Oculus Rift & Oculus Touch Review

We have finally checked the VR headset Oculus Rift intensively, along with the new touch controllers, during everyday operation, and Oculus Touch actually adds quite a lot when it comes to the world of virtual reality. That doesn't mean that neither item has its drawbacks, however.

The VR experience with Oculus Rift, which now is finally completed by the VR controllers, shines at first glance, but there are also various hurdles. Is your PC powerful enough? If so, are there enough USB ports to connect all the things required (mouse, keyboard, two ports for the VR headset, two for the sensors, four of which are optional for 360 degree tracking) and a port for an Xbox controller? If you tick all those boxes, then comes connecting everything and setting up the Rift, which can work smoothly if you manage to set up the sensors the right way round so it is actually able to track the headset and Touch controllers (it doesn't help that both ends look similar). Other than all of this it successfully adheres to the Plug'n'Play principle, and works immediately out of the box without problems. For the software side of things there is a separate Oculus client, and of course you can use Steam VR too.

The cables of the sensors are unfortunately quite short at two meters, so you have to stay close to the computer for your VR experience. You could use an extension USB cable, although this isn't recommended because it can cause problems with the signal, and because of the barely four meters of cable for the VR headset itself you can't go a lot further anyway. The new touch controllers now offer VR games and experiences that focus on giving you room-scale experiences like with the HTC Vive. For these you need about three by three meters to move around freely in the room, which isn't that easy for most people, depending what your room/apartment/house looks like.

For Oculus Rift, however, there are also a number of seated experiences, so you can sit down and chill, and the very funny I Expect You To Die is a prime example of this. The touch controllers incidentally are operated each by a single AA battery, which disappears in a battery compartment that's fitted with a really smart magnetic lock. A small detail, but high quality solutions like this one are visible everywhere on the headset and the controller, as well as on all the supplied components. This is just a very well crafted and a carefully thought out piece of engineering.

As with the HTC Vive, at first glance you'll be amazed immediately by the sharpness of the VR picture in the menus and in well-optimised games. Our special Asus ROG 20 gaming PC, on which we are currently playing all our VR content, is fast enough to almost always ensure that there are no frame-rate problems. If these occur, however, they immediately spoil every VR experience, because technical issues instantly cause severe nausea. Even with very capable hardware, you'll still experience such moments. One example is VR Sports Challenge, where you are "pushed" onto the basketball court and the virtual flight makes your legs go wobbly in seconds. We had to sit down straight away and close our eyes. The part where you're actually throwing the basketball is fine, and it's only the movement that's an issue, in this case a result of a poor design decision.

Anyone who wants to start their VR trip with Oculus Rift and Touch should install Oculus First Contact, in which a small, flying robot (there's actually a few of these floating companions to be found in various VR games, this being one of many) shows you the most important moves and leaves you well prepared. There are around 50 games that already support the new touch controllers, and although we haven't played them extensively, we have looked at plenty and/or experienced them at events. Few stay really compelling beyond the first few moments of astonishment and some minutes of fun, but unfortunately this is generally true for most VR games and VR experiences. As with HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, the bottle neck of the entire VR experience is and will remain the quality of the software. There are great moments, but not not enough of them. The good games almost always fail to offer enough substance, and many are more like apps and experiences rather than full games. However, the real games are coming.

The best example of this is our little session with Robo Recall from Epic Games. The gameplay is fast, fluid, and always makes sense, with everything looking insanely cool. Robo Recall is immensely fun too, and provides an experience you couldn't have without VR - even if you only have to defeat defective robots in melee combat or in wild shootouts. It shows what Virtual Reality can deliver when everything comes together. But here, too, we are still annoyed by the nature of the movement, because you are moving by pointing at spots on the horizon. But in the end, you never suffer from nausea, because the technical side is so well done.

Robo Recall also demonstrates how well the touch controllers come into play. They're extremely light in the hand; in fact you almost forget they're there, and almost naturally you find yourself grabbing objects, firing pistols, or throwing basketballs. Sometimes the experience is better implemented, sometimes worse, and here you can clearly see that much is still being worked through by the devs. We've put Oculus Touch into the hands of VR newcomers and they have intuitively pressed the right buttons and made the required and expected movements, and that's quite impressive. One acquaintance who had never previously played VR played the First Contact demo and then said, with shining eyes: "Wow, that's the future." How right they were. Maybe.

Oculus Rift, in our book, is the most comfortable headset of the three main competitors, and you can wear it for a long time without becoming annoyed or getting too stuffy. The outline of the headset is made of a comfortable fabric, so that the outside world is completely blacked out without having thick pressure points at your face that start to ache after a few minutes of play. The Rift is also the headset with which we spent most of the time in VR because the range of apps and experiences is simply the widest (you can now stream all Xbox content via Oculus, for example). Of course, you will see a lot of low quality content when checking through the experimental and free stuff, but there is also a lot of excitement to be had.

At the end of the day, the big question is: should you buy Oculus Rift or not? And then: with or without the touch controller? Let's answer this in reversed order. If you want a Rift (or if you already have one) you need the touch controllers, because only with them is the experience complete. Of course, this comes at a cost. That being £549.99 for the Oculus Rift, £189.99 for the controllers (both on Amazon), and even more for shipping if ordered directly from Oculus. For a VR capable PC you're also talking about another £1,000 at least, maybe more if you really want the best experience. For VR in general one also needs a suitably spacious room. If you have the money and the room and you're looking forward to exploring the virtual worlds that only the top end headsets can offer, then it's worth investing if you find VR enjoyable. Whether it's good value or not depends largely on how deep your wallet is.