My last YouTube video blew up when I posted 5 Reasons NOT to buy an Oculus Quest…. wow
My videos normally get a few hundred viewers but that video got around 20,000 views in the first 2 days…. so!
Should You Buy an Oculus Quest 2?
Here’s a bit of background. Hi, my name is Pete – I used to run my own IT Business. Now I’m coaching other IT Business owners and making some fun video’s in my spare time. Head over to my channel and subscribe if you want more stuff around tech, business and maybe a little finance.
If you did watch the 5 Reasons not to buy an Oculus Quest 2 and you stuck around to the end of the video, you’d hear me say that The Quest 2 in my opinion is still very much one of the best VR Headsets around. The best that money can buy, even with some niggles, and yes, I did buy this. I’m not sure why someone thought that a guy who averages around 200 views per video would be given a £300 headset for free by Facebook? Like… yes please!
Whilst I did make a video about what I felt were fairly legitimate reasons that may make it or break it for some people, here are 5 reasons why you SHOULD buy an Oculus Quest 2.
#1 Why You Should Buy an Oculus Quest 2
There are no wires. For those of you new to VR, this is insane. My experience of VR before buying the Quest 1 was PlayStation VR and those super basic Google Cardboard things where you slotted your phone into it.
With the Quest, you can literally walk around in the real world, to move in the VR world. This is obviously hugely dependent on how much space you have to move around, but even being able to take a couple of steps to the side to pick up something from the floor just makes it super realistic.
You can technically use this outside but only on dull days, as the bright sunshine will blow out the cameras and prevent you from using it at all.
#2 Game Selection
Game selection. Something that was a bit of an issue early on in the original Quest days was the selection of games. Now that is definitely not a concern. There is a huge range of games available on the Quest. I won’t lie, I haven’t played them all. But there’s no end to great games of all types, sports, action, driving, platform, fitness…
The standout game for me is Beatsaber which is pretty much THE game that everyone starts on. Robo Recall I think was for me, something that really shows off how great the Quest can be. You can move around the environment, throw things, pick things up and really interact with pretty much everything. FitXR is great for a workout. The series of Star Wars games that came with my Quest 1 are fantastic and particularly the Dojo training arcade-style game that comes as part of Star Wars gets really fun and more difficult as you play it. There are new games coming out every week, I haven’t played most of them as I’ve been too busy with the ones I already own, but there’s a good selection.
#3 Using the Oculus Link
Using the Oculus Link means you can link your Quest to a PC and then access an even bigger library of VR Games. For me one of those stands heads and shoulders above the rest; Half-life Alyx. Half-Life Alyx is an astounding game. The graphics quality and the ability to interact with pretty much anything in the environment is amazing.
For anyone that has played half-life before… playing it in VR, in a dark room, where you can hear face huggers running around you – is one of the scariest things I’ve played in a long time. Half-Life Alyx runs on Steam, which means you need a reasonably good PC that actually runs the game itself, and then get 1 of 2 things. Either an Oculus Link cable, which can be quite expensive for the OEM version. However, there is a recent beta update for the headset that lets you use the charging cable or any other USB C cable, but this all means you are then tethered to your PC, meaning you lose the wire-free experience of the quest.
Or you can use Virtual Desktop to wirelessly stream the game to the headset. I went with Option 2, but you need to make sure that your wireless is up to scratch as it will be hugely dependent on how fast your wireless can go.
One negative to point out here is that on the Quest 2, I’ve noticed the OculusLink be a bit jerky compared to the Quest 1. Maybe it’s something to do with this thing running at 90hz but I haven’t had enough time to figure out what’s going on there. If you know, maybe let me know in the comments so I can fix it?
Anyway – With option 2, you do also have to do one more thing, which leads me on to…
#4 SideQuest
SideQuest is an app that you can install on your PC or Mac, and it will let you access the inner workings of the headset and unlock a much wider world for you. Firstly, you will need this to wirelessly beam games from Steam VR via Oculus link, but also there is a huge, huge library of indie games available via SideQuest.
Now, I won’t lie and say I’ve played many – I haven’t. But what SideQuest has done for me unlocked Beatsaber. Essentially it kind of cracks the game so you can upload almost any song, or even write your own maps to play along to with your favourite tracks.
#5 Finally
This brings me to my final point on why you SHOULD buy an Oculus Quest 2, and that is Fitness.
This thing is genuinely a great way to break out a sweat. Particularly in this world today with many of us in lockdowns, unable to go outside. I mean, it’s no replacement for a gym, but it definitely gets your heart rate up.
Something we get over here in the UK is something called Vitality, which you can get Life insurance, health insurance and other bits. The idea is that if you exercise every day, then they’ll stand a lower chance of having to pay out because you’re keeping fit and not just sitting on your sofa playing video games. But by playing certain games, I found you can hit a 30-minute workout with your heart rate at a level that gets you 8 Vitality points. Therefore all you need to do is play 30 minutes of this thing, 5 times a week, and you max your vitality points.
For those with Vitality insurance, this is what that means. Vitality will cover the cost of my Apple Watch, Amazon Prime subscription, a free drink at Café Nero and 25% off food, a free cinema ticket (when that becomes a thing again) and I get cashback on my Vitality American Express card. There’s also 25% off Waitrose food shops along with all the other benefits of Vitality. So that’s kind of worth it alone!