For all those considering VR headsets this year, wait. Don't decide until you have had a chance to use the HTC Vive. Unless you can afford a range of headsets, make the right choice. After a few hours of stroke inducing stress my HTC Vive is up and running. Its not perfect. 1st gens were never going to be. Even though the res is higher than the Rift DK2 I still want to see a lot more improvement in screens and lenses, and we will see that over the next years. This IS it. We are heading towards real home VR gaming and the pace will quicken with what the developers come out with. I liked the Rift DK2, a lot. It showed the potential of the technology and gave lots of pointers of how VR would be better than normal desktop/console gaming. But the HTC Vive with a relatively small area to stand up in and the amazing controllers is the clear winner. After a small amount of setting up, firming the base stations in place, setting floor space, calibrating the floor height, and then finally putting on the VR headset - and bending down to pick up the controllers and seeing them in front of me ... bang, that was it. Learning how to use the controllers is so simple, and a real joy to do. You get to inflate and release balloons from the ends of the controllers and you can punch them away from you and it FEELS ... fun and virtually real. You can also shoot lasers from the controllers and almost immediately I was trying to cross the lasers to see if anything bad would happen ... alas no. But the lasers FELT like they were in my full control. Another neat trick was using the grip buttons to shoot confetti from the ends of the controllers. While this does not sound like a game, or maybe even very much fun - it truly is something the Rift can only dream of doing (at the moment). I stood there in my little space, controllers at hip level, shooting as much confetti as I could in every direction. It FELT like I had confetti launchers in both hands. Then I inflated some balloons and shot them with my lasers. Gimmicks. Yes. But most of this cannot be done with the Rift as it is - yet. What motivated me to come on here and post this was a small demo on Steam called Budget Cuts. It is very simple. It doesn't look like much in comparison to Battlefield or Division etc. But what it does with the HTC Vive will make you smile from ear to ear. You will get a real sense of where things will go with the headsets. You WILL need proper VR controllers like the Vives. You WILL want to move a little furniture to the side to make room for simple tasks like bending down and crouching under stuff. At one point while I was crouching down putting a key in a lock under a desk, my mind was telling me not to stand up because I had bent down under some open drawers and it FELT like I would bang my head if I stood up. I cannot express how different this is for gaming. But before you make up your mind to which headset you invest in - get yourself somewhere to try the Vive. Ok, you might choose the Rift, but do have a go on the Vive if you get a chance. It is FUN.
