Features > VR headset review

Having recently sunk $400 into a head mounted display, Maverick requested that I review it for the sake of those considering a similar purchase. I wish I could give you a simple yes/no, but it's a little more complicated than that.

The unit I purchases was the "ICUITI V920 video eyewear", a product you can check out for yourself at www.icuiti.com. Normally retailing for $549, I managed to get ahold of them for $400 on EBay through a combination of opportunism and samurai-like bidding skills. (I don't have much experience with such things, but those who do assure me that my manner of bidding is identical to that of a samurai)

The first thing you should know is that this product is not an immersive HMD. The viewing angle is 26 degrees (Less than a third of your normal field of vision) and roughly equivalent to viewing a 40 inch TV from twelve feet away (or so claims the website. It seems pretty similar to viewing a 15 inch monitor from a little less than two feet away. It's restrictive, but not a damning fault by any measure.) Furthermore the headset is a slimline visor, and does not engulf your eyes. You can easily look over them as you might a pair of glasses. Lastly, the resolution is 640*480 per eye.

"640*480? But that's terrible!" I hear you saying. For a monitor, yes. However HMDs are a different story. Due to the small size of the LCDs used in HMDs, resolution was limited to 320*240 until very recently. The majority of affordable HMDs you will find online are still just 320*240, and totally unsuitable for gaming. However a resolution of 640*480 is exactly what modern consoles (and one of the next gen) put out, so you can play PS2, XBox or Gamecube (and eventually Revolution) games with no loss in visual quality, save for the fact that they won't be in stereoscopic 3D as the games haven't the proper code for it.

I haven't sampled the 3D as of yet because the seller forgot to include the PC cable, but I have been led to believe that it uses existing shutterglasses (cheap polarized glasses that sync with every other frame so that graphics on your monitor are 3D) code in games, but sends the video to the HMD instead of the monitor. In this fashion nearly every modern game can be made to appear in stereoscopic 3D on this headset with the proper drivers and configuration.

What have I tried it on? Two games, so far. On XBox I played Black, a straightforward (but graphically resplendent) first person shooter. Though I was initially disappointed with the narrow field of view (it's a bit like looking through binoculars) I was shocked at how engaging the gameplay was. These babies were made for FPS. Though lacking in depth perception, the immersion (I played in the dark, and could see only game graphics inches from my eyes) made the experience quite different from playing it on a television. Next up was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on the Gamecube. After a few tweaks (I had to stretch the screen in the display options to get it to occupy the full visible area in the HMD display, plus I prefer to play without the helmet or HUD) I was up and running, and the experience was surprisingly good. As I said the visor does not engulf the eyes, but when played in the dark there is an immersion factor that you can't get with a television. It was good enough that turning my head and not having the view move with it was genuinely disorienting, and I rarely get that feeling in games.

What the V920 is good at is being a portable TV for console gaming. It's called "video eyewear" for a reason. With a Gamecube/XBox and a V920 in the back seat running off the cigarette lighter, a nine hour car trip suddenly becomes an immersive console gaming fest...so long as you can convince your significant other to drive in your place. If you wanted to put in the effort, you might even put together a slimline PC to fit in your backpack. In combination with the V920, you would have a fully functional wearable PC, and one capable of playing stereoscopic 3D shooters no less.

If you're looking for a high resolution, fully immersive VR display, you'll want something like the Cybermind Visette 45 (www.cybermindnl.com). At 1280*1024 per eye, gyroscopic head tracking and a 45 degree viewing angle, it's alot closer to what you'd call a true VR experience. However it's also nearly ten thousand bucks (for the stereo 3D version). There's quite a steep pricing jump between VGA and higher resolutions in the HMD market, you see.

If what you're looking for is a reasonably priced portable video display, the V920 is perhaps even a bit overkill. With a screen for each eye (rather than a single screen and an oscillating mirror, like some cheapo competitor HMDs) and twice the resolution of most HMDs in that price range, the V920 is the ideal portable video display for PC or console gaming on the go. It's also potentially a great werable PC display, and a hell of alot of fun to play Metroid on. However if you're looking for a genuine monitor replacement, a true VR setup that will immerse your full field of view at a luxurious resolution, look elsewhere.

P.S. Despite what I said, there are a few games that really come across as immersive on this headset. Chronicles of Riddick on XBox is an amazing experience when played with this product (I can only imagine what the PC version is like in full stereoscopic 3D), as are a great many fast paced racing games (when the view is set to first person perspective) As a rule driving, flying and FPS games will be a wonderful experience on this thing, but for most other genres it doesn't offer anything that you can't get from a TV.