I made another purchase

It’s been over a year since I last wrote anything here. That’s standard, I tend to build a blog, write nothing on it, then rebuild it at some point in the future.

I thought I’d write today, however, as I’ve made another purchase that has quite simply blown my mind. I’m now the proud owner of an Oculus Quest 2.

My new PC (see below) isn’t new any more but it’s still an absolute beast; it handles everything I throw at it – games, development, working from home during a pandemic, and it has caused me no problems at all (save for a BIOS update that went awry, but that was my own fault – always have a plan B…). However, I’ve been working on a side project with a guy who is an avid player of Beat Saber 2 and if there’s one thing my PC can’t do, it’s play VR games. Except, now it can.

The OQ2 is a game changer for me. I’ve been intrigued by VR for some time now, and never managed to take the plunge. I was worried that I’d look ridiculous sat with a whacking great big helmet looking thing on my face. I was worried I’d feel motion sickness, or that I wouldn’t be able to see clearly in VR. I was worried about how much it would cost, and worried I might not use a VR headset after the first couple of days. Needless to say my worries were (thus far) unfounded. And my boyfriend agrees – it’s heaps of fun.

I’ve played a few different games; Oculus First Steps, Epic Roller Coasters (which, by rights, should have resulted in a refund – I’ve never felt so sick sitting still), Mission:ISS, and a handful of others. However, Beat Saber was top of the list for purchasing after I got set up and I’m so immensely addicted to it already.

I’m not going to write about the tech specs of the Oculus Quest 2, nor am I going to write a review — plenty of people have already done that, and have done a far better job than I could. So, instead, here’s a video of one of my first performances in Beat Saber. I plan to record several of these to chart my progress. Whilst the game itself isn’t that complicated, learning the tracks, the movements, and making it fluid is a whole different ball game. One day I hope to be somewhere higher than ~140,000th in the leaderboard…