Virtual Reality. Though it's never quite been fully realized, it's been a part of pop-culture for decades. Sci-fi movies especially love the concept. Remember that awkward "sex scene" in Demolition Man? And those awful Virtual Boy goggles Nintendo tried to convince us was a great thing? And how the world went to hell in The Matrix? Yeah, there's times when you're happy VR never became a thing. Except now the Oculus Rift exists. So what is it like? In this two-part article, I’ll be covering my hands-on experience with the Rift, and let you know whether you ought to get giddy or you ought to stop caring.

Let's not beat around the bush here. We all know what the Oculus Rift is. I first got to know about it through my brother last summer, when the Kickstarter campaign launched. As a fan of the VR concept my brother was very excited about it, especially since influential people like John Carmack, Gabe Newell and Cliff Bleszinski had shown their enthusiasm towards it. However I wasn't convinced, knowing just how many times this idea has been attempted and has subsequently failed almost every time without exception. Well, we still decided to pledge enough to get an assembled dev kit. After months and months of waiting, our set finally arrived in a robust black case worthy of some expensive James Bond gadgets. By that time, so many people had gotten to try it out at conventions that I had started to become convinced of the Rift's genuine potential.

First, some dry technical details that some of you probably already know. The Oculus Rift developer kit is basically a 7" LCD monitor that you strap to your head and stare at through two ocular lenses. There are two additional sets of lenses for those who are near-sighted and extremely near-sighted. The monitor's native resolution is 1280*800, which is split and replicated side-by-side, to emulate our ability to see in three dimensions with our two eyes. The Rift also uses “a combination of 3-axis gyros, accelerometers and magnetometers" - according to Wikipedia - to give it full head tracking capabilities. In laymen's terms, this means that when you turn your head to the left, your in-game character also turns to the left. Tilting your head up and down or turning 180 degrees in real life has the same effect in-game, in a very responsive and accurate manner. I am not going to pretend I'm an expert in regards to the hardware of the Rift; I know how to plug it in, I know how to change the resolution on my monitor so that the Rift will work and tweak games to function with it. And that's about it.

During the summer, I tried the Rift set up on a number of different games. There's already a bunch of playable tech demos and mini-games available for the Rift. A few full-on games have also gotten native support, like Valve's Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2. Modders have successfully been able to give partial support to some other games as well. I personally have tried the two aforementioned Valve games, as well as the partially supported Skyrim and Portal 2, as well as some of the available tech demos that mostly run in the Unity engine. No, Amnesia is not supported, frankly, I’m glad that's the case. The Rift Coaster was an obvious must try to get my friends acquainted with the thing. Instead of summing up my overall experience while drawing out examples from each game for the rest of this article, I think it's best that I just take each game in order, and mention the various points and concerns that cropped up as I was playing.

The Rift Coaster was, as you would expect from having seen dozens of videos about it, quite a fun ride. Literally. You’re placed in a cart that’s mounted to a medieval-style rollercoaster. After a slow ascent to the top where you’re given plenty of time to look around in awe, inspect the track that you’ll be whizzing through and building up the expectations inside, your cart eventually reaches the top from where it shoots down the first big drop, races at high speed through some sharp turns, takes a jump and eventually returns to the starting position. From there, it’ll loop the same ride over again.

There's no state of the art graphics here, and there are some jaggies, but it does its job very well. Especially when standing up, it's particularly effective. You're quite special if you don't feel at least the tiniest little vacuum inside your stomach as you perform what feels like a free fall down the first big drop. It's quite exciting, and you feel like raising your arms and screaming at the top of your lungs.

However, some concerns already came up here. You see, the thing can actually be TOO immersive. “Falling” down the first drop of the Rift Coaster while you are standing up, truly shows you just how effective the Rift is at fooling your brain into believing it's actually happening. Especially when you combine the Rift set with a 7.1 surround headset that blocks out sound from around you. You forget you're not sitting safely inside this cart, you forget you're actually standing up inside a room in front of your computer. This prompts you to lose your bearing for a split second, or even more if you're not cautious. Having people nearby to hold you up should you take a dive, is wise. Two of my friends also felt dizzy after trying the Rift Coaster and had to take a break from it.

I’ve noticed that people who are prone to becoming travel sick have a higher chance of getting a similarly strong feeling of dizziness and nausea, especially after playing some of the games that actually lets you control a character, rather than just being locked in place like how it is with the Rift Coaster.

We also tried a few other demos, like one small horror game with some jump scares and a tour of our solar system that put the grandness of space into perspective like only a few games have done before. But that’s not where the fun stops. In part two, I’ll describe my experiences with some fully fledged games - both the officially and unofficially supported kind - and give you a summary of what I think of the Oculus and its potential. Keep an eye out for that one next weekend.