Скачать или смотреть HTC Vive Review: Virtual Reality is back!

We review the HTC Vive to see if our 90s childhood dreams have finally become a reality.

Twenty years after 90s kids everywhere were teased with and ultimately disappointed by the promise of strapping on bulky headsets and escaping into digital fantasies (remember the Nintendo Virtual Boy?), it looks like the world is finally ready to give virtual reality another shot. Oculus struck first with their headset, the Oculus Rift, but other companies quickly followed with virtual reality headsets of their own like the HTC Vive, Google Cardboard, and Samsung Gear VR. The virtual reality hype is back, but is it just another passing fad or is it here to stay this time?

To attempt to answer that question, my colleague, Ginnard Archibald, and I got our hands on the HTC Vive, HTC's entry into the virtual reality arena, powered by Valve's Steam VR platform. The specs certainly sound promising, provided you have a computer capable of processing the load.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the HTC Vive is the Room-Scale technology, which uses light boxes to track your physical movements throughout a small space, something that the current main competitor, the Oculus Rift, doesn't presently do (but is capable of). I'm pleased to report that it works quite well and adds to the sense of immersion in the virtual world.

Speaking of immersion, the HTC Vive is surprisingly immersive, considering you're wearing a giant thing over your face with a set of cables tethered to a computer. The visuals encompass your field of view nicely, though Ginnard's peripheral vision is apparently better than mine, because he could see the edges of the screen, but that didn't seem to detract from his experience. The screen-door effect (seeing the pixels in the displays) is minimal and wasn't distracting in the least in my experience. The sound design is also essential in directing where you look, so I definitely recommend wearing closed-ear headphones, rather than the provided earbuds. The motion tracking is also some of the best I've experienced.

All in all, our brief experience with the HTC Vive was a positive one, although the games that we played were relatively shallow experiences compared to what you find on more traditional consoles and felt more like tech demos than anything else. But at this stage in the game, that's ok. We're still in the "spectacle over substance" phase of this burgeoning virtual reality tech, much the same way that when motion pictures were first invented, people were amazed by a short film of a man sneezing or a train arriving at a station.

What excites me are the possibilities that virtual reality technology allows. Once we get over the spectacle and start craving deeper, even more immersive and engaging experiences, I have no doubt that this technology can provide those. Virtual reality also has the potential to take 360-degree videos to the next level. Currently, filmmakers direct the audience and force them to look at whatever they intend through shot choice and editing. But in virtual reality, control is given to the audience as to where they want to look and when. In the right hands, this could lead to some fascinating video experiences. And gameplay can be much more engaging and immersive as ever while giving you a workout.

My only gripes with the HTC Vive are that as of now, it's a relatively solitary experience unless you've got the setup to allow people to see what you're looking at. But even then, they only get the partial experience. To fully understand you have to be in the headset with the headphones on. Also, the biggest barrier to entry is the price point. The price of the HTC Vive is $799, but you also need to ensure that your computer is up to snuff as well. While VR-ready machines are starting to roll out, you can also build your own, either option potentially costing as much as the HTC Vive itself or more. It's also worth noting that to get the full room-scale experience, you're going to need a good amount of space to move around in.

Virtual Reality is expected to be a big component of this year's E3 conference, and AAA titles like Fallout 4 have been announced for the Vive so there's no doubt about it: VR is back and it looks like it's here to stay. It will be exciting to see where this technology develops.

Special thanks to Kevin Gardner for letting us try out his HTC Vive.

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