FIRST IMPRESSIONS: HTC Vive – Virtual Reality or Insanity?

I wasn’t ‘down’ with VR as a concept. It’s something that has existed in popular culture for decades, we’ve seen it used in films in various forms, Nintendo had a bizarre attempt with the Virtual Boy which is their greatest failure to date, and it felt like a dream that could ever be fully realised for gamers to have in their own home.

It just all seemed impossible. I didn’t believe it could work.

I was wrong.

Right now there are two VR sets chasing after your money, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, with Playstation VR on the way later in the year. I’ve previously tried an Oculus dev kit and found it to be serviceable but similar to the failed dreams of previous VR headsets, the tech just wasn’t quite there yet. From what I have heard, the final Oculus product is quite impressive, but what I have been using is HTC’s Vive.

It comes in a massive box, bigger than a tower PC, in which you get a headset, two small wall mountable boxes called lighthouses, a pair of wireless controllers and a lot of wires. And I mean a lot. There’s a small chance the set-up might seem intimidating, and I have seen in numerous reviews that people struggled. There was no such issues on my end, it is hardly a get out of the box and immediately play gadget, but give it half an hour and some patience and you’ll easily be up and running.

The lighthouses are the key to making the Vive work and what marks it higher than any other VR on the market. You place them at either end of the room, you do need space for this but the size can vary, the larger the room the better though, and then draw out a virtual playspace with one of the controllers. Put on your headset, grab a controller in both hands, and find yourself entering a world that begins feeling like science fiction but quickly starts feeling natural.

Initial set up has you shooting lasers and blowing balloons and then hitting them at a helpful robot, it explains the controllers themselves which are a technological marvel in of themselves, you hold them and see them perfectly realised within the virtual world. In fact, in the game world the controllers have battery indicators on them, whereas the physical version you hold does not, because why would it need one?

You can walk around the area you’ve drawn and when you get too close to the edge, a grid will appear to warn you that you’re too close to a wall or other object. This takes some getting used to but I haven’t hit anything yet, and the equipment feels robust so I think it was designed to take a few knocks. The area you have may feel small at first but you come to realise the limitation is only in your head and you really do have the ability to explore huge areas, once you get the hang of navigation. This is as close to Star Trek’s holodeck as we are going to get.

Every new gaming system, and that is what the Vive is, needs plenty of great games at launch, some killer titles to show off what it can do. It doesn’t have that. Right now, all it has a re a bunch of demos and mini-games. Best thing, is that almost doesn’t matter because many are so impressive and completely prove how the concept of VR works, that you don’t need a huge sprawling game to be playing. The games will come, and many existing games are already VR compatible.

The games themselves can be difficult to describe without actually playing and seeing how they work, they might not sound initially impressive or look great when seeing them on a regular computer screen, VR really has to be seen and used to be believed. But the games I played were a delight, from shooting arrows and putting the arrow on the bow string and pulling back, feeling the haptic feedback in the controller as the string tightened, to standing on the bottom of the ocean with a small torch in near complete darkness and walking around such an alien environment where fish come up to you and glowing jellyfish pulse all around. You can build objects and vehicles with your hands, duck behind walls and throw knives at robots, pick up cups and open drawers.

At one point I found myself standing on a beam above the centre of a room and I genuinely felt like I was going to fall and wobbled to maintain my balance. I stepped over objects that didn’t exist in the real world because it is an automatic response. It’s immersive, hugely immersive, more than I can accurately describe.

In terms of comfort, the Vive doesn’t feel heavy on your head, there is very little light bleeding in from the outside, you just forget that you’re wearing it after a while. The large bundle of wires sticking out the back takes some getting used to, as it forms a tail that you can always feel but this can be a good thing as you won’t trip over it or get tangled. The controllers have safety straps so you can’t throw them across the room.

A word of warning, and I’m sure this is something that will change the more you play and adapt, but there is a chance this might make you feel a bit sick. When you are playing, no matter how strenuous on the eyes, the Vive is absolutely fine, when you take the headset off however it is a different matter, and I felt more than a little queasy after playing for nearly an hour. At the moment, VR is best used in short bursts.

And one other thing, you won’t look cool wearing it. I certainly don’t.

The other effect, a weird one to be sure, is that the real world of my living room felt dreadfully drab, boring and colourless when I took the headset off after an extended play session. It made me want to go back into the VR, because my carpet and sofa just aren’t as fun as being able to stand on a shipwreck.

Right now, VR is expensive, the Vive being the most money sucking option but you do get more bang for your buck with the bundled controllers which the Oculus will have its own version of later in the year. And you need a fairly high spec PC to run the show. But in time that will change, prices and specs will go down.

So what is VR? Yesterday I couldn’t have told you but after a day with the Vive, I can. It isn’t essential yet but it soon will be, make no mistake in terms of home gaming, VR is revolutionary and it has the potential to change everything about how we play and experience games. This isn’t hyperbole, it’s a fact. What HTC and Oculus are doing might just change everything.