With projects like Google Cardboard, simple VR is accessible to almost anyone with a smartphone. But if you want the best-looking, least nausea-inducing, and most futuristic experience money can buy, you're going to have a tough year. Three high-end virtual reality headsets will be coming out between the end of 2015 and mid-2016: the Oculus Rift, Sony's Project Morpheus, and the HTC Vive, built in partnership with Valve. Unless you're independently wealthy, you'll have to make some hard choices about what kind of experience you want, and how much you're willing to pay for it.

It's too early to conclusively make this decision. We don't know exactly which games will be coming out on which platforms, the companies have given only vague statements on price, and the release dates are rough windows that could easily change. But based on all this, I can offer a little tentative advice on what you might enjoy.