Oculus Quest 2!

Hi, Geril here.

April is here! It sometimes looks like it's summer, then blam: snow. Oh well, April is the most bipolar month I guess.

We got our hands on an Oculus Quest 2! We already had a Vive Pro, but setting that up is never easy so it's always extra effort just making it work. That usually means we don't use it for fun, only for work. Also, it is too big for Lussy's head, so it gives her headaches when she uses it.

Well, Oculus is the other way around. There's no real setup, you just put it on your head - you may have to set up Guardian or set the bounds to stationary - and there you go, you're in VR. No cables, no pairing and it also doesn't need a PC - it has its own operating system. The controller tracking is inside-out, so it also needs no lighthouses or tracking devices.

Its quality of life features are excellent, too. With Guardian, the headset warns me when I'm too close to the edge of the Guardian space. It keeps in mind where we drew the bounds, and we can add a couch or a table to its calculations, so it understands what's happening.

Connection with a PC is straightforward. You'll need a long, good quality USB 3.1 to USB-C cable, connect it to a PC, download the Oculus app, and there you go.

The controllers are also quite good, especially after the Vive's wands. The wands are really good for precise work - because of the touchpads -, but for gaming, it just doesn't make sense. Oculus at least has analogue sticks, that are standard in gaming.

All good, right? Well, no.

The headache comes from the Quest's operating system. It needs a Facebook account and it keeps notes and information about your location and such. It's super creepy, and I really don't like it. I'm sure they can't do much with my info, but still, Facebook's way of stalking freaks me out.

Other than feeling the cold stare of the big brother, the inside-out tracking is just not as precise as the lighthouse method. It's still absolutely playable, but as someone who's using VR for work too, precision is the most important feature of a controller.

You can't buy games inside the Oculus, you must install a smartphone app and link it with the headset. This is kind of a headache, because I have to jump between devices just to buy something.

What is also disappointing is that the Oculus doesn't work in daylight. We have an unnecessarily huge balcony, with nothing on it, and I thought I could use the empty space for room-scale VR play. Nope. Oculus doesn't like UV light, and bright lights in general, they confuse it. I waited until dusk, and set up the guardian on the balcony. At dusk, it works fine, a bit weird sometimes, but manageable. I played and finished SUPERHOT VR, but by the end of it, it was dark and the Oculus stopped working again. It didn't like the darkness.

So yeah, it's an indoors-toy. Oh well.

Now, what gave me the most headaches is the wireless connection. It needed an app called VR Desktop that really didn't like our router settings. Early this month, we bought a new shiny Archer AX11000 router that is a beast, but sadly, VR Desktop just didn't like it. After a few days of trying, Lussy could finally connect through it, but I just couldn't. I turned on my PC's WiFi hotspot, that basically connected my PC straight to the headset, and that worked, but it had very short range.

But good news, they just released a beta feature that gives us an official way to connect to a PC in the latest patch! And it works without any struggle. FINALLY!

So in our experience, the Oculus Quest 2 is a good headset overall. I'd rather not give away my personal information and location, and I'll probably keep using the Vive when it comes to game development - its precision is superior - but for fun, and for showing someone what VR gaming is, the Quest 2 is the easier hardware to show off. It's also cheaper, which is surprising.

We got an HTC Vive Pro!

Hey! Lussy here.

After the mess at the end of last month, we figured we might as well use some of the money we've saved for the canceled trip and get ourselves a VR headset. So that's what we did.

It wasn't the easiest thing to get used to, what with the weight of the headset and the motion sickness and how much it heats up on your forehead, but we can play semi-comfortably now.

I mostly play Beat Saber. It's a rhythm game, so of course I went into it with a rhythm-game mindset, so I got angry at it real fast. I didn't read the manual, which was unlike me, so I thought the timing of the blocks was off. I only noticed it later on that the timing wasn't graded, the quality of the cuts were. So I'm happier with it now, after I found out about it. It also has tons of custom fan-made song maps, which are... hit or miss, but they are fun to explore nonetheless. And since we're locked into the house, it makes for a pretty good workout, too.

Geril played a lot more: he has finished Half-Life: Alyx already, and played a lot of Fallout 4 VR.
We have some ideas about how to utilize VR controls in a game project, so who knows, once we have some more time for our own projects, maybe we'll create something in, VR too.

Also, we got our hands on a Gameboy Printer.
That thing is a blast. I mean, it's totally obsolete and really unnecessary, but that's what makes it so awesome.

Oh, and we're playing a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, too. It's a really good game, so good in fact that Lussy bought a new Switch just so we could both play at the same time - as full fledged players, not just glorified NPCs.
But the console is in postal-limbo at the moment... hope we'll get it soon.