N3RD CREED: OCULUS RIFT DEVELOPMENT KIT

Recently I had the pleasure of being able to play with the Oculus Rift courtesy of a friend and the one word that keeps coming back to me again and again is 'Wow'. The experience of mind blowing! Never has a piece of technology allowed me to experience such wonders, I am still speechless. Having been following the development of the Oculus Rift for a while now I was quite intrigued as to how it would all feel and work, I never thought I'd be able to play one so soon. As you can see from the photo's below (I'm sorry about the low resolution images from my phone) I had a blast playing with the Oculus. Now a lot of viewers may think that virtual reality is a thing of Science-Fiction and movies and I did too until recently, the level of immersion that you feel is unbelievable. As you can tell from the images below there were some instances where I actually dead-set felt like I was there. As my first time trying the Oculus I had to play in about 10 minute increments as it's quite possible to feel nauseous from the virtual reality, especially when standing up you can almost get brief flashes of vertigo. Don't let this put you off though, it's all about immersing yourself in another world and finally I feel that virtual reality is around the corner. I honestly believe that this is the way of the future with gaming and can't wait to get my hands on my own when the final product is released. With support from Valve, Epic, Unity and a slue of other developers and modders the Oculus Rift has a great life ahead of it.

So what is the Oculus Rift exactly and how does it work? The OR is a headset that is linked to your PC and monitor, or television, whichever you prefer. The Dev Kit is an early prototype version of the VR system which will ultimately lead to the final consumer version in the years to come. Anyone can purchase a Dev Kit however the final polished version will be a considerable improvement so it may not neccisarily be financially fesable for you. I myself will wait until the final product to be released as it will be a great piece if technology to own in its final form. The headset itself has adjustable lens' and depth which focus the image displayed in your headset. For someone like myself who wears glasses I had to use it without which was still managable but a little blurry, I reccomend contacts. The image resolution itself isn't perfect, running at 1280x800 which is a little pixilated however the final product will be in full HD running at 1080p. The headset displays two images, one for each eye which in terms makes for the 'virtual' feel. If you move your head to look behind you, you can see the world behind you. The movement controls can be used via a keyboard or controller but the controller is much more immersive. For example you can run forward but look behind you or all around. This makes for a truly remarkable experience when you have objects flying you like leaves and butterflies and you move your head out of the way because it feels that real!

The history of virtual reality is a pretty bleak one with Nintendo releasing the infamous Virtual Boy which ultimately killed the VR idea for a lot of people, but now with Oculus Rift in full force I feel it's finally going to happen. I only played a handful of games ranging from a roller coaster simulator to being in a space suit floating high above the earth to two very scary horror demos. And let me tell you, as a horror fan this is the perfect way to instigate fear into the player! I have never screamed so loud in my life! I played a five minute demo of Black Island standing up and nearly had a heart attack. The sense of things chasing you and actually being 'around' you was utterly terrifying and as the movement controls and looking around as well as utilizing your torch all acted independently it really did make me feel like it was there in the woods being hunted. So is it worth buying one now? That's entirely up to you, as the final version probably won't be out for at least another year you may wish to purchase a Dev Kit now for the fun and experience. I do believe it costs about $400 Australian so for some people that's a little pricey but considering the technology I think that's very affordable. Currently you can play a variety of games on the OR including Half-Life 2 the full game for example. Other games are being further updated to support the OR's capability, for example Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Lastly there's Hydra, attachments produced by Razor in conjunction with the OR headset. These add-ons for example can be a chest guard or a one handed controller that has a joystick for movement as well a other immersive capabilities. The Hydra can be a gun or a torch for example and adds that extra piece of virtual reality to the experience. The Hydra chest guard for example can sense when you duck, so if you need to get behind cover you'll need to duck in real life for your player to do so. This allows you to blind fire, shoot around corners, the whole shebang! There's not too much else I can say as it's one of those things that you need to experience yourself but I'm going to be brutally honesty; this is the best things I've ever seen in my life, it is revolutionary! The Oculus Rift has shown me that this technology is within arms reach and can actually be done correctly. For those who want to check out more on the Oculus Rift you can go to the official website in the link below and while you're at it check out some youTube clips of Oculus players. The development team behind the Oculus Rift are doing some amazing work at the moment and have come so far, it's great to see something so interesting and iconic come from all this hard work. Please everyone check this out!

http://www.oculusvr.com/