The Oculus Quest 2 is a real bang for your buck! | First Impressions

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(Edited)

Ever since I saw the first prototypes of modern VR headsets many years ago I've been dreaming of getting one ever since. I bought a new gaming PC last month and this paycheck it was time to pull the trigger on a VR headset! Everything pointed to the Oculus Quest 2 being the best bang for buck and after trying it for a bit I can totally say that I agree!

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Picture by me


The Firstest of Impressions

This thing is just extremely elegant from the very first second that you open the box. I really wish I had taken a picture of the open box. It all just looks so slick and honestly feels a little futuristic. It comes pre-charged and you just need to push a button, put it on and go through a short set-up process. It's really accessible.

What sucks major ass is that you HAVE to log in via Facebook if you want to use the Oculus Store or any of the official software. There's some internet conspiracy stuff going around that Facebook is selling the Quest at a loss to get access to more of your data. While that might be true I'm guessing they're cheap and taking a loss to get more people to buy the hardware and instead spend money on software. In the same way Sony does it with their Playstations. If they're just after my data I guess I've sold my soul to the devil for a cheaper headset. Whatever.

The first thing I tried out was the mini game/mini environment called Oculus First Contact. It's basically a small scene where you get to learn the general controls of the Oculus. It had this Wall-E looking robot guiding us through it. Handing us discs to put into a 3D printer to create various objects. These objects could be interacted with in different ways which was pretty cool. I was immediately impressed with the high quality standard and the extremely responsive controls. Since this game is running on the headset itself input lag is basically non-existant.


[Huds&Guis

I also tried the demo for Beat Saber which was awesome. It only had one really simple song which was kinda disappointing but it's still ok for a free demo. That one song was enough to conclude that I'm gonna spend a lot of time with this game once I buy it. Since I'm a huge fan of Guitar Hero this game is right up my street. I'll probably get it on Steam so I can add custom songs so I don't have to be limited to the songs the publishers put out for it.

I also tried out a game called The Under Presents which I only downloaded because it was free. This was more like a proper game where you can move around freely. I didn't really understand anything of what was going on and the game was pretty un-interesting. It did however give me a serious case of motion sickness. That's probably something I'm gonna have to get used to in the start.


VR Fitness Insider


Oculus Quest Guardian

One of the things that was worrying me was if I had enough room to actually play games. And how do I prevent smashing my entire apartment up when I get fired up? Turns out the developers had already thought of this.

You can configure this thing called Guardian which is great. It basically lets you define a playable area in your room. You start out by defining where your floor level is and then draw up an area on your floor where you can safely play. Away from furniture and walls.

As long as you stay within this area while playing you're good. If you get to near one of the "walls" they will appear in your vision as a blue grid. Get to close and they turn red. Step out of your playable area and the game disappears from your vision and the headset instead activates its external camera to let you see your environment. This is just such an awesome feature that reeks of quality.


VR SCout

Setting up Air Link

Now this is the big one. If I wasn't able to connect the Quest 2 to my PC to play PC VR games I wouldn't have bought it. The games that you can install directly on the Quest via the Oculus Store are cool but they're nothing compared to what you can get on Steam and the Oculus PC Store. Many of them are just glorified mobile quality games if I'm honest.

Air Link lets you connect the Quest 2 to your PC so you can play games wirelessly. This requires a decent router which I have but since it's placed a couple of rooms over in a cot I had my doubts it would work well without lag.

It works and it works like a charm! Connecting the Quest 2 to the PC and setting up Air Link was a minor hassle but it was all worth it. I downloaded Steam VR and this free horror game called SCP: Labrat. I only played it for like two minutes because it was scary as hell but it was enough to discern that there was practically zero input lag when playing the game from my PC over Air Link.

This was great. If this wouldn't have worked properly I would probably have returned the headset.


Steam

The Verdict

The Oculus Quest 2 is great! I can't really compare it to other headsets cause I haven't tried any but I can say for sure that it doesn't come short on quality. It's a real bang for your buck. It runs well, it sits comfortably on your head and it has a great system in place to ensure player safety. Because of Air Link you can play all the big boy VR games like Half Life Alyx as long as you have a good enough PC, like I do. I'm definitely getting this game among some others.

Expect some VR game experiences coming up on my blog going forward! I'm about to delve deep down into this rabbit hole and I don't see myself coming out of it anytime soon. Just gotta NOT forget to finish up Resident Evil Village in the process I need to figure out how, or if, I can take screenshots so I can post my own pictures as well.



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19 comments
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I have one of these as well and wow was I impressed! The tracking is fairly phenomenal for an all in one unit and it definitely has quite the plethora of compatible games now. Have you tried the tethered mode with steam vr yet?

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Yeha the tracking is amazing. I was so nervous I would have lag or delay when playing over Air Link but it's all buttery smooth. Even for games like Beat Saber that require a bit of precision. I'm playing with Steam VR using Air Link yeah!

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Half Life Alyx is amazing, at least I was pretty blown away when I saw the gameplay from one of my favorite Youtubers. I'd say it's a step into the future. In a couple of years VR games may evolve a lot and become more immersive. I would never play a horror game with those VR headsets, I would shit my pants.

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I've watched a little bit of gameplay to see how it is and it looks so good. I'm probably jumping in during the upcoming weekend. Right now me and my GF are just having fun with Beat Saber. That game is great as well! I might try some horror games later, but the two minutes I did of that random game was enough for a while.

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It looks amazing, it's surprising how far VR go in a couple of years, enjoy your experience man!

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Cheers! I'm loving it!

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So happy for you bro! First the PC and now your new VR setup. Life is good. Glad to see you being able to continually upgrade your life after all so much hard work every day.

I’m holding out for the PSVR2. Rumor says they are doing 4K with haptics in the headset. Either way I’ll be hyped to finally have m a VR headset of my own. Beat Saber especially interests me. I haven’t looked at all of the songs in the game, but I did notice they have at least one Dion Timmer song whom I like a lot.

Again man, congrats!

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Since I'm no longer a student and working as a teacher money is a little easier to come by. I got my contract renewed for a year as well which was such a relief.

The PSVR sounds great! I’m gonna have to get my hands on a PS5 first if that were to happen. Beat Saber is amazing now that I’ve played it some. There’s not that many songs though so they just repeat and get harder through the campaign. There’s a lot of song packs to buy and custom community made songs to download though.

Cheers!

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Well that’s great to know you have that security for yet another year.

I haven’t looked into Beat Saber enough to know how all of the songs and stuff work. I have been trying to minimize my temptation so that it’s easier to keep waiting for as long as I have to for a new PSVR. Hoping it’s not any later than 2022. I figured they had some packs that cost extra money. I do wonder if the community tracks are free though. Back in the Guitar Hero days I was never keen enough to figure out how to get the custom tracks... but I did know these two brothers that were godlike at the game and created their own tracks to play. I always thought that was so cool and gave the game near endless replay ability.

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There's some steep pricing on the song packs for sure. Like six Linkin Park songs cost almost $20. There's probably licensing and stuff at play. Custom songs can be downloaded and installed for PC at least. I don't know about consoles. It's probably in a gray area of legality due to licensing as well.

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I was able to try the HTC Vive a few weeks ago but I must admit that I have always had a preference for the Oculus, they are a spectacular project that works with many independent developers to improve the experience of virtual reality in videogames. I'm glad you can finally have some and try them for yourself!

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I haven't tried anything else than an Oculus ever. I think it works really well. Easy setup and very accessible. Being able to just strap it on and get going is so nice. Cheers!

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I have been looking at getting one of these. I have the HTC Vive and it is a pain getting everything set up to play. I really like the ease that the Quest has. No wires tethering you to a PC, no sensors you need to worry about setting up or any of that. Just getting straight to the games.

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Yep! Strap it on and you're in. If you're linking to a pc there's some navigation through menus to get to the games but it's nothing more than a ~20 second process.

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