EVR and Oculus Rift

EVR is a tech demo produced by CCP Games, the creators of EVE Online and Dust 514. It’s a very cool bit of kit that turns a game’s camera as you turn your head. In the demo, we were space fighter pilots, whizzing around the galaxy trying to blast everything we could see. The Oculus Rift was used to control the pilot viewpoint, so turning your head would turn the camera inside the cockpit. It’s absolutely brilliant and I noticed no lag when looking around.

As well as viewpoint, the Rift controlled lock-on for the missiles – hold down a trigger button on the controller to enter lock-on mode and turn your head to track a ship until it locks. It’s a bloody nightmare when you’re trying to steer at the same time and gets quite disorienting but I’m sure you’d get used to it over time. The other thing that takes some getting used to is lack of location tracking. At 0:33 in the video you can see me leaning back and forth. This sort of movement has no effect on your view, as you’re barely tilting the axis of the Rift’s detectors.

Oculus Rift is a great bit of kit with a huge list of supported games. The only thing holding me back from ordering one is the 720p display (and, let’s face it, the lack of $300). At such a close distance, it makes everything look noticeably pixelly.

Here’s the video, which went up on our YouTube channel a while ago but I’d forgotten to post it here. Oops!