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For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Oculus Rift is a brand new virtual reality head mounted display. The developer kits are shipping out right now, and thanks to my connections at Hackaday, I was able to try one out. In short, it’s amazing.

When I first put the Rift on, it was a bit jarring to try and adjust my eyes to the virtual environment. You can actually see each individual pixel. Fortunately my mind started to adapt rather quickly, and before I knew it I was eagerly wandering around seeing what all I could do in my new little world. It does a nice job of covering your field of vision. Only when I looked directly down at my feet did I even start to notice the edge of the display. Looking around feels perfectly natural, but it’s surreal to look back over your shoulder and see the gaming world. For me, that was one of the coolest experiences – your mind expects to turn around and see the physical room you’re in, but the display just moves along with you.

Adding the Razer Hydra takes the experience one step further. It’s a dual set of Wii Nunchuck like controllers that allow you to use your virtual hands. In the demos I played, I could pick things up, bounce a basketball, toss a baseball from one hand to the other, etc. It felt a little awkward, but with some practice I started to get the hang of it.

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