Until now, VR has been one of the gaming fads I have never quite understood. I get how impressive it can be in the right developer's hands, but as an addition to my home setup? I could never see it becoming something I’d regularly pick up and play. For one, there are too many wires. Not to mention the fact that VR usually requires a hefty level of jiggery pokery to your living room every time you want to get stuck in.

But now there is Oculus Quest.

Facebook’s newest, totally wireless VR headset has changed the technology for me, ever since a friend brought his headset to my house and suggested I have a go. I only reluctantly agreed but I was so glad I did. The idea of having a VR headset in the house is now entirely normal simply because it’s VR as it should be – built for the everyday home and everyday person, rather than someone with infinite amounts of space and patience for untangling wires.

The main selling point is that it’s an entirely wireless standalone device. You don’t need a television, or a console, or anything extra to use Oculus Quest – everything is packed into the headset technology itself, meaning you can take it anywhere without needing any additional stuff. The untethering of wires means that you can take it outside if you were so minded – a freedom that VR never offered previously. You could take it on holiday, or round to your family’s get together at Christmas, without having to worry about a console or PC setup. Just be prepared to be laughed at as you blindly flail around.

So the wires are gone, but what about the space issue? Quest uses a clever trick, allowing you to 'draw out' your playable area on the floor. It works by using its four exterior cameras to give you a rudimentary view of the room around you, and you literally draw a guideline around the space you can move in, using the controllers to trace around any furniture or obstacles that you don't want to bump into while playing. Quest then adapts to your space, creating virtual invisible walls that pop up with a warning grid whenever it senses you’re getting too close to obstacles. It’s ingenious, and removes the worry that you’re inches from headbutting a wall, or smashing an ornament, or putting your fist through your 55” TV. Only once did I nearly come close to accidentally getting in the way of anything solid outside of my virtual reality, and this was only because I wasn’t paying enough attention to the grid warning on screen.

In terms of the actual unit, it’s really well built and more comfortable than any VR headset I’ve used before. Granted, I didn’t use it for hours on end, but there wasn’t the sense of skull-crushing pressure I often got from the PlayStation VR. Battery is decent, at a couple of hours, but that’s sufficient as few people will play this for any longer in one sitting. Lastly, while you clearly wouldn’t want to drop the headset as a test of its sturdiness, it feels premium, is made of high quality materials and – at least in the context of essentially being a massive face mask – looks sleek.

And then there are the games.

Admittedly, I didn’t try all of them – and existing Oculus owners should be aware that the Quest has its own games that don’t work across devices like the Rift – but Superhot VR was enough to convert me wholly to the VR experience. As a game in which time stops when you stop moving, it’s a perfect fit for a virtual reality platform – in fact I’d go as far as saying it’s hands down the best VR game I’ve ever played. The VR medium has often suffered from an obvious dip in graphical fidelity, but Superhot dodges that problem by having such a stylised look. It’s all vivid colours and shapes, and looks brilliant.

It plays fantastically, too. It starts simple, but within ten minutes I was chucking ninja death stars at polygonal enemies, darting around my living room to dodge bullets and hide behind virtual environments to avoid incoming enemies. There is a moment in it where you shoot an enemy and his gun flies out of his hands toward you; you can reach out and catch it mid-air, suddenly having dual-wielded pistols to take down multiple more goons. It’s the most exhilarating gaming experience I’ve had in twelve months.

It is nothing short of the future of VR.

Oculus Quest is out now

Now read:

F1 2019 is more exciting than the real-life sport

Borderlands 3: "These are the best guns that I've ever seen in a game"

This is the most important feature of the upcoming Playstation 5