OMG! Invasive adverts from Facebook! What a surprise!

:/

I expect there will be a shift towards a mobile-phone style 'free but with loads of shitty ads model', with still some ad-free games available. I don't really play mobile games at all, hate the constant ads and microtransaction shit. So, hmm, yes. Obviously Steam stuff will not include all that so it'll still be avoidable, I'd be surprised if the higher-end Quest games do much with it too. But as Peter says, it's Facebook. Bleurgh.

Well, my son bought me an Oculus Quest 2, so that's decided. Good fun so far, only slightly tempered by the fact that I know he can't afford it (he bought himself one too).

...about to come out in VR...

Yeah, I saw that. I may get it, seeing as it's available for £16 on the Oculus site. I rather baulked at paying £22 from the Oculus store via the headset, seeing as I've already bought it three times one way or another). Not sure I can bear to work through all the puzzles yet again, particularly the truly mind-numbing underground railway, but the VR experience may be worth it.

I had a crack at Obduction and discovered that it's very different in VR to playing it as an old Myst-style 3D adventure puzzler. What hasn't really changed is that the story sucks and the puzzles are meh. That said, being in the environment and being able to examine and manipulate things that actually seemed to be there with me put a new twist on things.

Also realised that the close integration with Facebook has seriously limited investigation of those VR "art movies" that are so popular these days.

These are basically mobiles with a head-fitting form-factor, right?

Apparently there's a $5,000 bounty to the first person to jailbreak it...

I enjoyed FORM as a VR puzzle game with the pretties and a bit of plot about it, and there's a bunch of cute 3rd personers including Moss, Down the Rabbit Hole and A fisherman's Tale

I Expect You To Die is also really good, with a sequel due out pretty soon. I thoroughly enjoyed Moss - I high-fived a mouse.

I saw that. There's at least one claim to have done it, but it's either incorrect or the details are being held back for some reason.

I had a look at a couple of Moss things on Youtube. It did look fun.

I gave in and bought Myst. Does feel very weird being in an environment that's so familiar as a 2D/3D game. The textures etc. hold up fairly well, although they're not in the same league as Obduction (or probably a shedload of other games I haven't played yet).

Is this the stock game run through some VR code converter?

Not sure. The Steam version has supposedly been redone from the ground up, but I have my doubts. It had a major port onto the Unreal engine a while back and I think that's the basis of what we have here. Some parts have definitely been remade and/or remodelled, but most of it looks pretty similar. It's good on the Oculus, but apparently better on Steam. That isn't surprising given that the Oculus version has to fit into the disk space on the headset, whereas Steam has whatever is on your desktop. 

TBH I didn't know there was a Steam version or I'd have gone for that (or the GOG version in a year or so which will probably be £1.99)

Oh, and it seems the video has gone in favour of CGI people. God alone knows why.

OK, my unsolicited review of the Oculus Quest 2.

1) It's not a comfortable thing to wear. There's no denying it. It has an unforgiving canvas strap that isn't easy to adjust and once it's on you soon realise that around a pound of plastic wrapped electronics is hanging off your forehead. My son 3D-printed me a sort of cap/cup thing that clips to the back of the strap and redistributes the strain a bit. I also invested in a squishy pvc cover for the edge that sits over nose, eyes, forehead and this is a vast improvement on the fabric affair that the Quest 2  is fitted with.

2) Biggest disappointment I suppose: the optics. There's limited adjustment for eye-width (3 positions) and no focus adjustment at all. An insert is provided for spectacle wearers, which clips under the nose/eye/forehead pad (I use this without specs as I find otherwise the lenses are uncomfortably close to my eyes/eye-lashes. Loads of people do, apparently). Things are kind of fuzzy. There's a sweet-spot directly ahead, but the further you move from this, the worse it gets. Don't get me wrong - it's not terrible. I understand that all VR headsets, especially those that use fresnel lenses, are prone to this. It does detract from the immersive feeling in a game, though. The natural thing to do in a landcape is to glance around. With this headset, if you want optimum sharpness you have to move your head. And small movements have a big impact. I find myself reseating the headset every so often, to re-center it relative to my eyes. The one thought that sums this up: built to a price.

3) Biggest plus: when the planets align it's brilliant fun and none of the above is a problem. There's something completely magical about almost being fooled into putting a controller down on a virtual table, or wandering up to examine a door surround that's so real you could carve your name on it. I've played through Myst and parts of Obduction, and I'm two thirds through Down the Rabbit Hole. I've watched loads of online content and stuff supplied with the Quest 2. I really like the way that I don't get 'lost' in a VR environment in the same way that's so easy in a 2D or even 3D gaming landscape.

4) My conclusion is that this is great for gaming and similar immersive content. I think that if VR had been a thing in the noughties, then adventure games would probably have had a second wind in a way that never quite happened. VR movies? There are a few that are really cool, but they tend to be carefully produced and they absolutely MUST be high def (4K or 8K). Otherwise there are literally thousands of 180 and 360 degree "immersive" videos out there that don't really cut the mustard. Years back when you went to the cinema you got two feature films. Later, when money was tight, this became one feature film plus a shorter low budget effort, often a "comedy" or a "documentary". I wondered where all those shorts went until I investigated VR online.  There are apps to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime etc and a Big Screen app for online or local movies, but for me this is only likely to be an occasional thing because faced with a stationary screen and a pound and a half of plastic on my head, those optical shortcomings are a drag. 

5) The Facebook thing: hmm, yes. That's another story.

"I really like the way that I don't get 'lost' in a VR environment in the same way that's so easy in a 2D or even 3D gaming landscape."

Not understanding this.

Especially in adventure type games, but basically any game where you wander around some environment, there are things you do in one place, part of a puzzle maybe, where you think - Ah, I have to go back to that other place. With me that's too often followed by - How the fuck do I get there? All I'm saying is that the VR environment feels easier to navigate.

Have you looked into prescription lenses? I’ve heard great things about them, but don’t really need to try myself. 

I don't think it's my eyesight that causes issues. I'm long-sighted so I only wear glasses for reading and other close up stuff. If I'm looking at bright text or still images on the headset, it's as sharp as it can be in the central region. For instance when the Oculus symbol appears during boot up I can see every pixel. It's just that off-axis it's not so brilliant. I'm completely certain that's down to choices about the type and quality of the optics (and the resolution and type of screen, obviously). Perhaps I need to drop a few £k on a Varjo device.

That said, I'm very happy with the few games I've played so far.

...also, I just read my post at 42785.21 Yeah, pretty mangled English. What I meant to say was that even though I don't wear glasses with the headset, I use the insert/spacer provided for glasses. This is because without it I find the headset's lenses are uncomfortably close (on account of my lovely long sexy eyelashes).

Oh, and in that post I should have said that the wifi connection via the virtual desktop app is pretty cool. All the games and performance of a proper gaming PC, but in another room without trailing cables etc.