By Ethan Patti, Staff Writer
One of the most common gifts over this holiday season was virtual reality headsets. A virtual reality headset is a device you wear over your eyes that blocks out external light and shows you an image or video right in front of your eyes. The device tracks your movement, so wherever you look the character you are will look too.
“My first experience was really good, it felt really real and I almost felt dizzy. It makes you feel as if you are actually on a roller coaster or walking with dinosaurs,” junior Vincent Scanlon said.
For some virtual reality headsets an individual can play as the point of view of the character you are being so one actually feel like they are doing what the character is doing.
“It was pretty cool, when I tried on a virtual reality headset, I was in a zombie game and had to kill zombies with a sword, and it felt really realistic to me,” freshman Ross Ogburn said.
Generally, there are two categories that virtual reality headsets fall under: tethered virtual reality headsets and mobile virtual reality headsets. Mobile headsets turn an individual’s phone into a virtual reality device. Tethered headsets physically connects to one’s PC’s or other gaming device’s.
“My virtual reality headset connects to my phone, I have apps that have videos that I can play or watch, I also can play videos online that I can watch in virtual reality,” Scanlon added.
The top five virtual reality headsets are Sony Playstation VR, HTC vibe, Oculus rift, Samsung gear VR and Google daydream view. Prices can get anywhere up to $800 and as low as $50. The mobile headsets such the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream View come at much cheaper prices.
“They can cost a lot of money but mine was only like $175 and it works just as well I feel like it wasn’t a big deal for me to get a really expensive one,” Scanlon said.
Although mobile devices come cheaper and work almost the same way doesn’t always mean that one is getting their money’s worth on the mobile headset. Phones are not designed for the devices, thus,don’t always have the best graphics even if they have special lenses and they unpowered compared to the tethered devices.
“The headset that I got was pretty much on the low end, I got it at best by for about $20. I find it sufficient to show the full field of vision so I don’t know I need to spend anymore money than that to get the full effect,” Mr. Wiley said.
Virtual reality headsets can be a fun alternative way of gaming or watching videos but if you do not use them often it is not always worth the money you spent to get the headsets if you are not going to use it often.
“To me it is not worth the money because you can have as much fun and entertainment with just regular gaming consoles,” Ogburn said.
Photo from Tech Radar.
