Oculus Quest: A conductor in the world of virtual reality

What turned out to be a wireless VR shit from a company owned by Facebook. Review "Medusa"

In May 2019, Oculus VR, owned by Facebook, released two new virtual reality helmets-Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S. The first is that it does not need a computer or any additional device: just put it on your head, pick up two controllers, and you can play. Medusa tested Oculus Quest, provided by Facebook, and tells what this device is remarkable.

Review - as short as possible

Oculus Quest in the World of VR Schles is like Nintendo Switch in the world of desktop consoles. Both strive to play in the Premier League, but for the sake of portable, they are forced to sacrifice some aspects (first of all - the quality of the picture and the game library). But in practice, both of them are so convenient to use that you usually do not remember about the victims: you are too fun.

What is it

Oculus Quest is a portable helmet of virtual reality, which does not need a computer or a socket to work. It has already built a mobile computer and an Android operating system, with which you can download and run games and applications. And also a battery, which is enough for 2-3 hours of the game.

In addition, the speakers are built into the helmet in case you do not want to connect the headphones, as well as the cameras that track two things: the position of the controllers in space (two of them - one in each hand) and the position of the player in the room. Thanks to these cameras, a person, wearing Oculus Quest, can not only look around him and sit down, but also walk - and his virtual version in the game will be held in the same direction.

If the battery is discharged in the helmet, it must be connected to the network. And, oddly enough, ordinary batteries are inserted into the controllers - the experience of Medusa showed that two batteries from the Oculus Quest kit are enough for a week of intensive game.

Settings

The very first Oculus Quest settings is almost the only thing that can push or disappoint the user. And that's the matter.

To configure the helmet, you need to install the Oculus application on the phone, enter your account through it (you can simply connect to your facebook), choose Wi-Fi, which will connect Quest, and wait until it renews. There are almost no problems with this if you do not try to connect the helmet to the public network: Wi-Fi in hotels and airports usually asks to confirm the entrance on a special page, and Quest is incapable of opening it.

The next step is to buy games. To do this, in the same application you need to tie your bank card or PAYRAL to the account. In theory, everything should go smoothly: the user enters the data, the Oculus store write off and returns the test dollar, after which you can buy the games as much as you like. But the author of the review at this stage had serious difficulties: if in short, many attempts to tie several cards to several accounts led to an error; At the same time, on someone else's device, in a strange account and with a card that had already been introduced before, everything went smoothly.

A little more details

The author of the review tied the application to his Facebook account and tried to enter the data of the Latvian bank card. Her system did not accept. He tried the Russian map - he also did not accept. Then he created several more accounts, to which he unsuccessfully tried to tie one or the second card. Sometimes Oculus even wrote off the test products from the account, but soon dropped the binding without explanation.

An attempt to tie the third card - belonging to another person - at first looked successful. But when trying to buy any game, the Oculus application reported that the account looks too suspicious, so the ability to make purchases is blocked. In support, they could not advise anything intelligible: the essence of the answer came down to the fact that the bank was to blame for everything.

Moreover, when the second person created an account on his phone and tried to bind his card, everything went smoothly. Therefore, by buying games for Quest, you have to deal with it.

Finally, having tied the card to the account, the user will find that the games on Quest are many-an average of $ 20-30 or euros for one. Here, the author of the review was waiting for several surprises. Firstly, the VR games purchased in the Steam digital store are not suitable for Quest: unlike other helmets from Oculus, connected to the computer and knowing how to work with Steam, this one is tied exclusively on their own store. This could be guessed: in the end, Steam is a playground for games on Windows, MacOS and Linux, and Quest is running Android.

Secondly, Quest has no ruble prices. In the same Steam, in a Russian store, prices are often significantly lower than in European ones. Medusa clarified Facebook by the press service whether the company plans to open such a store. Here is what they answered: “Unfortunately, at the moment, Facebook cannot confirm the presence of a Russian version at the Games and Appendices store for Quest and disclose plans for such a product development.” In other words, for now, you will have to buy the main VR group of the modernity of Beat Saber for $ 30 (1890 rubles), and not for any 515 rubles that are asked for it in Russian Steam).

Thirdly, the choice of games and applications under Quest is very limited. In it, about five positions of the level “Be sure to buy” and a dozen more from “Very good, you should try”. But the situation ceases to look so deplorable, if you remember the price-that is, to immediately buy these 10-15 “mandatory” games, most likely will not work-and take into account that the best representatives of the genre already exist here. Here they are:

• Beat Saber, where you need to cut with light swords flying cubes to the music.
• Superhot, where you need to kill the red men, dodging their bullets in the slope.
• Job Simulator, where you need to do tedious work in a world where you are the only worker among robots.
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, where you need to neutralize the bomb by listening to the advice of friends who do not have a VR Schlem, but have a paper instruction.
• Almost certainly here are the games APEX Construct, Journey of the Gods, Space Pirate Trainer, Robo Recall and Moss, but they are still in the list of “Buy from the following salaries”.

In Doomvr, Skyrim VR or Fallout 4 VR on Oculus Quest, it will not be possible to play. At least for now.

Game

If you overcome the reluctance of the Oculus store to tie your card and come to terms with prices, life with Quest becomes as pleasant as possible. The first thing they ask to make glasses when you put them on your head is to configure the safe zone.

The player sees a black and white image from cameras built into a helmet. He is asked to draw a virtual border to the controller on the floor - and thus outline the safe zone. If during the game the user approaches the edge of the zone, he will see the wall in the game. If it begins to stick out through it, the game will stop, and the helmet will again begin to display the image from the cameras.

It must be understood that in Quest there is no obstacle detector: the player must free the space (preferably 2 by 2 meters) from foreign objects. If he begins to go to a chair that was in a safe zone, his helmet will not warn him in any way.

After setting up the zone, the main menu opens: here are games, applications and settings. From this moment, magic begins, which no longer stops. The helmet perfectly reads the movement of the head and hands, as well as tilting, squats and steps on all directions. He almost always manages to warn if the player began to go beyond the borders of a safe zone and will soon crash into the wall. And the battery’s charge is enough for a couple to manage to sweat and out of breath, playing Beat Saber, or pass almost the entire Job Simulator.

Due to the weaker “iron” than that of full-fledged desktop computers, Oculus Quest gives the picture a little worse than wired analogues. How worse? On video reviews, you can see that on Quest, small details are not drawn so clearly, but in practice you pay attention to this only when you encounter small text in the main Superhot menu. In all other cases, the graphics are not just “tolerable” - in principle, it does not cause complaints at the current level of technology development.

One of the most popular videos about modern VR helmets is about a man who played table tennis, and was so carried away that he tried to lean on a drawn table. Not to say that this is a constant problem, but in a week of use there were a couple of cases when I automatically wanted to put my hands on the table from the Job Simulator.

Even more often, there is a feeling that the QUEST controller is about to fly out of the hands-you are so actively waved to them in the same Beat Saber. In this case, special loops are provided, which are thrown on the basis of hands. But the cover of the battery compartment in the controllers is strangely arranged: it is located under the base of the thumb, and with an active game it often opens (but immediately rises into place).

One of the details for which you can criticize Quest is a rather large notch for the nose. Because of her, the helmet does not fit his face loosely, leaving the lumen from below. But the light penetrating through it is noticeable mainly only on the loading screens, when the image darkens in the glasses themselves. The rest of the time, the lumen, through which, if you strongly lower your eyes, you can see your hands and floor, does not remind you of yourself - but then it allows you to quickly see the notification on Apple Watch or evaluate how far a cat fell from the legs. Although it was unlikely that the creators of the helmet implied such scenarios when they created a large clearance.

A person who bought Oculus Quest automatically risks becoming an ambassador of virtual reality: a portable helmet, which in 10 seconds can be configured in any environment (except for the street), I really want to take to work or on vacation and show all his familiar opportunities. At the same time, you can not be afraid to get confused in the wires or crash into the wall. And to understand how stupid you look from the side when you wave your hands and swear softly, standing in the middle of an empty room in a helmet.

Sultan Suleimanov was immersed in the world of virtual reality