I strongly disagree with placing Minecraft as the #1 Rift experience. In Half-Life 2, aiming and looking are entirely discrete but in Minecrift (Rift extension for Minecraft), looking and aiming are bound together and you can't even aim upwards (mouse/hydra control is limited to horizontal movement only) to mine tree blocks directly above you without looking 90° straight up and having your headphones fall off.
It's not game-breakingly-bad, but it surely is bad enough that I wouldn't even mention Minecraft in the top 5.
I've tried several demos, and Minecrift has been the only one I've gone back to several times. When I tried HL2, there were perspective and latency issues to the point that I couldn't play for more than 15 minutes.
Yeah, they've fixed some issues in the tf2 rift mode that haven't been moved over to the hl2 build yet. In the forums they mentioned that they should be coming soon.
Turn on pitch as well for mouse aim, I find that the optimal translation of 2d mouse look/aim with the ability to still use your head to look around what you're aiming at - just like a 2d monitor, but now it's 3d - woah.
I'm surprised War Thunder isn't on the list. Has native Rift support already built in, multiple views to choose from (pilot's eyes, virtual cockpit, etc), and is ridiculously immersive.
It's one of the main demos all my friends flip out about, and has them talking about for days after coming to my place and playing it.
I put it in as an honourable mention. It's a spectacular demo, but the actual gameplay I've found is pretty hard to get into, not helped by the "it's online so you're terrified of the League of Legends effect" problem.
At Greylock HackFest two weeks ago, someone built the Oculus Drone (https://github.com/feross/oculus-drone) which was a quadcopter-drone that could be controlled by the Rift. The Rift would see what the camera mounted on the drone could see. I think that made for an awesome experience!
We got two rifts this last week. They really are incredibly immersive. First law is definitely on my list to play - we just didn't have an extra controller around the office. Some other good ones are the Unreal Dev Kit (seems it needs a special build though) and another called Titans of Space.
That will be amazing - I was just reading your blog earlier - I like how you're going about things and it really seems you're on a great track. Let me know if you need a beta-tester! Keep up the good work.
Yeah, kits shipped in March. The hardware is incredibly polished for something that popped up on Kickstarter 7 months prior.
It's comfortable, tracking works wonderfully. The only downside is the relatively low resolution - which it's said will change significantly by the time a consumer version ships.
Still, I place it on a very short list of truly remarkable experiences involving technology.
The impact of the experience is hard to compare, this video [0] might give you an idea how convincing it is to put it on for first the time.
I'm very excited about what will come about as we move out of the stage of cool tech demos and existing games + head tracking to experiences fully conceived with the rift in mind.
I've had my kit since March the novelty has yet to wear off.
Off the top of my head, I'd think that comes from two main things
1.) Developers are still exploring how to take advantage of the hardware - figuring out what works best or how things like binaural audio, a kinect sensor or a wiimote to add to the experience.
2.) It's a necessarily focused experience. The fact the people refer to being "in" a Rift demonstrates this. This is unlike other games or technologies that might be played alongside an IRC session or a with a movie on in the background.
As I understand it the 1080p Rift is a prototype for demo purposes only [0].
Also, I wouldn't say the resolution is "poor". Again, it's hard to describe, but it 800x640 presented through the Rift is a lot nicer than it looks on paper.
I like playing TF2 on the Rift - the "I AM SHOOTING WITH MY FACE" aspect is fun - but it's just too vomit-inducing for me, and most people we've tested it on.
Great fun if you don't get motion sick at all, otherwise... not ideal.
As the comment below indicates, it's also very similar on and off the Rift - no real "wow, VR" moment.
It's not game-breakingly-bad, but it surely is bad enough that I wouldn't even mention Minecraft in the top 5.