Last weekend, we published part one of my first impressions of the virtual reality goggles - Oculus Rift. I touched upon some of the technical details, and talked about my experience with some of the demos that are available. But we’re gamers, aren’t we? We don’t care about demos. What’s important is the games. So does the Oculus Rift actually work with games?

First off, we have Team Fortress 2. TF2 has full official support for the Oculus Rift and it shows. I was surprised to see just how different it is, playing it with the Rift-support enabled. Your weapon is no longer "glued" to the screen like in most typical shooters. Instead, you are free to look around independently of your weapon's aim, and you are free to aim independently of where you look. When I played as the Heavy, I could look down to observe my own fat gut sticking out, which was a nice touch. I truly felt like I was looking out through the eyes of one of the participants on this virtual battlefield which was a lot of fun.

Now, this is where the issue with the developer kit's low resolution became clearly evident. First of all, it is incredibly hard to spot enemies and items in the distance, especially if they're well hidden. A sniper might have you in his sights, but you’ll never know because only his head was sticking out from a hundred meters away. Even with the 1080p resolution that the retail Rift set will have, I still doubt that it'll ever be considered for competitive multiplayer games, beyond the initial curiosity. The second major problem as a result of the resolution, is that text - especially smaller text like the chat box in TF2 - is incredibly blurry and nearly impossible to read. You'll need to strain your eyes and squint intensely to be able to make out anything at all. This can prove a challenge for developers who are seeking to add Rift-support to their already completed games.

Skyrim is one example. Now, Skyrim only has unofficial support at this point, so one cannot really blame the Rift for not functioning optimally. The main difference you'll notice right off the bat between officially supported games and games that have been modified to work, is that the modified games will still have the weapons "glued" to the screen like when you play the games on your standard monitor. You're basically looking at your monitor, but with your eyes placed closer and the image split in half. This goes for both Portal 2 and Skyrim. HUD elements are also not positioned in a way that make them easy to read from inside the Rift. Skyrim is a game that has a lot of text. You listen to people, talk to them, read books, check quest logs, browse the inventory menus and so on.

It's a game that would require extensive rework to properly function with the Rift. In fact it would need so much reworking that I frankly don't see Bethesda bothering with it. Instead, we're more likely to get official Oculus support for the next TES-sequel. With that said, even with the significant shortcomings of the unofficial support, it was still quite enjoyable to take a stroll through the (heavily mod-enhanced) forests of Skyrim, occasionally taking a peek up at the stars and aurora borealis while accidentally walking into the lair of a brown bear and getting maimed to death by it. You know, standard Skyrim stuff, except a tad more immersive.

Now, without a shadow of doubt, the crown jewel of my experience with the Rift so far, is Half-Life 2. Being a game that's fully supported, it lets you move your head around semi-independently from your gun's reticule and your in-game body's orientation. Starting from scratch and stepping out of the train car after G-Man's introduction, it felt like being transported back to 2004 and re-experiencing the game for the first time, all over again, multiplied by a thousand.

It's hard to even find words to describe just how immersive the experience was. After the intense rooftop escape that made me question whether I’ve actually grown away from my previous fear of heights, I am reintroduced to the game's supporting cast. Stepping into the power armor, I observe my hands with the fancy suit on. As I am sent off on my first mission, Barney throws me a crowbar. I think to myself, 'now we're in business', as I pick it up and realize that I can indeed look around without the crowbar magically following my vision everywhere I look. Bashing skulls with a crowbar has never felt so good, but fighting headcrabs, zombies and those little flying razorblade bots could get a tad TOO immersive at times.

When you eventually get firearms, that's when the real fun begins. And holy hell is it entertaining. Running around in the streets, I often ended up trying to lean around corners to get an early peek at enemies before bursting out - despite the game not really having any lean-mechanic. There's no iron sight mechanic in HL2 either, but that didn't stop me from leaning my head to align my gun's sights for more accurate shots. During vehicle sections, the Rift's head tracking is completely independent from my movement. Controlling vehicles with the WASD keys, I was able to turn my head 180 degrees around to look behind, without affecting the orientation of the vehicle. However, this is not the case when you're on foot and if you look to the right and hit W, you start walking in that direction. It can be a bit jarring at first, until you get used to how you use the mouse and keyboard in combination with the head-tracking Rift set. You'll sometimes end up walking around with your head turned left or right, which in turn will make your neck quite stiff after longer play sessions.

Another issue that became evident with some of my friends while playing Half-Life 2, is just how different the Rift is from anything our brains have ever experienced. It’s hard for our brains to process the fact that what we are experiencing is not a part of real life. I kept looking down to my keyboard to see that I put my fingertips on the right buttons, but was surprised every time that I couldn’t find my hands at all. It only took a fraction of a second for me to realize that I couldn’t see my hands because I was wearing these big black goggles that covered my eyes, but it just goes to show how immersive the Rift is, and how easy it is for the gadget to “trick” you.

I didn’t really have any other issues, but several of my friends were struck by intense nausea after having played Half-Life 2 for only a few minutes. The motion blur that is a result of the relatively low image refresh rate could be a partial culprit here, but it is evident that the Rift still demands that you get used to it, before you can fully immerse yourself into something heavier. It is evident in Half-Life 2 than for example the Rift Coaster, because you aren’t just looking around, but also moving freely at the same time.

There are also certain hardware-related concerns. The goggles aren’t heavy, but they’re not all that comfortable to wear either. The way the strap is mounted, it often ends up going over your ears, which is irritating if you’re also wearing a headset that is designed to go around your ears instead of sitting atop them. No matter how much you tighten the straps - sometimes to the point where it’s really not comfortable to wear at all - it still feels like the goggles are “hanging down” a little in the front, instead of being sucked against your head. It’s not a huge issue, but it can get tedious over time. I hope they intend to design the retail Rift set a tad less bulky.

Like I already mentioned, small text can be incredibly hard to read due to the low resolution, but this is likely going to go away once the 1080p version hits the market. The monitor itself also sometimes feels...odd. It’s hard to describe, but the feeling is similar to when you put your eyeballs really close to an old non-LCD monitor or TV, and you would clearly make out the individual “cells” that make up the image. It’s irritating for the eyes sometimes, and it’s something the manufacturers have promised to look into.

Overall, it is hard for me to deny just how impressed and excited I am for the Rift. It genuinely works. It works like nothing before it has. Fortunately, the Rift has already built such a substantial amount of hype and there’s already a line-up of fully supported games. I find it hard to believe that the Rift could end up being anything but a massive success once it launches. Unlike the Nintendo 3DS and similar technological gizmos that promise to offer better immersion than traditional gaming, the Rift will not launch without proper games that take full advantage of the tech. It’ll certainly take some getting used to the Rift for a lot of people - you’ll be reading many stories from people passing out or puking their guts out while playing once the Rift hits the open market - but if you want full immersion, then this is the final frontier. And it is eons ahead of anything you’ve ever tried. If you thought 3D movies were cool...you literally have seen nothing yet.