Voor Startselect produceerde ik een jaar lang Engelse content voor nieuwsbrieven, linkbuilding en een eigen Startselect Blog. Deze artikelen werden vertaald naar acht verschillende talen, waaronder Nederlands, Frans, Duits en Spaans. 

Het jaar 2016 moest hét jaar voor virtual reality worden. De Oculus Rift, HTC Vive en PlayStation VR werden allemaal gelanceerd op de consumentenmarkt, maar welke moet je als gamer nou in huis halen? Of moet je ze nog even lekker laten liggen?

When it comes to gaming, there’s three big players in the virtual reality world. First off there’s the Oculus Rift, the first big VR-headset that got funded through Kickstarter. Then there’s the HTC Vive, which is specifically targeted at the PC gaming market through Steam. Lastly; the PlayStation VR, made by Sony themselves, will release later this year.

Let’s start off by saying I have close to no experience with the Oculus Rift. I used it on a Game of Thrones exhibition to get a virtual tour on the Wall once, but I haven’t played any games with it. I have played with the Vive and PS VR though, and neither of them have convinced me to buy one for myself just yet.

HTC Vive

A few weeks ago, our HTC Vive pre-order arrived in the office. We spent an afternoon setting it up in our gaming room and had great fun playing around with it. But setting it up is no easy task. There’s two sensors that you have to set up diagonally 5 meters away from each other, by hanging them on your ceiling. After connecting the wireless controllers, you then have to map out a square area in your room (where the sensors are two of the opposing corners), which will be your play area. Lastly there’s the headset itself, that has a bunch of cables that have to be connected to your computer in various ways.

 

Once you get it going, it’s good fun. You can actually walk around in the area you’ve set up, and the game will display a grid once you get too close to the edge. This almost prevents you from running into your furniture (that will still happen). The wireless controllers are brilliant. They have enough buttons to provide you with full control over your computer, both within and outside of the games, and the haptic feedback on the touchpads works great. There’s also a camera at the front of your headset, so you can pause your game and look at what’s happening in your environment without taking it off.

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