My Quest

The time has come! Throughout the month, there was much anticipation for the release of the Oculus Quest, and yesterday was the release day and I am now indeed the proud owner of a Quest. I mentioned that I had my preorder in, which was through Amazon, but even as close as last week they still didn’t update my status that I would be guaranteed to get it on release day, whereas, Best Buy started allowing release day pre-order pick-ups… so I promptly canceled my Amazon order, pre-ordered through Best Buy and was notified at midnight the night before that it was available to pick up. I went in yesterday direct from work, picked it up and was on my way. No fuss, instant gratification.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of playing time last night… It wasn’t until late that the kids finally went to sleep, then I had to charge the headset, then I had to clear a nice play space (which I use the basement living area, which is at least twice the size of my old area by the computer,) then I had to go through the ‘First Steps’ introduction, and by then, honestly I was a little tired because I’m an old man now and if I want to be even semi-functional for work the next day I usually need to be asleep by 11:00. Oh well! I did manage to start up VRChat and get that set up, and then toyed around a little with Youtube VR and Skybox to see how media content looked (it looked great!)

I plan to jump back in tonight, will work a little harder to get the kids to sleep sooner and since the initial set-up is done, I can jump right into more games and experiences and have a little extra time to enjoy all the Quest offerings. I’ve pre-purchased a bunch of titles, some I’ve had, some are new, and look forward to trying them all.

It’s hard for me to give a complete review at the current time, just because my actual in-headset time was very limited last night. There were a few issues I’ve had though, some definite graphical stuttering sometimes in the main menu and a couple times in VRChat. It wasn’t necessarily game-breaking or a deal-breaker, but it was noticeable. I also lost tracking on my controllers at least once that I remember, again it isn’t a deal-breaker by any means, it quickly found it again and I was back into the VR Mix. Also will have to consider the VRCover replacement cover to see if it improves nose-light-leak, which was very noticeable when I first started this unit up. To be honest though, once I actually had a game going on and not just a black screen or the introduction instructions, I didn’t notice the light leak at all, but if I looked down and thought about it, I would notice it again.

These are some (slightly) minor nitpicks, I’m still all-in with the Quest and think it will still do amazing things for mainstream adoption and just for the all-around fun factor, and I am literally watching the clock today at work, waiting to get back home so I can jump back in. These are exciting times.

Oh, also… Endgame review that I promised… I’ll try, but now it seems less likely I’ll be able to write it, and at this point, everyone’s probably already seen it… also-also, got the Rift-S too, couldn’t resist (d’oh) but I’ll have to talk about that at a later date. Excelsior!