2021's VR is the closest technology we have to a 24th century Holodeck. It can transport you to places around the world, in orbit, in a galaxy far far away, or to places that only live in the imagination of the creator. In pandemic lockdown times it offered a novel way to safely leave one's dwelling to more spacious surroundings. Various technological advancements finally allow today's headsets to achieve "presence" - tricking your brain to believe you exist in these otherworldly spaces. Ironically this is most felt during the disorientation of taking the headset off after a long session where you must adjust back to reality.
VR has consumer and business uses. This guide covers the consumer side with the goal to give a recommended ordering and reviews for current experiences. As consumer tech, VR's onboarding is already reasonably polished, but my own experiences hopefully will help to optimally guide folks into the world and avoid a few of its remaining sharp edges.
This guide starts from my personal experience with VR. There's probably parts that are missing in a good getting started guide. For example, my vision doesn't require wearing glasses, so I have no advice on such a common situation. Pull Requests are welcome!
There are three basic headset technologies, which are categorized by how the display is driven:
- Standalone: A mobile CPU/GPU is integrated into the headset itself
- PC: The headset is only a display (or has some tracking); your computer's beefy CPU and GPU is connected via tethered cable
- Console: A videogame console, with its emphasis on graphics performance, drives the headset.
In each category, there's a clear headset to purchase:
- Oculus Quest 2
- Valve Index
- Playstation VR (PSVR)
At this time, the only reasonable purchase recommendation is for the Oculus Quest 2. The Pros are:
- Standalone means no cables, which takes away a degree of presence
- Very good hardware and screen quality
- Excellent OS
- Excellent software library
- Can be used as a PC headset via Oculus Link/Air Link or Virtual Desktop
- Ridiculously inexpensive
- Relatively new, so there's not much worry of it being obsoleted within 2022
The biggest con is that Oculus is owned by Facebook. At least they have recently announced that Facebook accounts will no longer be required to be used with the device in the future. They also announced they lose money on the hardware itself, so if you want to stick it to the man, then feel free to buy the Quest 2 and never use it.
The other main downside is the graphics quality of on-device games does not have the potential to be as good as those driven by beefy PC graphics cards When using the Quest 2 as a PC headset, Oculus Link and Virtual Desktop are pretty flakey.
The PSVR is old and Sony will soon be releasing an updated version. This isn't really in contention anymore.
As such, the remainder of the guide will focus on the Oculus Quest 2, which I will simply refer to as "Quest."
Enough folks have a Quest nowadays, so you should ask a friend for a referral. This gives you and them $30 each to spend on games.
Motion Sickness is the primary hurdle to overcome in VR. It naturally varies from person to person, but is unavoidable even for folks who have never felt ill in cars, planes, or boats. There's a few triggers, but generally all boil down to temporary losses of presence: when your brain expects certain inputs that do not arrive or do not arrive in a timely manner.
If you start to feel motion sick, you will not be able to power through it. The more you try, the worse you will feel and longer recovery will take. It will also subconsciously train your brain to believing that VR is unsafe, and consequentially will develop resistance to playing. This would be unfortunate as there are many great experiences you would miss out on!
With some experiences gone awry, motion sickness may begin in as little as 15 seconds. You should immediately take the headset off at the first sign of motion sickness. Give yourself 30-60 minutes to completely recover, and then play a more comfortable game if you so choose.
Oculus's App Store "Comfort Level" specifically helps determine motion sickness potential in games. When starting out, choose ones denoted as Comfortable. To a large degree, Motion Sickness causes are now well known and baked into game designs. Good games which are tailored to VR are architected to avoid most motion sickness patterns, or give users options that can make the game more comfortable.
Eventually you may establish "VR Legs" which allow you to handle more extreme experiences. I've easily had 3 hour play sessions without any ill-effects.
Managed correctly, motion sickness can usually be avoided. These are the primary triggers for motion sickness:
With an untethered 6 degrees of freedom ("6DoF"), moving your body physically around the playspace is completely comfortable.
Unfortunately your play area is limited in size and many experiences require greater distance of movement than allowed. This can often be enabled by controller/joystick-based movement, and can be extremely off-putting to our ape brains.
The issue arises when your virtual body accelerates without your physical body. Think of a racing simulator where you hit the gas pedal: in VR you are accelerating but in reality you have stayed put. Your brain gets very confused without the proper inputs from the vestibular system and doesn't like it.
While racing games can't avoid this issue, many games with walking have alternate mechanisms for movement. The most common is teleporting, where you use the joystick to point to a location you want to go. Upon release you are teleported to that spot. It seems weird at first but is much more comfortable. Some also have "shutters" that open and close quickly that also help.
Likewise many games allow you to rotate your body with a joystick. This small thumb flick is faster than moving your body, but can result in motion sickness. When starting out, always turn your full body and avoid the temptation of quick rotation. What you lose in rotation speed you will gain in amount of time in the game.
Limiting the size of the accelerating area in view with stable spots can help as well. Games with Cockpits tend to be a little bit more pleasant, and I think I've seen some that even let you choose a cockpit size.
Even not using the controller, there are other movement that rely on physicality that result in unexpected acceleration. The Climb is a game where you use your arms and hands to traverse rock faces. Movements such as lifting your body up are done entirely with arms and do not result in the head/body moving as seen in space. Therefore climbing dynamics can also cause moderate motion sickness even though your body is a little more in tune to the cause.
Thanks to Einstein, we know velocity itself is okay, as this equates to zero acceleration. Therefore while a game with a constant velocity can seem disconcerting at first, they are usually quite comfortable. These are usually referred to as "on rails" akin to a Disney ride. In the game Pistol Whip the entire world moves at a constant velocity yet it is quite comfortable.
Dropping frames is generally the reverse acceleration problem. In this case, your body is usually moving but the virtual world is not. This is due to inadequate device performance.
Luckily there are only two Quest models, so developers have stable reference platforms to test and optimize. Dropped frames typically come from:
- Games with social/online components where there may be too many players/objects since developers are not in complete control
- Loading screens that over-optimize for load times at the expense of smooth movement
- The OS is busy with background tasks like downloading/installing games
- Incorrect graphical settings (though most do not allow you to change, or only offer Quest 1/2 modes)
The primary recommendation is when loading a game, do not move around until it has fully loaded.
Interpupillary distance ("IPD") varies with each individual. An incorrectly set IPD adjustment on the device can cause the image to not overlap correctly and make your brain and eyes strain much more to work.
The Quest has 3 IPD settings to choose from, and you should make sure this is setup correctly from the start. I've hears that if you have a gentle hand, you can even set the IPD between the settings.
The Quest's Fresnel lenses have a small sweet spot in the center where imagery is crisp. Outside of this the view is progressively more blurry.
Make sure that when placing the headset on that your eyes are targeted at the center. Try looking at text and adjust as needed to make sure you're looking into the sharpest area.
Fresnel lenses also suffer from a "god rays" problem where bright objects have rays extending from them. This can be made into lemonade -- a properly placed headset shows the god rays coming from the direct center.
Smudges on the lens can also lead to a blurry view. This most frequently happens from my forehead touching the lens while putting on or taking off the headset. Carefully put it on, and keep a microfiber cloth nearby in case smudges appear.
You may find yourself making rapid movements in VR. While the oculus headset is lightweight, it caries its own inertia. Movement from proper eye placement will therefore lead to incorrect acceleration effects and blurring.
Make sure to tightly secure the headset!
It is normal that there are light face markings after extended play sessions. It is better for your skin to be a little uncomfortable instead of your brain being uncomfortable.
I recommend trying games in this basic order. It will give you a feel for using Quest controls and teaching common paradigms in movement.
- First Steps (Oculus) - This should absolutely not be avoided! It teaches basic controls and is fun too! I could spend a lot of time playing the shooting mini-game.
- Vader Immortal Episode I - It is a beautiful game and is amazing to see Vader up close! It also introduces basic teleport movement and helps reinforce other controls. I only recommend playing for 10 minutes or so at first though. Later parts of the game have a climb dynamic that can be uncomfortable and take away a great first experience.
- Beat Saber - This is the most popular VR game for a reason - it is fun!
- Real VR Fishing - Take it a little easier and relax to soak up the scenery.
- Pistol Whip - This is the most fun game on Quest, imho. You basically become John Wick in this shooter mashed up with optional rhythm dynamics for extra points.
- Eleven Table Tennis - This ping pong simulator is better than the real thing because you never need to chase down balls again! There are a few quirks to it -- you have to use the left controller's Y button to recenter, and I highly recommend setting it to 120hz (with high antialiasing but low quality everything else) to get the best feel for the ball.
- Red Matter - This is like a Sci-Fi version of myst, taking place on one of Saturn's moons. It is visually one of the best games on the Quest and something to behold.
- Thrill of the Fight - I've never sweat so much in VR.
- Echo VR - Play this one last as has potential to make you motion sick. The game itself is like the Ender's Game game. Go through the tutorial as it is quite fun to get the experience of floating in zero g. I recommend stopping when done with the tutorial though.
From here you may want to try some of the more social aspects of VR. This includes:
- Rec Room - I hear there's a lot of kids around, but if you get a private room and invite friends there are tons of fun mini-games to play. One of my favorites is the bowling alley.
- PokerStars VR - Tables are hit or miss so I recommend a room with just friends if possible.
- Star Trek Bridge Crew - I've only played with the AI but it is already tons of fun to be in command of a starship. I imagine playing with others would be a great experience.
- Big Screen - watch movies and shows together!
- Star Wars Pinball - Amazingly fun pinball simulator with excellent graphics (though make sure to change the setting to the quest 2 graphics!)
- In Death Unchained - Adventure bow and arrow game that is a lot of fun.
- Falcon Age - Adventure RPG that's a bit out there.
- Moss - Cute fairy tale where you control a mouse.
- Trover saves the universe - From the creator of Rick and Morty.
- Brink Traveler - Take virtual vacations. The graphics are amazing.
- Racket NX - There's something slightly addictive about this solo racquetball/first person pinball game.
- Blaston - Seems like a fun PvP game.
- Demeo - Social board game
- Superhot VR - A lot of people like this one as a puzzle shooter, but personally for shooting I much prefer Pistol Whip
- Ritchie's Plank Experience - This would be cool, but the graphics on PC are much better. The Quest version uses Quest 1 graphics and it really doesn't hold up.
- Walking Dead Saints and Sinners - The movement mechanism makes me motion sick very quick. It could be good if I ever got past that.
- Space Pirate Trainer - While not terrible, I feel the graphics have much to be desired and game dynamic somehow isn't as fun as I was expecting.