The first time I ever played Super Mario 64, I didn’t attempt to capture a star or defeat Bowser. I didn’t even fight a single enemy or venture into any specific stage. I simply looked around, wandering the castle grounds. I wanted to see Nintendo’s vivid new world - something I had never been able to see in any game before it.

Rift: An entirely new gaming experience.

Rift contains two screens, displaying one image for each eye.

Oculus plans to keep refining Rift, making it lighter and more comfortable before its retail release.

I tend to do that when it comes to games that capture my imagination. Few do. In most cases I’m instantly running down a path, fireballs and guns and swords at the ready, enemies cowering in fear, bosses bracing for impact. But the games that do make me pause change my instincts entirely. I don’t want to fight, I want to explore. I want to experience my environment. I want to see the world before me.Yet, when it comes right down to it, it’s not very easy to actually explore in video games. No doubt part of that stems from the fact that most games want players to go blow things up, not stare at the trees. Typically I’m limited to movement and vision through two analog inputs, be it motion, mouse or stick-based. I can move through a world, but lingering in it to look around has never felt all that great. In terms of combat, I’m often aiming where I’m looking, creating more restrictions. And because real life movement doesn’t at all feel as robotic as being guided by a controller, there’s always a sense of detachment, of that slight removal from a gaming experience. Really the only thing that prevents us from being completely put off from traditional gaming controls is one thing - we're all used to it.That’s why Oculus’s Rift is so remarkable. It’s virtual reality done right. It’s the right mix of technology and design that’s going to make a decades-long dream of tech companies around the world actually work. Best of all, as generally impressive as my hands-on experience was today, it’s massively reassuring to know that Oculus is just getting started, that it views all of its work so far as ‘Day Zero.’At this point, Oculus is focused entirely 10,000 developer kits out the door, to establish a base line for game development, and then to work on getting its hardware to a comfortable and capable point for consumer interaction. What I played on today was effectively a 5.6-inch display held together by duct tape, sweat and tears. A more refined model sat in the distance, with an even bigger display in place, reinforcing the notion that this is a fluid situation. In the words of the company’s CEO, Rift will only get better from here, with lower latency between head movement and display, a faster rate of pixel refreshing to decrease motion blur, a lighter and more comfortable headset (which is strapped to your head with an elastic band), and more. In fact at this point the company won’t even say how much Rift might cost, or when the public might be able to buy it. Development is that early.Perhaps that’s why this device is so amazing. It’s already so remarkably polished and wholly immersive, even in its infancy. Yet there’s a clear sense that this thing is going to change a significant portion of the way we play games. Maybe not today, tomorrow or next year, but virtual reality gaming has finally matured to the point where it will inevitably find its place along more traditional experiences.My hands-on demo used Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, featuring world and character designs that effectively placed me in an Infinity Blade landscape. I had no other task than to look around and explore - which was fine by me. I was so immersed into this world that I just wanted to look around anyway. Rift uses two displays simultaneously, immediately creating a deep, engrossing 3D effect, one that you won’t snap out of, as your headset completely covers your eyes, and moves with you.Experiencing virtual reality of this quality will change gaming. It will free gaming from the conventional wisdom that has governed it for decades. Even using aging tech like Unreal Engine 3, this castle landscape felt real, to the point I wanted to reach out and grab a falling snowflake, or try to touch the cold, stone pillars holding up a decaying building. This virtual world became more palpable, more real, more believable and instantly became more of a character than just about any other game world I had ever played through. And perhaps that’s the best way to phrase it. In the past, I simply played through worlds. I moved through them. This one made me feel like I was physically in that space. Living in it. Unable to look away, because it was all around me. It’s immersion on an entirely different level.That immersion does have some cost to it. As Rift’s technology currently stands, I found myself a bit nauseous after my 15-minute session, with a headache following shortly thereafter. I’m near-sighted, and was able to wear my glasses while playing Rift, which may have had something to do with it. Or it could have been the pixel refresh technology needing more work, as I found the motion blur that resulted from turning my head bothered me a bit. Regardless, these side effects don’t deter me from wanting to sit down with the device again. Knowing that it’s constantly a work-in-progress only assures me that this experience might not be an indicator of the future. And it might be something that requires adjustment over time. The first time I used two analog sticks to move in a 3D space, I thought developers were insane. Now it’s second nature.Despite those issues, Rift is remarkable. And I don’t doubt that my descriptions will really do it justice, because this is something unlike anything you’ve ever tried. It’s that effective. It’s that transformative. Where exactly Oculus’s work will rank in the future history of video games remains to be seen. With support from companies like Epic, Valve and id, however, it seems reasonable to assume this device is going to be a very big deal very soon. It will get its chance to change the course of gaming. Based on what I saw today, it very likely will.