18 Oculus Rift Reviews and First Impressions

[LJ Ellis]

18 Oculus Rift Reviews and First Impressions

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With the official launch of the Oculus Rift [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/galleryoftheday/16897-8-Upcoming-Oculus-Rift-Games-We-Are-Looking-Forward], reviews and first impressions are rolling in. While there isn't a consensus, most reviews are positive -- with a few caveats.

First of all, most reviewers were pleasantly surprised that the overall virtual reality experience lived up to the hype. Reviewers also mostly agree that the Oculus Rift wasn't too difficult to set up and that the learning curve wasn't unreasonably steep.

However, the majority of initial reviews agree that the Oculus Rift isn't for casual gamers or people looking for a simple VR introduction. Getting it up and running is quite pricey [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/15248-Oculus-Rift-Costs-How-Much-Again] -- and that's not even factoring in the upgrades that will hit the market over the next year or two.

But if you've been counting down the days to virtual reality in a consumer-ready package, these 18 reviews and first impressions should assuage your fears that the Oculus Rift is anything other than an awe-inspiring first step into the future.

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Photo: Oculus [https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/oculus-rift-is-shipping/]

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[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wish I could use stuff like this, it's not my computer that's the problem, it's my crappy brain. It craps out on me with things like this and 3D movies.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I selfishly wish that the Rift and Vive fail so that VR will only become popular when I can afford it.

 

[Vigormortis]

I'm noticing an odd trend with the early impressions. It seems that the consumer release of the Rift has gotten some reviewers and many industry insiders more excited for the release of the Vive.

I find that hilarious, honestly. That the Rift's release served to get people more excited for the competing product.

Regardless, I'm glad the reviews are mostly positive. So far. It would have been disastrous for VR as a whole if the first, major consumer release of home-theater-based VR failed to impress.

I selfishly wish that the Rift and Vive fail so that VR will only become popular when I can afford it.

But that would have the opposite effect, would it not? If their launches fail, we won't see any further advancements in VR for quite some time. There won't be any effort to expand the market since there won't be any demand for it. This means production costs won't go down and prices won't either.

You should be routing for their respective launches to be runaway successes, if you want it to become more affordable in the near future.

 

[Sic Transit Gloria]

I'm not going to be a gen 1 adopter, but I'm thrilled about this. The lack of issues with motion sickness in particular, now that we have more than devs using it, is pretty good. In particular, I like how genuinely immersive it seems to be, and how good the tracking is. I look at this, and the early AR sets that are out, and it's not hard to imagine what it will look like in 10 years.