It's been three years since the initial launch of Facebook's Oculus Rift and this spring, Oculus will be launching two new versions of its headset. Both the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift S will retail for 399/€449 each, but after hands on time with both, it's safe to say they offer radically different experiences depending on what kind of gamer you actually are.
The next iteration of the Rift comes with Oculus Insight - that's full, six degrees of freedom tracking using five inbuilt sensors on the headset that offer room scale VR, right out of the box. This means no more annoying external sensors need to be placed around your gaming setup in order to track the movement of both your head and hands.
Whilst the Rift S still relies on PC computational power to run its software, the amount of cables needed to do this has been reduced to just one single five-metre cable. Not only is this much more convenient in the long run, it also opens up the possibility of playing on powerful laptops with a limited number of USB ports.
I love VR.
I've loved it in all of its bastardised and malformed versions over the years.
The first time I ever played in virtual reality was at the Trocadero in London, and it was the VR iteration that made you stand in a weird, hula-hoop-like machine, clutching a retro flight-sim-style joystick as you aimlessly wandered around a VR world that looked like a kitchen cupboard demo whipped up at a Moben showroom.
Rhythm game Beat Saber, one of the best VR games around, has released its first paid DLC song pack—a collection of 10 tracks from Canadian electronic record label Monstercat.
Up until now, Beat Saber players have slashed their way through the tracks that come bundled with the game as well as user-created custom songs. The new DLC pack, called Monstercat Music Pack Vol. 1, is the first of three planned paid music packs.
It costs $12.90/£11, and you can grab it here. Individual tracks will cost you $1.99.
Some players aren't happy about paying for their VR music, and developer Beat Games addressed those concerns in a blog post yesterday. Creating new levels for the game is an "extremely complex process" involving music labels, extensive testing and licensing music, it said.
"Licensing music costs money, we are sharing revenue with artists and labels and we are paying our mappers team too," the developer said. "We believe, that quality content deserves recognition. Also, we want our players who prefer to get their content legally, to have a chance to purchase new music content with respect to law."
The team will continue to add free tracks "regularly", it said—League of Legends' hit K-pop song is an example of a recent free addition.
If follows an interview with Variety this week in which Beat Games founder Jaroslav Beck revealed the game had sold more than one million copies across all platforms.
Developer Beat Games' superb block-smacking VR rhythm extravaganza Beat Saber has launched its first paid DLC music pack on PC and PlayStation 4.
Known as the Monstercat Music Pack Vol. 1 (you may, of course, remember dance label Monstercat from its regular collaborations with Rocket League), the DLC offers 10 brand-new tracks for committed Beat Saber fans to twizzle their sticks to with wild abandon. No judgement; I say this as someone who inadvertently punched a bonsai tree off my coffee table during a particularly enthusiastic session recently.
The full track-list can be found immediately below, but if you'd rather experience the songs through the medium of your ears rather than your eyes, website UploadVR has very kindly popped the whole lot into a single Spotify playlist for your delectation.