“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

It’s a bit past due but I’ve been meaning to write something on the Oculus Rift since I first got to experience it at PAX Australia this year. It was nothing short of magical, and the implications are mind blowing.

It wasn’t all that stupendous at first though. It was the Sunday – the last day of the event – and somewhat quieter, populated more prominently by parents and families who weren’t as interested in the hustle and bustle of the opening day, or the very busy Saturday. Between the World of Tanks section and the glorious League of Legends stage you’d wonder how anyone else even spotted the understated black booths tucked away between the back end of Riot’s glamorous setup and the very popular Laser Tag. You’d only have been able to tell by the worn piece of A4 paper with Oculus’ logo printed on it.

Come early afternoon the line was no longer than twenty five people or so with a very reasonable wait of 20 minutes. As dramatic as it might sound, a revolution was waiting just behind those simple black felt booth walls. After about 18 minutes I finally get to peek in the door as I crest the doorway and the end of the queue to find a rather strange scene. Against the wall to my left and at the back of the booth were two computers with the fabled Oculus Rift being tested by two strangers. Both of them looked – or as far as I could tell from their nose and mouth – mystified. Strapped to their heads the cumbersome looking black cubes that were the Rift itself. I got to take a seat and watch the 6 people ahead of me test the device.

Waiting to have a crack at this apparently wonderful invention I wasn’t entirely sure how I would have felt. You see it pop up online every now and then with a new game or application being applied to it. It all sounds wonderful but it’s really something else to try it.

When it came to my turn the gentleman who manned the PC at the back was very polite and ask I take a seat while he affix the rather large device to my enthused come anxious face. It felt a little royal to have it put on for me. He placed it over my eyes and immediately I was privy to the exterior of a snowy castle not unlike Skyrim’s more wintery regions. The gentleman advised I adjust the Rift until it achieved perfect focus – a bit of a task in itself – but once I had got the positioning right the tiny screens displayed a very crisp 1080p image.

When I said it wasn’t all that great at first, it was exactly that for me. I looked around a bit and thought, “This is neat!” and I continued to look up, down, left, and right enjoying the chilly looking atmosphere. Being a primarily PC gamer I am accustomed to being rather close to the screen. Then the gentleman advised I turn around, and this moment is where the Rift stakes it’s claim.

I sat up a bit, as you would to turn to chat to somebody behind you and turned my head, but where you’d expect the virtual image to end and your periphery begin, the ‘screen’ as it were continues in every direction. At this point my mind was officially blown. Yes, this is the primary function of the Oculus RIft but it’s not until you experience that special kind of 1 to 1 head tracking, seamless virtual wallpaper do you fully grasp the implications of it. I once had a shitty excuse for Virtual Reality in the form of a head mounted screen that displayed low resolution bad guys that you’d kill by swiping your hand wearing a glove fitted with basic accelerometers. That thing was morbidly disappointing, but the Oculus Rift is exactly what I wanted that crappy old thing to be.

The remainder of the demo took me to a real time version of the Unreal Tech demo – the ‘Elemental Lord’ one, with the big fire guy surrounded by lava – and the sheer wonder I felt being able to whip my head around to ogle at all of the little features of every surface and texture tops some of my most cherished gaming memories. After the demo, profusely telling the helpful gentleman from Oculus VR how amazing their work is, and walking – read, staggering – out of the booth I was trying to envision the implications of this technology. I immediately wanted one if only to wander through the valleys of Skyrim at night with all of the post-processing, texture, and night sky mods on.

From a purely gaming perspective the Oculus Rift will, be a game changer and quite literally. While the Rift lends itself more immediately to first person titles, I have no doubt that developers will find the head tracking aspect just as useful in third person or even birds eye or isometric perspectives. Having played a whole lot of Hearthstone recently I imagined what it’d be like – even for a aesthetically simple card game – to be able to not only look at the board, but eye off your opponent, gauge the reactions of the spectators around you, and otherwise take in the warm tavern atmosphere complete with tipsy dwarves and eccentric bards tucked away in the corner of the room. Coupled with quality headphones I can only imagine how enrapturing such an experience will be when it finally becomes a commercial product, and hopefully a major part of every developer’s design considerations.

I refer back to my opening quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” and it holds very true, at least for me, experiencing this technology in gaming; it is nothing short of magical.