by Mico Maglaque

                Within the last decade, the gaming industry has witnessed a revolution of sorts. Gone are the days when “playing” video games meant gluing your hands towards the controller and plopping your bottom on the comfiest surface possible. It was in 2006 when the first commercial motion-sensor-controlled games arrived, brought about by the introduction of the Nintendo Wii to the world (Microsoft’s own Xbox Kinect would follow four years later).For the first time, there were games whose controls were not only bound by physical hardware, but also relied on the physical movements of the players of the game. Both systems would introduce a greater degree of interactivity between gamers and games. It was a global success, with the gaming industry gaining profits left, right, and center.

Just a year ago, the KickStarter crowdfunding platform received an application for a project that seemed ridiculous at first, but downright promising: a virtual reality headset intended for gaming purposes. It promised gamers a new level of immersion with the games they play. The idea picked up among funders, and support poured in, generating around 2 million dollars in the process, and starting more development for what is to be the next revolution the gaming industry hasn’t seen yet. It was called the “Oculus Rift”, OR for short.

Just a few days ago, I got my hands on a developer kit of said virtual reality headset, courtesy of the ALLS. All the years I spent in gaming couldn’t prepare me for what I was about to experience. I had no idea what I had just walked into. I’m about to review one of the gaming world’s most advanced peripherals, and I’ll do my best to give justice to what I experienced.

The Oculus Rift Developer Kit

The first thing that greets you upon acquiring a development kit is this big black shady-looking box. It would look extra sketchy had it not been for the information printed on the box itself. For size reference, I plopped my friend’s smartphone with a 3-inch display right beside it. The box is massive, and lifting around said box could already fill in your gym quota for the entire week.

Angelic voices are said to emanate from the box when opened.

Here’s what the unit looks like, in all its developer-y glory:

Yes, developer units of new technologies always come in black, because black is the color for awesome…and science

The words “Development Kit” make you feel extra professional when using it.

The kit provides everything you could possibly need when developing for the system. Aside from the headset, the box also contains the power cord, an HDMI cable, a DVI cable, a USB cable, extra pairs of lenses, an overhead strap, a letter from the development team, and the all-important manual. Setting up the system to work with a laptop was pretty straightforward, and mainly required you to plug most of the cables provided from the control box to whatever output they had (HDMI, USB and Power Supply). 5 minutes later, I was good to go.

5 minutes later, I also had to untangle myself from my seat.

So, what does it feel like?

Once I managed to plug the cables in all the right places, I figured it was time. Seated comfortably on the couch inside the ALLS room, I fired up the demo software that came with the kit. With my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand over my head clutching the unit, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and put on the headset.

To the outside world, I looked real silly looking at a monitor with a covered headgear, but to me, I was sitting there hoping everybody else could see what I would.

Opening my eyes nearly unseated me.

I was in a house right across a pond. There was an aged staircase on my right, and a door on my left. I thought I saw movement near the door, so I instinctively moved my head in that direction. To my surprise, my “vision” magically panned towards the door, like in real life. I nearly choked on the breath I wish I didn’t take.

I was inside the game, to put it bluntly. Any head movement I made flawlessly translated itself to my character in the game moving his or her head. I still moved around using the keyboard, but my character’s vision (and mine as well) was influenced by whichever direction I was literally facing. That meant to look “behind” me, I literally had to find a way to spin my head 180 degrees on my neck without snapping it.

Just kidding, that’s what the mouse was for.

At some point, I forgot I was sitting inside one of Faura’s most loved laboratories.

It may take your breath away, so don’t forget to breathe in real life.

Apparently, the headset works by utilizing more or less the same principles used by 3D movies. It projects a 3D version of the game into your eyes, hence the mirror image on the right. To get an idea of how this works, focus your eyes on the small gap between the mirror image on the right. Without losing focus, slowly move your head closer to the image. You should see the two “houses” slowly moving closer together. Wearing the headset, your eyes are close enough to the two tiny screens inside it that your eyes combine the two images into one, hence, the “realistic” feel of the projections.

I explored around the demo house a bit more, getting a feel of how realistic the Oculus Rift’s sensors were. They were calibrated well, but rapid mouse movement was a bit dizzying, and I found myself taking a quick break after 15 minutes. I could imagine playing a game as visually pleasing as the “Final Fantasy” series or “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim”, to something as intense as a game like Call of Duty. On second thought, let’s stick with Skyrim.

On a realistic note, I also checked to see how running the headset would impact the platform it was running on. I was using a Lenovo L2 development laptop (borrowed from ALLS as well), and it had a powerful i7 processor as well as a high-end Nvidia graphics card, something most laptop gamers won’t really have. Without anything else running, the laptop showed delays when opening and minimizing several programs like Google Chrome and paint (which is a relatively light program). A safe assumption would be that lower-specced laptops would kneel trying to run the Oculus rift together with their game.

If the OR’s developers could price the headset just right, I won’t be surprised if a lot of people go for it. I asked a buddy from the lab on how much the development kit cost, and he said it wouldn’t go down around 5 digits (in pesos). The OR’s website states 300 USD, not including shipping taxes if one were to order going here in the Philippines.

Pretty steep, but if you ask me, but it’s worth the experience.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter

http://www.oculusvr.com/

https://support.oculusvr.com/forums