The Oculus Rift virtual reality system finally came to the hands of consumers on Monday. Created by the company, Oculus, which sold to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion, the long awaited system came to pass, and can now be bought for the suggest MFRP of $599. Is the product all that people hoped it to be? There are mixed reviews. Here's what some people are saying about the virtual reality experience.
Cnet writers, Scott Stein and Sean Hollister, co-wrote an Oculus Rift review, and one comment was that "most Oculus games are fairly shallow, at least compared to the hottest titles on Xbox and PlayStation. I wouldn't spend more than a few hours trying them out.
It seems that they really like the game EVE: Valkyrie, which "thrusts me into the cockpit of a Starfighter in the midst of a frenetic multiplayer dogfight and keeps me coming back for more," Hollister adds, but for every one of those games, "There are two ho-hum titles that I wouldn't have spent money on." That's okay, though. According to him, "It doesn't take 42 great experiences -just a couple of the right ones."
He doesn't think that people should feel the need to buy the Oculus Rift right now, with its competitor, the HTC Vive coming out soon. He informs users that the longer they wait, the better they will get, but he does say that people should try it, as it's "breathtaking."
Hayden Dingman at PCWorld says that the best game he has played on the Rift is Esper 2. He states it's "a two-to-three hour romp through an ancient temple, a dream sequence, and some other craziness I don't want to spoil. It's a solid puzzler with some excellent Portal-style humor, and it's the only VR game of its length that I played start-to-finish without wanting to take a break." He also says that it's good for VR beginners because it's "fairly nausea-free."
The Verge writers, Ross Miller and Adi Robertson, came up with a list of favorites for the Oculus Rift. One of the games they mentioned was Adr1ft, a "first-person narrative game, set in a disaster-struck space station," and is "both deadly and beautiful." They also inform that it's coming to PC in both VR and non-VR versions, so you don't have to own an Oculus Rift to enjoy the game (although it might be more enjoyable in the VR version, one would think).
They also reviewed one of the short stories being offered on the Oculus Rift. They say that the best one might be Lost. This short story is done by director Saschka Unseld, who Pixar fans might have seen their work in the Pixar short, The Blue Umbrella.
Many great experiences with a virtual reality headset can be made, and Techradar.com summed up the reviews out there, saying that it has excellent design, stunning games and wonderful immersion; on the negative note, it is expensive to set up with a compatible PC, the tether to the computer makes movements limited, and there are no touch controllers available at the launch of this product.
So as with all technology that comes out today, you could wait for it to get better before purchasing your own if you don't have $600 plus the amount to upgrade your computer to be able to play the games, plus the money to purchase the games that aren't bundled with the Oculus Rift system. Have you tried out this product? Let us know your thoughts on it in the comments below!
