Expect to get yours roughly 5 months after you pre-order them.

I suppose I should mention that Oculus has a motion tracked controller coming out who-the-hell-knows-when. The main problem I see with these is that their entire tracking architecture is based on image capture — a camera attached to your PC tracks what it sees. Valve is backwards; sensors on the devices report when IR lasers pass over them. This technical distinction allows Valve to do true, highly accurate room-scale stuff, while Oculus requires you stay within a cone of sight of the camera, without getting too close or too far from it. I do not expect it to compete with the Vive. These will be things you can use from a standing position, but probably not while you’re jumping and diving all over the place. No smashing your head into your floor with these things.

The hardware

The hardware here has a few similarities and tons of differences, despite all the stuff I’ve read about them saying they’re basically the same. I’ll start with setup:

When you buy a Rift, you take it out of its beautiful box, plug it in, and then launch Oculus’s software, which updates the firmware on the headset and the controllers. Then you put it on and play it.

Setting up the Vive takes an hour if you’re lucky, and then over the following week or so you slowly work through all the kinks in a mixture of uninstall/reinstall/reboot loops, sacrificing a chicken, and cursing. I mean, look at this:

Your parents put it together.

Not to mention that to use the thing you have to take over a large space in your home which, if you live in a big city, is probably hard to come by. This is an actual animation (which I’ll admit is very entertaining, at least the first few times you see it) from the Vive setup walkthrough, and it’s not far off from reality:

This is me, every night around 9:30 or 10. I’ve gone through so many TVs.

That said, I now have my flow down to a science and (knock on wood) I can play the Vive without issue now, but, to be clear, to do so I have to:

Take the Vive out its cubby and unfurl its long cable and plug it into the link box (I could in theory find a way to stow it plugged in I guess)

Get the two controllers out and unplug them from their USB chargers.

Plug in the lighthouses (you can leave them plugged in, but having them shut down when Steam VR turns off was causing problems for me).

Pull the link cable that connects the two lighthouses out of the cabinet on one side of the room and run it around the periphery to the other one. Why? Because my lighthouses no longer sync wirelessly. It’s possible that it’s because my floors are shiny, or that I have shiny framed pictures on the wall, or some other IR interference, or the fact that they are 5.5m apart instead of the maximum recommended 5m apart. The fact is they lose sync in the middle of gameplay and then the floor lurches out from under you, so I use the included 75ft link cable (which I can’t really run through the floor walls where I live).

Move my ottoman and slide my couch and dining room table into the corner.

Turn on Steam VR and hope it all works.

If all goes well, this takes me about 4 minutes. When I’m done, I have to reverse the process which also takes 4 or 5 minutes. Needless to say, no one else is using my living room when I’m doing this, so I tend to play at 10pm or later. It’s a nightmare, and even if I had the dedicated space I bet it would still be a pain somehow.

Simply put, this is not ready for mass market adoption. I’m not sure it ever will be (maybe the PSVR will be). Which I think Oculus’s angle here. They are aiming to be the Facebook of VR, and things like their Gear VR, plus Google’s entry into the space with their new Daydream VR stuff, should tell you how most people will experience VR. Not this crazy nightmare I’m going through.

But it’s so effing worth it.

Other Hardware

The Oculus is comfortable. Very, very comfortable. The included headphones are amazing for what they are, and putting the thing on is a cinch. Taking it off, putting it on, off and on and off and on… it’s easy and it just works. There’s not even an “on” button; it just turns on when you put it on your head.

The Vive reminds me of the DK2, though it’s marginally more comfortable. Its included headphone ear buds are annoying, though they’re serviceable. Also, you’re running around with this thing on and you tend to get hot. Some games will really have you breaking a sweat — I highly recommend VR Cover. But the Vive, yeah, heavier and larger and nowhere near as comfortable.

Touch it. With your hands. Ok, now use this game controller for everything else.

Thinking about these two products and where their creators spent their time, it’s like Oculus spent tons of resources on making their product feel and look luxurious and easy to use while Valve and HTC said, screw it, we’re just going to dial everything to 11 and your brain will be too busy freaking out at giant whales to contemplate that the thing on your head is a little awkward and all the pain you went through to get it to work.

The lenses. I really don’t know why they both chose the fresnel lenses. In theory they are lighter (because they are thinner) and they produce less color aberration outside the sweet spot in the center of the lens, but they come with a horrible side effect that everyone calls “god rays”. They look like this:

I’ve heard that J.J. Abrams loves these lenses.

Here’s a long, somewhat technical article outlining the state of these things on both HMDs. Because the lenses have ridges (on the side not facing your eye) any high-contrast scene will produce these things and they go all the way from the bright object to the edge of the lens. In the Vive, I don’t notice these unless I’m looking for them, but I think that’s because I encounter so few scenes with this kind of high contrast. On the Oculus however, it’s impossible not to notice for two reasons: 1) they made the unfortunate decision to put this screen in lots of places:

The brand ID team clearly hasn’t been talking to the optics engineers.

And 2) the ridges on the Oculus are much finer, which results in less “ridge-like” god rays and instead a smudgy, fuzzier artifact. This fuzzy smudge is present in nearly every scene, though it’s subtle, but the effect is the sensation that your lenses are smudged. All the time. No matter what. Even vibrant scenes, which are way less likely to produce this artifact, have a smudgy quality to them.

The DK2 didn’t have this problem because it used a normal lens, though it did have the chromatic aberration. This is caused because of the shape of the lens and it’s unavoidable unless you do the fresnel thing (as I understand it anyway). This illustrates the reason as well as anything else:

And this is what it looks like to your eye:

The chrome. It is aberrated.

Now, for whatever reason, they chose to trade this chromatic aberration on your periphery for a fuzzy smudge on nearly everything you look at. I haven’t seen many images that really illustrate the problem, but this is perhaps the closest:

This image is from Elite:Dangerous. Now, a full-on black and white god ray is way more noticeable — that Oculus logo just screams at you, not to mention that the rays move around as you move your head. But even when you aren’t looking at something like that, you just get this other crappy effect that you can’t shake. If you look closely above you can see the rings coming from the center. As you turn your head the light rolls around these rings. It’s distracting.

Here’s an image from Henry, a digital short made by Oculus, that’s got a lot of color and no black in it at all (except for the entire opening title screen, which looks horrible of course because it’s the word HENRY on an immense empty black void). The effect here in this image is done in photoshop or something but it’s pretty accurate:

Henry is a sad hedgehog whose only birthday wish was not to be smudgy all the time.

The Vive does have this, but it’s less of a smudge and more like a lense flare, and I never, ever think about it. Also, the Vive has a way better contrast ratio. I think Oculus raised the black levels a lot to lessen these god rays, while the Vive doesn’t give a crap and gives you black when it’s asked for.

One other thing; I don’t wear my glasses in VR — I can get buy without them. But if you do, I’ve read that the Vive is better suited for them than the Rift. My wife has worn hers in the Vive and it works. I backed this kickstarter which is going to start shipping custom lens inserts soon, so I recommend that if you need glasses.

Games

VR games are very crack-like. You get a new one, play it and then want another one. Because they are experiences and less narrative your game play hours spent in them are about getting better at them in the same way that you got better at Donkey Kong quarter after quarter. I’m getting really good at Space Pirate Trainer (though I’m nowhere near showing up on the global scoreboard). I really want to stop typing and go play it right now, but I can’t because it’s daytime and other humans are selfishly using my play space.

The cake is a lie, but everything else seems remarkably real.

There are tons of great experiences and I’ll list some favorites below, but I spend a fair amount of time anticipating a new game arriving. Portal Stories: VR is a community made, free mod for Portal 2 that just came out and I blitzed through its 10 levels and found myself angry there wasn’t more. It was everything I wanted to be doing on the Vive but it was over in an evening. On to the next game!

There are some long-form games and I’ll admit that I haven’t played many of them yet. I just started playing Vanishing Realms which is basically a Diablo style dungeon crawler where you’re in the middle of it. I’m excited to get back into it, and I would, except did I mention my play space is currently occupied? Another long-form game I haven’t played is The Gallery and it’s high on my list.

Putting the “first person” in “first person shooter”

But most of the games I am spending my time on are arcade-ish.

Hover Junkers is, without a doubt, the best FPS game on the market. It’s multiplayer only and tons and tons of fun. But if you weren’t in VR you’d probably not even download it. It’s not COD4. It’s not even COD:BLOPS. But it is really, really fun.

My point is that playing the Vive for an hour a couple of nights a week is actually kind of enough. As much as I truly enjoy it, there’s nothing there that makes me want to burn four hours straight the way many PC games I love can. It’s just totally different. Probably the best fun I have is letting other people play. Seeing another person try VR for the first time is just joyful. When they lose their shit it’s just super fun to be there.

My favorite things to do in VR, in alphabetical order — not order of preference, which I’m not sure I have — are:

Vive (full list)

Audioshield — think Dance-Dance Revolution in 3d. Sorta.

Budget Cuts — this is just the Demo and it’s short (it’s not out yet) but it’s the Portal of VR. Just amazingly well made and fun.

Cyberpong VR — 1 part pong, 1 part break-out, 1 part tetris. It’s fun and easy to understand but hard to master.

Hover Junkers — see above. The only multiplayer game I’m playing.

Job Simulator — really only useful for letting others experience VR for the first time; I don’t do it myself very often.

The Lab — Valve’s collection of VR experiments. I go in to play the Long Bow game frequently.

Out of Ammo — a sort of FPS/Tower Defense game made by the guy who made DayZ. I haven’t broken a leg in it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. It is fun, though it’s a bit repetitive.

Portal Stories: VR — see above. Fantastic, though short and too easy. It’s like the tutorial for a harder game I hope they make. Free though.

Space Pirate Trainer — if the name doesn’t convince you then this video should.

theBlu — this is the Whale demo. There’s two other experiences that are also good, but the whale is the real attraction. This is my go-to first experience I put VR noobs in other than the steam vr tutorial.

Tilt Brush — draw/paint in 3d. It’s fun, esp if you are a creative type.

Unseen Diplomacy — a short, 5 minute game that’s different every time though in many ways the same every time, yet is the most creative use of the play space that I’ve seen. You don’t teleport in this game at all, but instead spend your time working your way through an enemy base as a spy, turning and crawling and balancing across catwalks… all within your 2mx2m play space.

Oculus (full list)

Lucky’s Tale — Mario of VR. It’s pretty and fun, but not amazing unless it’s the first VR you’ve ever done.

Henry — a Pixar like short film. It’s really cute and the only thing I’ve shown my 4 year old. It’s 5 minutes long.

FarLands— I found this boring, though pretty. Free. You explore alien worlds and their wildlife.

EVE: Valkyrie — I was really excited about this game, but now that I’ve played it it’s clearly not a very hard-core game and there isn’t much game there. Elite Dangerous’s Arena is the better thing to play (if you can get into a match). This feels like an FPS in space, but it’s space-lite. With micropayments.

The Climb — arguably the best game I’ve played that’s exclusive to Oculus. It’s good, but the control scheme is annoying. I’ll play more of it. Not narrative, though it is challenging.

Showdown — this is just a demo scene made by Unreal (It’s free). Good thing to show people new to VR as it’s passive.

Dreamdeck — 10 vignettes that are good for introducing people to VR

Chronos — I haven’t played this yet, but it’s got good reviews.

Platform agnostic

Virtual Desktop — Lets you see your desktop in VR. This is actually really useful, though less so if you have a Rift as taking it off isn’t that big of a headache. It’s worth noting that steam will let you see your desktop from the Vive, but it’s not the same. The biggest feature here is being able to watch movies in your HMD, which is nice if the content doesn’t create too many god rays (so, not Gravity, then). It also can play 360 videos, of which Youtube has many.

Project Cars — If you have a steering wheel (or can borrow one like I did — thanks Davy!) this is really worth it.

Elite:Dangerous — the whole reason I bought a DK2. I love this game, but I’ve run out of things to do in it.

Elite:Dangerous Arena — Giving this its own line as you can buy it for $7 on Steam. This is just a PVP version of the game. It’s fantastic except that the matchmaking sucks.

VorpX — this is software that lets you play lots of normal games in VR. GTA 5, Portal, Quake, Tomb Raider, etc — I don’t find myself using this often mostly because I’m spending time in the Vive so much. But I’m really, really excited about GTA 5 in the Vive with motion controllers, and the plugins that do this seem to rely on Vorpx.

There’s other stuff, but that’s what I’ve spent time on. I’ve probably downloaded about three times this much, and deleted half of it. If you look up at that list, you’ll note that nearly everything there is developed by small independent shops. EA and Ubisoft aren’t really releasing things for VR as the install base is kinda small. Consequently there’s a lot of creative thinking and not just another sequel to something that was released across all platforms with VR tacked on.

Wrapping up