Oculus - Touch

The first thing you’ll have to overcome is the $200 sticker shock, which may seem like a lot until you realize that when you combine that with the cost of the Rift you’re now at the same cost as the Vive that came with the controllers. This actually makes it a nicer option for those gamers who prefer using the Xbox controller and playing from a seated position, since you aren’t being forced to buy controllers you may not want. But let’s be honest…YOU WANT THESE! Opening the box reveals only a few items resting in the foam insert including a pair of Touch controllers, a secondary sensor, a Rock Band adapter, and a pair of AA batteries. As with the Rift, the setup is elegantly simple with onscreen instructions for connecting, positioning, and calibrating your new sensor then walking you through the specific ways you can use your new Touch controllers. There is even a delightful demo that has you interacting with a cute robot. The first thing you’ll notice is just how comfortable the Touch controllers are; so comfortable you’ll soon forget you are even holding them thanks to their extreme light weight and contoured grip. The buttons are, for the most part, easy to access, although I found I would often hit the Menu button with the lower pad of my thumb when trying to press one of the lettered buttons. It took me several hours to learn to arch my thumb. The magic really happens when you load up any of the Touch-supported games or experiences. Unlike the Vive that usually shows you virtual versions of the controllers or maybe replaces them with a gun or device the Oculus Touch tends to show virtual hands that you can then use to grab guns or gadgets within the game. Through clever use of a grip trigger, index trigger, and thumbstick you can intuitively replicate realistic hand movements including pointing and grasping items or even making a fist; all of which are expertly used in the various games and experiences. Playing a game like Arizona Sunshine on the Oculus Touch just feels so much more natural when you are picking up items or gripping your gun, loading up your ammo belt, reloading your empty clip or even grabbing a grenade from your bandolier, pulling the pin, and tossing it. The hand movements are much more realistic than gripping the twin sticks of the Vive adding to the overall immersion. In a game like SUPERHOT where every microsecond counts, your ability to interact with the world around you with micro-precision is only possible with the Oculus Touch. There are dozens of other games that are either coming out specifically for the Touch or in the case of a game like The Climb being updated to support the new controllers in a way that is actually redefining the original gameplay. I enjoyed playing around with Crytek’s rock-climbing simulation but was always partly removed from the immersion because I was using a gamepad, but now with the Touch and being able to reach up and physically grab and pull myself up these cliffs the experience is exponentially better and totally realistic. There are dozens of Touch-enabled titles already available and more coming out each week. The addition of a second sensor also allows for more standing experiences, but you still don’t have the room-scale freedom that the Vive offers. This means you can’t walk around nearly as much, but it also means you don’t have to dedicate a room to the Rift. As long as you can take one or two steps in any direction and spin around you are ready to go. The bottom line is that if you own an Oculus Rift then you definitely need to get the Touch. It may be a major purchase up front, but it will make many of the games you already own and almost all of the new ones coming out infinitely better. Before the Touch you were mostly using your headset to look around a game that you were playing with a controller just like any other video game, but with the Oculus Touch you now get to physically interact with these virtual worlds on a new level of realism that will blow your mind and change the way we play games moving forward.

The controllers have a lot of buttons and they can seem overwhelming at first, especially since you’re effectively blindfolded from the real world in VR. It also doesn’t help that many games render virtual human hands, rather than 1:1 representations of Touch controllers. Fortunately, Oculus includes tutorials that walk you through the controller's various capabilities. These come in handy when you let newcomers try them. The controllers also have multiple capacitive zones: the index trigger, analog stick, thumb rest, and face buttons. Oculus has also implemented a system for Touch that allows you to lift your thumb off the controller to give the thumbs-up gesture in-game. Similarly, when you lift your index finger off the trigger button, your virtual index finger will point. These movements are useful when you want to congratulate your VR buddy or point at an object. Now, what i think: played a bunch of games to put the controllers to the test and am glad to say that they performed VERY well. Even with the traditional two front-facing sensor setup, the controllers rarely got obscured. The controllers would generally only occlude, or get blocked, if I turned my back towards the sensors and held them too close to my body or positioned them beneath the sensors. Tracking is also accurate. There are a lot of buttons, but once you learn the layout, it feels really natural to pick up objects, fire guns, wave at allies, and more. Playing the first-person shooter Dead and Buried, I could more accurately shoot enemies by looking down my pistol's sights. It’s so accurate that when I shoot basketballs in VR Sports Challenge, I can get a strong sense of whether shots will land before they even hit the backboard. Tagging artwork in Kingspray Graffiti Simulator, I could control the intensity of my spray can with Touch’s analog trigger, which offers different degrees of pressure. In creative tool Medium, I could use the controllers to sculpt objects in three-dimensional space with six degrees of movement. This is something that you simply can’t do with a standard gamepad. The Touch’s haptic engine is also fantastic. Playing the 1v1 wizard-dueling game The Unspoken, I could feel how powerful my charging fireballs were by how violent my controller shook. Even though the Rift’s constellation system only tracks the position of your hands and head, it’s enough data to allow developer Sanzaru Games to build a fairly sophisticated system that tracks your entire body in their game Ripcoil. This allows your online opponent to see you crouch and even dance in the robotic tennis-like game. It’s kind of amazing.

The Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch controllers is my favorite of all the VR systems I have purchased so far. I have the Samsung Gear VR, PlayStation VR, and HTC Vive and once I purchased a third camera, the Rift has held my preference the most. Regardless of the system, they are all absolutely worth it. The Oculus feels like the most polished VR system and the Oculus Touch controllers fit perfectly in your hands, are lightweight, and the touch response adds extra immersion. Plus, it pretty much mimics the design of the Xbox One controller split in half, so the button layout is somewhat familiar. The feel is perfect for any game that requires grabbing or shooting. This is the first generation of this style of VR and there is plenty of room for improvement. Some things I don’t like compared to the other systems are not necessarily something that would prevent me from recommending the Rift, just little quirks in comparison to the other major VR providers. The biggest issue I have is in order to have a full 360° room-scale experience a third camera is highly recommended. Without the third camera there are certain angles that the controllers may bug out causing issues in game if not just being pure frustrating. The headset comes with one camera and the controllers come with one. The third camera from Oculus Store comes with a 15ft USB extension cable which forces the USB port down to USB 2.0, the recommended port anyways. This also requires some fine tuning of the camera positions as they are limited in viewing angle and distance so you can’t get the large scale of the HTC Vive. The angles also end up limiting how high or low you can reach in your environment. Overall, I enjoy the Rift most at my house as I have the cameras fine-tuned and the controllers just make me feel even more immersed when I see hands moving the way they actually are, finger pointing and all. I can only imagine where this will take us in the near future.

This is a short review of the Oculus Rift with Oculus touch controllers, which elevate the experience so much that I don't understand why they are just included with the headset. I was an early user with a DK2 headset, and it is amazing how much the new headset has improved in weight, screen resolution, and ease of use. Getting some games to work the were purchased through Steam (before the Oculus app store was available) has been a bit tricky (when you remove the headset, then put it back on, it takes you to the Oculus home screen) but for apps that were purchased through the Oculus store, it couldn't be easier to fire up a game or experience. My only small complaint is that you need a good sized space with no obstructions to use this to its full potential. I originally had it set up on my home office desk, and it worked great until I had to reach down and the desk blocked the sensor's view of the controllers, which then behaved erratically. I had to set everything up again and move back to use most of the 10x12 room to have full range of motion. Once you are "in" a game, you really lose yourself in the experience. The headphones allow in just enough sound from the outside world to hear someone talking to you, but otherwise you feel like you're in a different world. It has been great for racing and first person VR games, and even the educations demos are fun. The 1980's style robot demo that teaches you how to use the touch controller was so good, I downloaded it and had everyone that tried the headset go through the demo first. Watching your fingers move for the first time in VR will put a smile on your face. This is the future of immersive gaming, and it is impressive!

I wasn't sure how much impact these would make. I already loved my oculus, and I knew these would make it more immersive, but I was not prepared for HOW immersive it makes it. The controllers are well designed with only one thing I don't like. The good - ergonomic. They fit so well in the hand. Buttons are at natural positions and feel fine. Even when you have it dangling from the strap and kind of "flip" it up to get it into your hand, it just falls into place. The buttons and everything are easy to "find." And the graphic of your hand around it - tracking is amazing, you would swear they were YOUR hands. The battery compartment is well done - single AA, and the cover slides off WITHOUT any annoying tabs that snap into place, it uses magnets to hold it in place. Brilliant. The only thing I don't like - I would've preferred something around the back of the hand, to slide into, to HOLD it in place. It's a bit of an annoyance and breaks some of the immersion how you have to keep two fingers wrapped around it all the time, especially when throwing, and muscle memory wants to be able to let the fingers all go relaxed. But that is the only complaint I can possibly come up with. The demo that they have with the robot and the 3d printer is brilliant, and it's amazing how everything just feels so NATURAL. You get another sensor with these, and you can set up to do more of a "room VR" although that oculus cord to the headset is a bummer. I need to see if there's an extension available for that, for real room sized immersion. Worth every penny.

I love these controllers. They are extremely ergonomic and super intuitive to use (if you are a gamer, or have a love for technology. Some people I have seen use these that aren't gaming/computer savvy have a bit of a learning curve.) The controllers are light weight, the batteries last for a long time, and the haptic feedback is pretty strong. The controller has touch capacity so it knows when your fingers are on each button, trigger, or joystick. The only drawback that these controllers have (and it is a mild inconvenience) is that unless you have a sensor behind you, you will lose tracking when you get into a game and don't realize that you are facing away from your normal forward position and your body is blocking the sight of the sensors to the controllers. TL;DR Pros: +Light weight +Super ergonomic +Amazing battery life (1 AA battery lasted me over a month of with an AVERAGE of 1 hour a day of use) +Super intuitive with how the buttons/triggers/grips are laid out. +Comes with a 2nd sensor to use with your Rift to have better tracking Cons: -With only 2 sensors and you getting super into a game, you can sometimes forget what way you are facing and might be facing backwards were your body is blocking the sensors from seeing the controllers. If you have an Oculus Rift, these are almost a MUST HAVE item. They are pretty much perfect on their design and usefulness.

The necessary controls for the Rift came way too late. Not only are they better than the Vive's controllers, but they literally feel awesome in your hand. With that said, I can't help but think that these are over-glorified evolutionary Wiimotes. Remember when the Nintendo Wii came out? Motion controls were the talk of the town and it was fun.................. until it wasn't fun anymore and now I have my Wii, Wiimote and Wii Nunchuck collecting dust. CONS: The Touch controllers sealed the deal for me that the Rift is concentrating mostly in games that gave me horrible Xbox One Kinect and Wii flashbacks. Also, not all games make use of the touch controllers. Why? Well, it's sad to see that the Rift (the VR headset that made a push for VR initially) is the last runner up to the big 3 headsets out there (Sony, Rift and Vive). PROS: These are definitely the best motion controllers amongst the 3 top headsets out there. If FPS games with creepy floating hands holding weapons is your thing, you'll love the Touch controllers. Probably the best motion controllers I've ever used (yet)! Conclusion: The Touch completes the Rift and it should have come with the unit (at NO additional cost). At the end of the day, I can't help but think that these controllers (along with VR headsets) are just an evolution of motion control gimmicks (from Wii, to Kinect, to..... VR).

Make sure the area is clear. With these controller you'll be reaching out to grab, punch, and smash things. The VR to VR hand position is spot on. The Oculus would not be as good if it wasn't for the games. The games I've played have been while though out and show case very well the future of VR. You have to experience it for yourself. Motion sickness is all in the game. I've play some that have been tested for VR and they play great; and play other indie not tested games that made me feel off. Stop by a best buy and see for yourself. The games they are showing are top notch. Please support VR no matter what platform you choose. Gaming has come a long way over the years and this will put you in the world of its creators rather is be a low poly game like SuperHot, a mairo like game cub game like Lucky Tail, or Robo Recall. Yes you are wired in with the headset. So were our controllers years ago. You get to try interesting concept of game that you rarely see on other platforms. This is a great platform that game developers are going to have a great time with coming up with new and interesting ways to play game.