Rifting

freeplayfri

oculusbox1“What’s in the BAWWWKS?”

oculusbox2Must be Italian.

oculusbox3Plasteek.

oculusbox4Boom.

Yep.  I installed and booted up my new Oculus Rift up last night.  (Thanks again, little brother, for the awesome Christmas gift.) And no, before you ask, I didn’t get any pictures of myself wearing it.

First of all I was mostly just calibrating it and going through the demos, and second I can’t see a damn thing when I’m wearing it, so it’s pretty hard to get a selfie.  (I’ll try this weekend.)

And my first impressions are that it’s…impressive.

There’s definitely never been anything like it.

I used to work with VR gaming machines back in the days of Dactyl Nightmare, and I’d spend all day strapping people into these headsets and battery belts, and watching them flap around for 3 minutes at a time.  (And I got paid $4.75 an hour to do so.)

earlyvirtualityThis “Virtuality” system was what I worked with.

And honestly?  It sucked.

Once you got over the novelty of the screen moving wherever you looked (which, to give them their due, was pretty cool the first time you saw it), you’d quickly realize that the game was boring as hell.  And by the time your 3 minutes was up, you were more than ready to take the heavy headset off.

But the Oculus?  Well, I spent about 45 minutes wearing it and wasn’t quite ready to take it off.  So that’s a thing.

I went through the entirety of their “Dream Deck” app, which was pretty damn amazing.  (Particularly the art deco, Rapture-esque cityscape.)  Played some Lucky’s Tale, which was adorable.

luckyNo, not “Tails.”  “Lucky.”

And then I watched a few 360° videos, the best of which was a National Geographic documentary about the lives of Nepalese sherpas.  Now the resolution on these real life videos isn’t anywhere near realistic yet, but I can definitely see how, in the next few years, 360° video will become absolutely amazing.

Tonight I’m going to boot up EVE: Valkyrie, their flagship game, and see how that goes.

And I promise, I’ll try to get some pictures of me using it.  If for no other reason than in 10 years time they’re going to look hilariously outdated.

See you Monday.

j.s.

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