not just end up back in the box once the "wow" novelty has worn off.1) Do you have a powerful PC?It is very important that your PC be AT LEAST the following specification:Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better.CPU: Intel Core i5 4590 or greater.RAM: 8GB or more.Video port: HDMI 1.3.USB port: 2 USB 3.0 ports.Windows 7 SP1 or newer.You also need to make sure you have the necessary leads to connect your PC to your monitor/tv as the Rift MUST be connect via your graphics card's HDMI port. As my card only had the one HDMI I had to purchase an additional DisplayPort lead to connect my PC to my TV once the Rift was wired in.If you're not quite up to this spec then upgrade your PC first. You won't be getting a smooth VR experience with anything less and this in turn will lead to poor performance and motion sickness (due to dropping frame rates).2) Do you already have a problem with motion sickness?VR has had lots of negativity regarding the impact of motion sickness in some people. I myself can happily read in a car and rarely get motion sickness, but within a few hours of using my Rift for the first time I started to experience nausea which was brought on by the movements in the game I was playing (Luckys Tale) and it took the rest of the day for it to wear off. I've read a number of reviews on here with people returning their Rift for this very reason, but I'm determined to take at least three weeks of regularly using it to try and "get my VR legs" and overcome this nausea with regular use - something I've read has worked for a lot of users. You have to remember this is high-end technology that is still in its infancy and the human brain has yet to adapt to this.3) What type of games do you like to play?With the "VorpX" software (available at extra cost) the Rift can be used with a large number of AAA titles, but on the whole the number of games that officially support the Rift isn't currently huge. I myself like "cockpit" style games such as Eurotruck/Project Cars and space sims like Elite Dangerous. All of these are supported by the Rift and are genuinely enhanced by it. If you prefer Call of Duty/Battlefield style games then I would say this product isn't for you as the experience of playing those types of fast paced first-person titles in VR would probably make you projectile vomit like Linda Blair!4) Do you have to wear glasses for short sightedness?If you do then be prepared to struggle trying to wear the device with your glasses on. Don't be fooled into thinking you won't need your glasses as the screens are so close to your face, YOU WILL NEED THEM. The 3D in the Rift can accurately represent items to make them look like they are far away from you. If you are short sighted things WILL seem blurry without corrective lenses. The Rift can fit glasses up to 150mm wide, but my glasses were too large so I had to order additional prescription lenses from 'VR Labs' that are designed to fit into the Rift, negating the need for spectacles.If you can answer those four questions positively then let me just give you some more quick pros and cons before you hit that "Add to basket" button...PROSIt really is mind blowing. The first time you run the setup and go through the "experiences" to acclimatise you to VR it will definitely knock you for six and make you think what you are seeing is truly magic. Words cannot describe the feeling of immersion it gives you. You'll find yourself trying to reach out and grab things in front of you, or genuinely jump as things come at you in 3D. It feels REAL. I've played Eurotruck for over 100 hours on a TV, in the Rift it felt like I was actually sat in the drivers seat of a real truck.Another pro is the attached headphones - which are surprisingly effective with good, strong bass and a nice representation of surround sound.CONSThe graphical resolution of the device is not massive. Don't buy this thinking you'll be seeing your games as you see them on your large monitor/tv but in 3D. You will definitely be seeing lots of "jaggies" due to the lower resolution of the two screens inside the headset. Personally I didn't find this to be too much of a letdown as I'd read up enough on it to know beforehand, but it still may put some people off.God rays. As the rift uses Fresnel lenses you will notice a strange effect of light "bleeding" out whenever you see bright items on a dark background (such as text on screen). Imagine looking at a streetlight with greasy spectacles, it's that kind of effect. Again it doesn't bother me too much as with most games you will barely notice it, as mentioned it's only really visible where there are areas of light against dark. But again some people may be put off by this.To sum up the Oculus Rift is an amazing piece of technology that offers a genuinely stunning experience, but it is still in need of further improvements to be truly outstanding. If you really can't wait and have read my review and are still positive about owning one then please go for it. Just know that you'll be putting it on eBay when the inevitable CV2 is released in a few years.