VR FACE-OFF
Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive
FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS, the promise of VR has been bold, and nothing short of a paradigm shift in how we interact with technology. For Oculus, this is presumably just the beginning, the first step on a long road. For game developers, too, this is the starting line of a race to design titles fundamentally unlike anything we’ve played before. Ultimately, however, the games and technology available at the start of this journey struggle to keep you in the headset for more than a few minutes at a time.
Oculus has designed its setup process to be as simple as possible. A single cable reaches out of the headset, before splitting into both HDMI and USB. The software is an always-on Windows service, utilizing the Rift’s headset light sensor to detect when you’ve put it on, at which point it launches the Oculus Home software. Home is easy to use with the included remote or Xbox controller, with a simple library setup and large thumbnails for games.
Unfortunately, at launch, the software can only install games to the C:\ drive, an antiquated requirement that Oculus is aware of and will hopefully fix in the near future. As far as games go, the Oculus Rift’s 30-strong launch lineup contains quite a few ports of simple games from the GearVR’s library. Of those 30 games, many are enhanced by the perk of virtual reality. BlazeRush’s miniature cars take on a charming toy-like quality; Radial-G’s gravity-bending F-Zero- style racing becomes thrilling and intense (and stomach-churning if you’re at all prone to motion sickness); PinballFX2 feels much closer to playing a real pinball table in VR than on a TV. But VR doesn’t feel essential for any of these games. The one exception is Chronos, which draws a bit from classic ResidentEvil and a bit from modern adventure games in the DarkSouls vein. It barely uses VR, with static camera angles, a third-person perspective, and genretypical exploration and difficult combat. But the atmospheric touches in Chronos are top-notch. FACE FACTS The Rift weighs 470 grams, but a good chunk of that resides in the rigid plastic arms and headphones. Although heavy, they help support the front part of the headset and make it surprisingly easy to put on and take off. The front ends of the rubber strap slide into the arms at the front of the Rift, and are easily adjustable back and forth to conform to the size of your head. The one flaw in the Rift’s design is the padded facerest. It’s not uncomfortable, but it does leave an unsightly ring around your face after a few minutes of wear— far less comfortable than the Vive’s soft cushion material.
As for viewing experience, the Rift ships with a pair of 1080x1200 OLED displays, bright enough and dense enough to avoid that pixelated look. The gaps are still there, but easy to look past when immersed. The flat displays become three dimensional thanks to a pair of hybrid fresnel lenses, and everything runs at a smooth 90Hz. The Rift isn’t without its problems, however. Overall, the vertical FOV feels smaller than the Vive’s, which is disappointing— the edges of bright in-game objects, and especially text, produce a distracting shimmering effect, pulling you out of that immersive environment.
The Oculus Rift is both a headset and a platform for playing games in a new way— hardware, software, and experience, all rolled into one. Compared to Oculus’s prototypes, the Rift is a triumph of engineering—light and comfortable, with better optics. But the screen and lens technology still stand in the way of fully buying into these new virtual worlds, and that will be the case for the lifetime of this piece of hardware. The shortage of compelling games is, hopefully, a more short-term problem. The pool of options is wide, but shallow, and for now, the experience of using the Rift without motion-tracked Touch controllers (which are coming separately later this year) disappoints. –WES FENLON