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"Gamers have always fantasized about more engaging play experiences \u2014 being \"inside\" the game. Every early attempt at virtual reality, or immersive gameplay, has come of as cheap or hokey. \nBut since the multi-million dollar Kickstarter for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, those dreams of exploring immersive game worlds are closer to reality. Currently, the Oculus Rift is in the hands of a few hundred developers and enthusiasts, and they are currently working on crafting experiences to fit the hardware.\nJournalists and some conference attendees have been the only ones besides developers to get their eyeballs inside the slightly awkward Rift headset, and we were able to check it out last week in New York. A few games have been already optimized for the Oculus Rift, including indie mech driving sim Hawken. \nOculus VR's Vice President of Product Nate Mitchell set us up on the Rift. The headset fits over your head like ski goggles, obscuring the world around you except for what's in front of your eyes. The headset can be wiggled and adjusted to find the perfect focal point for your eyes.\nThose without perfect vision can rejoice, because the Oculus Rift is designed to work with all types of eyes. The dev unit comes with three sets of lenses, two that adjust for nearsighted users. You can also just wear your glasses below the Rift visor. Mitchell said the consumer version would come with software to adjust for any visual type through menus.\n\"Everyone will be able to see 20/20 in virtual reality,\" Mitchell says.\n SEE ALSO: Watch a 90-Year-Old Grandma Love the Oculus Rift\nOnce set up, you can easily move your head around, and your vision parrots your actions inside the environment. Strapping on the Rift felt like stepping inside the mech's cockpit to take it for a drive. I was instantly absorbed in the small details of the game: looking up at the sky showed me the smudges of dirt on my roof window, and looking down I could see the dashboard with my health and ammo count. Because each eye is seeing a slightly different image, the headset mimics stereoscopic 3D. \nThe developer version of Oculus Rift only broadcasts in 720p, with a screen resolution that is 1280x720, though you'll half that to 640x720 because each eye takes up half the screen. That does mean the resolution will be a little low when playing, and some people will feel like they're peering through a screen door. These are all things Mitchell says they hope to improve by the time the consumer version is released. \nMitchell said that developers are trying to optimize existing games to work with the Oculus Rift, and of course create new ones. Mitchell outlined many of the restrictions to making an effective virtual reality game, and says it can't be approached in the same ways as normal game development. For one, things like text and menus don't translate to virtual reality well. Hawken's stripped down HUD was only present on the cockpit dashboard, not as a menu in front of your eyes.\nMitchell also noted that players tend to explore VR worlds much more thoroughly, and will likely demand hi-res texture and detail in every nook and cranny to preserve immersion. \nDevelopers are already hard at work on projects for the Rift. EVE Online's developers showed off a prototype dogfighting space shooter using the VR headset last week. Mitchell also said each dev kit comes with several tools to make VR game development easier, including a four-month free trial of Unity's engine.\nAccording to Mitchell, OculusVR still has a few iterations before the units are ready for consumers, including making them smaller and lighter. He wasn't ready to give an official price, but he says the company's goal was to make them as affordable as possible to encourage adoption. For reference, Kickstarter backers were able to purchase the dev kits for $300.\nWhile it isn't really possible to share the virtual reality experience with someone who isn't wearing the Oculus Rift, Mitchell projected what we were seeing while wearing the headset on a separate monitor. (It looks like double vision because it represents each eye.) Check out the video above of our experiences wearing the Oculus Rift, and let us know what you think in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/05/03/oculus-rift-demo-video/>