HTC Vive – Headset Review

The whole point of virtual reality is to untether you from the now, but while the HTC Vive gives great VR, reality keeps rearing its ugly head. It’s like taking a boat ride down a river with the most beautiful scenery you’ve ever seen, but occasionally being whacked in the face by a flying fish. Still, it’s better than Oculus and has the potential to blow the other VR headsets out of the water.

The Vibe on Vive

Priced comparably to the Rift at $800 or £689, the Vive takes the Rift and makes it a little bit better. It’s not exactly a plug and play system and requires more setup than its competition, but the payoff is worth it. You’ll also need a high-end computer to run everything just like the Rift. That can get pricey, bringing the whole system to more than $2,000 if you have to get everything from scratch.

Vibe packs a powerful punch that Oculus can’t touch…full room immersion. Currently, Rift provides a little functionality when it comes to movement, but most things can be done sitting down. The HTC Vive provides a full room experience that lets you walk around and interact with the VR world. While this is its most impressive quality, it’s also its most annoying, because of that whole pesky reality thing.

Vive uses multiple sensors to expand the VR experience. The headset has more than 70 sensors to keep track of your movements, two wireless motion controllers (another big win over the Rift), and two base stations. The base stations create the boundaries for the game world. You’re going to want to have an empty room to use it in, but Vive will warn you when you’re reaching the boundary of the sensors or about to collide with the coffee table.

The headset is connected to the computer with a five-meter-long cable, and that’s where reality tends to come crashing down on you. Imagine being completely immersed in an action game, such as The Brookhaven Experiment. You’re freaking out because zombie hordes are everywhere. You can walk around, duck, etc. to escape the undead…just don’t forget about the cable. It’s easy to get is wrapped around you while you’re moving about.

The day VR headsets can run programs wirelessly will be a revolution in VR gaming.

The Nuts and Bolts

The hardware for the HTC Vive is close to perfection. The headset has an OLED view screen for each eye at 1080 x 1200 to create some seriously high definition graphics. There are a ton of sensors and an integrated camera for actually seeing the real world. You can switch between the VR world and your actual surroundings with the click of a button on the controllers. The motion control sensors in the headset are superior to the Rift, but it’s also a lot heavier. It looks like something out of a 1990s science fiction show more than a cutting edge piece of hardware.

There’s no problem with fitting it to your head comfortably, but its weight can be unwieldly after long periods. The wireless motion controllers look alien and bulky at first, but are surprisingly easy to use. They become a natural extension of your body, especially when playing games where you have a gun, etc. It actually adds to the realism. Some of the buttons on the controller can be difficult to use on the fly, but you get used to it over time.

It comes with a couple earbuds for the audio, but if you want true immersion, then you might want to spring for some awesome headphones like Beats by Dr. Dre for about $80 or something as basic as a $10 set of earbuds at a local department store. The problem with actual headphones is you’re adding even more weight to an even heavier device. Earbuds might be the way to go.

Is it Getting Hot in Here? I See Steam

HTC partnered with Steam to create SteamVR. Steam is the insanely popular online gaming community for PCs. Once you register and download the app, you can purchase various games from your Steam account. Most people that have VR headsets will likely already be acquainted with Steam, but newbies can find it difficult to get around. Luckily, the Vive’s own downloadable app can keep track of your library. Vive has also opened up its developer kit to anyone, so expect more than its fair share of adult titles.

There are already more than 200 games available for the Vive on Steam. That’s a staggering library for a launching system, but don’t get too excited. Since everything is pretty open source, not all of the games are of top quality. It’s like downloading a game on Android. Some are from top developers that really take advantage of its capabilities, and others come from people living in their moms’ basements looking for a quick buck.

The ones that really stand out, REALLY stand out. The Brookhaven Experiment is a horror game where you have to fight off hordes of zombies. It’s pee your pants terrifying. After a while, you’ll be huddling in your safe place praying to keep the bad men away. You shoot with the motion controller, which is pretty awesome. There’s no aiming reticle like in most games, so it’s like shooting something in real life. No crosshairs, just you, a gun, and, hopefully, lot of luck. The full game isn’t out until later this month, but the demo is amazing.

The Lab was created by Valve, the developers of Steam, and is designed to show off the capabilities of the Vive using several minigames in the same vein as Kinect Adventures for Xbox. You get to explore the world, defending castles from invaders and more. Elite Dangerous is a space simulator. The biggest problem is the games themselves seem short. You’re not going to experience a VR Skyrim just yet, but for short periods of entertainment you can’t beat it. Games for the Vive hover around $30, which can be pricey for the quality of some games.

Overall

HTC’s Vive is what the Oculus Rift should have been. Oculus has been sucking all the press for years, but what it delivered was less than what was expected. Vive delivers on those promises. It’s the most immersive gaming experience out there right now and has a large library of games. The partnership with HTC and Steam was genius.