I got the kids an Oculus Quest 2 for crimblebobs. First experience with VR beyond google cardboard a few years ago, and I'm absolutely blown away by it.
Current top things to do are:
lightsabering boxes in Beatsaber
fitness malarky in Powerbeats vr (works with any old MP3 you bung at it!)
killing zombies in Zombieland Headshot fever
fighting romans and tigers in Gladius
boxing in Thrill of the Fight
Current top things to avoid are:
Anything overly motion intense is a big no no so far for me. Managed about 30 seconds on the ISS experience, almost fell on my face and felt green for about two days after. I'm hoping the motion sickness resistance builds up over time as there's a load of stuff I'm really hoping to try out properly.
Haven't done much PC linked stuff yet other than to check that it actually works as described, which it seems to do pretty flawlessly over wifi, but looking forward to getting Alyx once I've completed a few proper PC games I'm working through.
I've got a HTC Vive Cosmos which was a lockdown treat.
My main thoughts are that the tech is fucking incredible and will 100% be the future - and I think it's very very close to being "there". I wasn't really convinced before I got it - I couldn't quite believe that it was going to be good enough to justify, but....yeah...wow. The sense of scale and how quickly your brain just accepts reality is insane - you WILL, at some point, lean on an item that's not there.
I think another 5 years and we'll have an incredible level of experience, graphics, reliability etc.
I'm loving Flight Simulator 2020, but even though I have a very high spec laptop it just can't quite deliver the experience you want. It's close, bloody close and very enjoyable - but it needs some more time.
Car games don't seem to work out for me - I don't know why, they just don't feel that immersive.
My favourite stuff is the cinematic things - I love the Apollo 11 VR mission. But sadly there doesn't seem to be much of it
I bought the Steam package of, Moss, Down the Rabbit Hole, A Fisherman's Tale , and The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets. They're all fun but I assumed that A fisherman's Tale would be filler. It's great. It's F.A.B.
Most of the walking around, being in, adventure, what have you games have had the option of floating/walking from place to place (nausea) and clicking/teleporting (not nausea).
I've played those, and the Room VR, Myst VR. Obduction, loads of free stuff.
I've got Half Life Alyx, Red Matter, and Budget Cuts awaiting playing.
Beyond Alyx I'm not sure I know anything about any of those other ones!
I tried a little bit of Pavlov Shack yesterday, just the training bit, and had the controls set to move around like a nomral FPS. First 10 or 20 seconds I was really disorientated and felt like i was going to fall over, but then something kind of clicked and it made sense. Played for maybe 10 minutes, and while it was a little uncomfortable moving around I didn't feel sick. This is good news!
Alyx is FAB. I had a brief look on my son's set up. I'm not normally into shooting, stabbing, blasting and what have you, but the sense of being there is brilliant. If possible I play in teleport mode, because a bit of free movement and my head spins more than I want.
HL: Alyx is undoubtebly the blue chip, gold standard, pink inside, take-on-all-comers VR winnah. But there is plenty of other great stuff. I have a Valve Index, so some of the following may not apply to other headsets.
Beat Saber runs HL:A a close second, though it's a completely different experience. If you play 20 mins of Saber a day, you will lose weight.
Tilt Brush and its open source offspring Open Brush allow anyone to create their own VR environments and share them with other Brush users (and explore their creations too).
Sky Rim and The Talos Principle have both been ported well to VR, though both have their issues: Sky Rim needs a shedload of mods installing before it looks its best (no great task), and TTP is brilliant until the time-limited final challenge, during which it's not great, TBH.
Google Earth VR is breath-taking and - for me - has successfully mitigated motion sickness; though it does eventually creep up. It's a superb way to explore the planet and gets better almost daily - the algorithmic modelling is a constant process. It's worth exploring for the weird anomalies created by the modelling - screen grab attached.
VR has created scores of games built for VR from the ground up. Gnomes & Goblins is charming - not perfect, by any means, but hugely successful in creating a world of varying scale. A Fisherman's Tale uses a superb conceit, again based on scale - you exist both in a lighthouse, and in a model of the lighthouse in the lighthouse - to create a puzzle game that's hugely satisfying. The story is grown-up too.
Lastly, VR is a great platform for scares. Horror games work brilliantly in VR because you're *there*. A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a fine game, dripping with atmosphere and not afraid of the occasional pop scare. The Exorcist: Legion VR delivers, and has the vibe of the novel. Alien Isolation - to my mind, the scariest flat game evah - is almost unplayably scary in its excellent (free) VR port.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked."
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
I just upgraded my Quest to a quest 2, and am selling my PSVR headset whilst it's still worth anything (in advance of PSVR2)
Some great stuff to look aty on the explore pages - I found a VR version of the Back to the Future ride, which is awesome as I only ever saw it on the DVD< so it was nice to be sat in a Delorean.
Games I like/wanna spend more time on:
Alyx
Beat SAber
I expect you to die
Superhot
Audica
The Climb (amazing views)
Vader Immortal (LIGHTSABERS & STARWARS!!)
I mostly play Assetto Corsa Competizione, linked to my PC by a cable. With a force feedback steering wheel it is intense and very convincingly realistic, but also bloody hard. I drove a Lamborghini a couple of times around a track in Anglesey a few months back and the skills were quite transferable! Needs a beefy PC to run well but I was very surprised to find myself so hooked.
Ultrawings on the Quest is pretty fun, albeit you might struggle with the motion if you're vulnerable, but it does have a few settings to try and help by closing in the cockpit. It's like the old Pilotwings game and I think they're releasing a sequel soon. It's bare bones presentation but nice, anyway.
Elite: Dangerous - back on using Link to a PC - is really impressive in VR.
The Star Wars games are short so wait for the big discounts before you bother.
I do nearly all streaming (Virtual Desktop, SteamVR) from my PC and it works OK with my setup. When we went to Zen internet from Virgin, I moved my old router into the sitting room as an access point, so there's a decent signal there. The only thing I've noticed is a very occasional dropped connection with the Quest 2 claiming it can't see the gaming PC. Whether that's the Quest or Virtual Desktop or Steam I have no idea. Generally solid though.
The others I mentioned are not big famous games! I've not done much wireless streaming but it's down to your hub almost certainly - most people say you want the PC connected by ethernet and your headset to be in the same room as your 5Ghz (tbh) router. I have my virgin hub in modem mode and hooked up to one of those mesh network thingies.
Out of interest, how are you streaming? First thing I tried was Air Link but that was very flaky, kept dropping the connection and sometimes I couldn't get games to start (or stop). Then I tried Virtual Desktop and it just worked. I'd sort of forgotten about Air Link until I tried it again yesterday and it seemed much improved, or else my setup had.
PC is on gigabit ethernet (spare room -> gigabit switch in attic -> gigabit LAN port on virgin hub)
Virgin hub is in living room where I used the quest, and I have the quest connected on 5Ghz with maximum channel width etc set up on the Hub firmware.
I did read somewhere that the VM hub flood detection stuff can kick in and start dropping packets for streaming, so I've turned that off but honestly can't remember if I've tried streaming again since I did or not.
One thing that's proving a major headache with the Quest 2 is multiple users, though. The way they've/android've implemented it is utter dogshit. Seems only one account can have airlink setup at a time, meaning if someone else wants to play they need to re-pair the PC and headset which then knocks out the previous persons setup etc. Also no way to choose an account on the PC to log in as, it just goes to whatever user account has the app installed and is logged in. Wonder if Virtual Desktop will help with that? Not sure I want to shell out the money for it just yet though as it could well be my PC isn't good enough for what I'm asking of it.
Also noticed in Powerbeats VR, secondary users keep losing access to local files. It gets stuck in a loop of asking for permission and saying permission is required, then randomly will fix itself for a day or two before breaking again.
