Is the Oculus Quest 2 a good headset? The local retail store is having a sale on them and I have a good graphic card in my PC *and* Half-life Alyx is on sale, too. Stars are aligned and I enjoyed my PS4 VR games - should I take this jump?
Quest 2's excellent. I've got one. It's pretty cheap and works well. Biggest thing is that it has inside-out tracking, so there's no special set up of like base stations or sensors or whatever. You lose some accuracy because of it (mainly if your body obstructs your hands for too long) but the benefits are beyond worth it. I got a cheap router to use as a direct wireless access point for
just my Quest 2, and using that with Oculus AirLink means I can do completely wireless PC VR via Steam with only a very mild reduction in video quality when things get exceptionally busy. Check out
this guide for a more detailed breakdown on doing that.
The other big benefit is that the Quest 2 is a popular choice because of the price point, so there are a ton of accessories and peripherals for it, allowing you to make up for its weaknesses slowly over time instead of spending a thousand bucks on The Perfect Experience from day one. If you're coming from PS4 VR, it's going to be a pretty much instant leap in quality regarding hand tracking, not to even mention the obvious addition of
analog sticks. The Quest 2 is also the only way to play RE4VR which I think is probably the second best VR game, right behind Half-Life Alyx. I mean, I haven't
played Half-Life Alyx yet, but have you
seen it? It's obviously the winner.
On the
other hand all that functionality and price and ease of use is being fueled by an extremely evil information broker disguised as a social media conglomerate. But that's the devil's bargain we're taking to play virtually any video game in 2022.
I actually came here to talk about
Into The Radius, also on sale, which is terrifying and also great. It's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. centered around an alien visitation like Roadside Picnic instead of Chernobyl. The event that happened in Into The Radius is more surreal though, leaving parts of the landscape shattered and floating in the air at arbitrary angles. Real focus on detail that feels like a natural extension of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s design priorities - for instance you have to manually reload your magazines, and the game cares about individual magazines as pieces of equipment that endure wear and tear with use. Really cool backpack system that is both more realistic than most inventory systems in video games in general AND easier to use. When you take it off your back, it's basically just this rectangle that will suspend objects inside it wherever you place them. There's a smaller one on your left hip, too, which enables some cool things like turning a flashlight on and then positioning it such that it's pointed forward without you having to dedicate a hand to holding it.
Pavlov is also a really solid choice - it's mostly a multiplayer call of doot-doot type deal (complete with the alarmingly young contingent of players), but there's a zombies co-op mode (that you can play solo) and a very expansive modding scene so you can visit places like the Skeld from Amongus, the library from RE2make RPD, and fight the Flood in New Mombasa complete with Halo weapons and vehicles. I only bring it up because it's only $5, which is within my personal "novelty purchase" price range. If you do get it, the zombies mode only
really works online, so make a private friends-only online lobby for it instead of trying to set it up offline.
