I preemptively think I’m gonna be sick. Don’t get me wrong: there are few things in this world I want more than Oculus Rift virtual reality for my mad dash through Mirror’s Edge‘s theme park of parkour, but now that it’s probably going to happen, I realize that I should probably bid farewell to any lunches I’ve had in the past couple months. And who will I have to thank for my sudden bouts of violent nausea? Interestingly, it won’t be EA. Instead, a third-party toolset called Vireio Perception is primed to add Rift support to Mirror’s Edge and other older titles.

But how? Magic? Time travel? The most heart-warming letter Santa’s ever received? Nope. Here’s the gist, via Meant To Be Seen community member/developer “Cybereality”:

“Perception is basically a new stereo 3D driver with 3DOF head-tracking. Although only a handful of titles are supported at the moment, the experience you get with the driver is something that is not possible with current 3rd party options. In particular, it will pre-warp the image to match the Oculus Rift optics, handle custom aspect-ratios (needed for the Rift’s strange 8:10 screen), and utilize full 3DOF head-tracking.”

Currently, it supports nine titles in some fashion or another: Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Skyrim, Mirror’s Edge, AaaaAAaaAAA!!!, Unreal Tournament 3, Dear Esther, and DiRT 2. Better still, Vireio’s a free open source project, so all Rift owners will have access straight out the gate. Unfortunately, because it’s free, that also means Cybereality’s probably not going to offer much in the way of support once his/her bouncing baby dimension lord leaves the nest.

Still though, a fairly sizable community seems to have already rallied around this project, so I doubt it’ll be dead on arrival. So then, assuming it all works at least semi-decently, what game would you most like to strap to your face and clumsily gawk at? Continuing in my pursuit of X-treme illness, I’m thinking Tribes would be pretty incredible, myself.