Oculus Rift isn't the all-encompassing 'future of entertainment' some may have expected, but we're optimistic that it might earn that title in the coming years.

The Oculus Rift is already well over two years old. It promised to change the world of gaming forever when it launched in 2016, and while it hasn't quite done that quite yet, the VR landscape has slowly matured and becomes a more and more attractive proposition over time.

Since it made its debut, the Oculus Rift has been given opportunities to spread its wings a bit – a number of high-profile games have launched on the hardware, and it's received motion controllers in the form of Oculus Touch (one of the most crucial upgrades since launch day).

Another big change that's happened is that the Oculus Rift now requires Windows 10 to run all new and upcoming features and apps. The headset still supports Windows 7 and 8.1, so users with those systems can continue to play existing games, but come time for new releases, they could be out of luck.

While some users aren't best pleased, Oculus points out that Microsoft no longer provides mainstream support for Windows 7 and 8.1, so only Windows 10 can meet its “performance standards” going forward. Oculus also says the majority of Oculus Rift owners already run Windows 10.

Since the launch of the Original Oculus Rift there have been a number of competing virtual reality headsets launched – including headsets by Oculus itself – but the original Oculus Rift is still a very capable VR headset for gaming on, and you can now get some tempting deals.

It's also worth noting that Amazon Prime Day 2020 is coming soon, which could see further price reductions for the Oculus Rift, making it a perfect time to jump onto the VR bandwagon.

Check out the cheapest Oculus Rift prices and Oculus Go sales right now.

To add the value proposition for prospective buyers, Oculus has cut the price of the headset since it first launched: you can now pick it up for US$399 / £399 / AU$399 for the headset, two sensors and the Touch Controllers.

Across the same timespan, the HTC Vive price has been slashed to US$499 / £499 (around AU$615), bringing it closer to the Rift, though still a little pricier (and don't forget the HTC Vive Pro, which is pricier still).

That major Oculus Rift price drop could be interpreted in a number of ways. In one sense, it could point to the fact that Oculus Rift sales have been less than what Facebook expected them to be – and the price drop is an attempt to drum up those figures.

Another perfectly fine interpretation is that Facebook desperately wants this hardware in customers' hands, even if that means selling it at a loss.

Recent data would seem to suggest Oculus Rift is catching up with HTC Vive, though the numbers are by no means definitive.

And the Rift isn't Oculus' only focus right now. Over the past year VR has become much more mainstream thanks to cheaper, more accessible devices from the big players, like the Oculus Go and the recently-announced Oculus Quest.

Now, after two years with the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, can we finally say 'virtual reality is here to stay' and splashing cash on a Rift is worth it rather than grabbing a Go or waiting to see what the Quest has to offer? Well, that depends.

OK, before we dive too deep into the virtues of VR, let's take a moment to talk about the two most important aspects to consider before deciding to buy a Rift of your own: price and the minimum PC requirements.

If you've been following the virtual reality scene you probably know this already, but the Oculus Rift requires a wired connection to a PC in order to have enough power to drive two 1080 x 1200 resolution images to each lens inside the headset. It can't just be any old run-of-the-mill PC, either – you're going to need a top of the line gaming PC to enjoy everything the Rift has to offer.

Originally, the minimum specs put out by Oculus called for an Intel Core i5 4590 or equivalent processor, 8GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD Radeon 290 video card. Most of the hardcore gaming community might already have these components on hand, but if you're a casual gamer or currently more of a PC layman, these parts will be the first of two costly investments you need to pay for upfront.

Recently, however, that minimum spec has been brought down to an Intel i3-6100, instead of the more expensive Intel i5-4590, and GPUs can now start from the Nvidia GTX 960 from the recommended 970.

That change brings down the cost of the system required to play VR games to around $499 by Oculus's estimates, and it now partners with a number of PC manufacturers to promote Rift-ready computers.

The other expenditure is the Oculus Rift itself, duh.

When paired with the proper hardware, the Oculus Rift is far superior to PlayStation VR, and light years ahead of Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR, both of which only rely on the power of your cell phone to gaze into the plane of virtual reality. It's not quite as immersive or as capable as the HTC Vive, but I'll touch on that point more in a bit.

So, what exactly are you buying? What does the Oculus Rift do?

How the Oculus Rift works

I've tried my best to explain virtual reality in words and, on multiple occasions, have completely and utterly failed. At best all I can do is paint a half-cocked image in hopes to inspire you to go out and find a friend or coworker with an Oculus Rift of their own who'd be kind enough to let you give it a whirl. Here goes nothing.

Imagine standing on the ledge of a 100-story building. Imagine looking down at the street below you. Imagine the tightening of your stomach and the sense of dread that you might, at any second, fall to your demise.

Now imagine taking one step forward.

You're falling and the world is whipping before you. You're petrified. But you also feel alive. The second right before you hit the ground is the worst – your brain is actually prepared for the moment by dumping adrenaline into your system as a mild painkiller.

But while all this is happening, you haven't actually moved. You've been sitting in a chair in your own home, staring into a screen. Your biometrics have changed, but, geographically speaking, you're exactly where you were 10 minutes ago.

This is what it's like to use virtual reality, to get the experience of being somewhere else in a different time, a different place, sometimes as far as an alien world, all without ever leaving your home.

This product is the fruit of a four-year research project that launched on Kickstarter, made $2 million, then was purchased by one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, Facebook. The Oculus Rift shipping these days is the first commercially available unit – the fourth evolution of the headset that started back in 2012 with Developer Kit 1.

The latest iteration of the headset is significantly better than any of the previous development kits. It's easier to setup thanks to an intuitive program that you're prompted to download when you plug it in, and it now takes less technical know-how to install games and troubleshoot when things go awry.

Like other virtual reality headsets, the Oculus RIft has the arduous task of completely immersing you in a video game by producing two images simultaneously. It does this by hooking into the back of your graphics card's HDMI port and using a camera to track your head movement.

You can either sit or stand while wearing the headset, whichever you find more comfortable, and thanks to recent updates the Rift can now track you around a small room too, as with the HTC Vive (what we commonly refer to as "room-scale VR").

What you'll get inside every Oculus Rift box is the headset itself, two Oculus Sensors, two Touch controllers, seven free VR apps (including Lucky's Tale and Robo Recall), and all the cables you need to hook up your headset.

Once you've plugged the headset into the HDMI port on your GPU, the two USB cables from the headset and sensor to two USB 3.0 ports on your PC, and the Xbox One controller adapter into a USB 2.0 port on your PC, you're ready to start the short and simple setup process, which only takes about 10 minutes.

What you'll find when you're done is a library of about 100 titles that are longer than anything found on the HTC Vive. I've played a good deal of them, and while some are better than others, there weren't any that I felt were a waste of time or money. I'll cover them in more detail on the next page but, in the broadest of strokes, the Rift is a fun gaming system, even if it's not number one right now.