Three weeks ago, I had many positive things to say in my Oculus Quest VR system review. It’s wireless, it’s simple to use, and it runs on the bleeding edge of powerful enough for engrossing “six degrees of freedom” (6DOF) virtual reality.
Thankfully, that review was driven by a variety of pre-release software—which means we didn’t have to guess how the hardware’s strengths and weaknesses bore out for retail games and apps.
But in the time since that article went live, Oculus has dumped even software into our devices.
So much software, in fact, that we decided to do something we haven’t done in a while: a launch-day software guide for a game platform’s launch. The last platform to get such an Ars treatment, coincidentally, was Sony’s PlayStation VR in 2016—but that was a “buy, try, avoid” breakdown of its 14 exclusive games.
What a difference three years makes for the VR ecosystem. Oculus Quest has come out swinging with 14 launch titles that we’d slap a “buy” or “strong try” tag onto. Admittedly, most of these are ports of previous VR success stories, but for a lot of people who’ve waited for a “good enough” VR platform to invest in, there’s a strong possibility they’ve never gone hands- and eyes-on with these titles.
Thus, let’s dive in with an eye on the Quest hardware difference—and how its smartphone SoC affects visual downgrades or VR content compromises. Yes, this is a list, but we hope that its breadth—including productivity apps and some ambitious honorable-mention titles—is indicative of the heavyweight aspirations Oculus already seems to have for this one-day-old, $400 system.
Buy: Two types of sabers, quality VR art tools, Quest sports
($30, free demo option, no cross-buy support)
We’ve been fans of since its 2018 launch, and Oculus Quest has given us a great excuse to reaffirm our love of the rhythm-action game. In March, Oculus let us drool over a near-final build on Quest. And in April, Oculus shipped us retail Quest hardware with queued up for immediate installation.
For the uninitiated, I like to describe Beat Saber (our #4 pick for 2018’s Games of the Year) as a twist on , mapped to virtual reality’s strengths and weaknesses. Like in , players must hit directional buttons to the beat of music. Unlike , ‘s world shows a grid of upcoming “notes” whooshing in your direction as if they’re real. Also, unlike the foot-centric , you have to strike these notes with your hands—or, technically, with virtual light sabers.
Cross-buy?
FYI: If you’ve already purchased a game’s Oculus Rift version, cross-buy support means you automatically own its Quest version. However, this does apply if you own the game in question on SteamVR or other marketplaces, and not every game offers this cross-Oculus deal, either.
is a funky exception. Even if you own its Rift version, you must re-buy the $30 base version on Quest. However, if you’ve already bought the game’s paid DLC packs on Rift (not SteamVR), those transfer to Quest. Yeah, I don’t get it, either.
In short: kill the musical notes, Obi-Wan style.
The game is simple to understand, exhilarating to play, and scales incredibly well to Oculus Quest. Pitch-black worlds explode with neon atmosphere, showing off the system’s gorgeous OLED panel. Geometry is clear yet simple, so that the frame rate always runs at a smooth, 72fps max. And Quest’s built-in tracking system keeps up with wild hand motions, as proven by nearly a full month of pickup sessions.
The toughest selling point on this version is its limited song selection. The game’s PC version benefits from a fan-driven slew of custom, free-to-download songs, but nothing like that exists on Quest beyond paid DLC. (We’ll have to see if passionate fans take advantage of Quest’s Android side-loading support to come up with a solution.) Personally, I’m a fan of the official soundtrack’s cheery, high-tempo techno, but if you come to this expecting the song variety of series like DDR or Rock Band, you’re singing the wrong tune.
($20, supports Rift cross-buy)
I’ve caught hell for throwing the term “killer app” around in the VR space, but I still feel strongly about 2016’s selling the original HTC Vive’s potential. It’s the “six degrees of freedom” (6DOF) version of Microsoft Paint, in terms of putting accessible, rudimentary tools in new users’ hands to teach them VR’s basics.
The best thing I can say about this app is that its corporate owners at Google have summarily killed its awesomeness. on Oculus Quest sees the painting app land with three years of new features and updates intact, only now with the perk of doing it all wirelessly.
As of launch, however, something is up with the app’s performance. This is easiest to confirm by going through a “featured” gallery of commissioned creations, which range from tiny to massive, and seeing a weird frame-rate disparity between all of these. I’ve peeked at tiny, fluffy dogs while struggling with frame-rate drops, and I’ve walked through large crowds of life-sized sculptures with the frame rate barely breaking a sweat. My guess is certain brush effects (sometimes attached to flashes and animations) are wreaking havoc on the Quest’s Snapdragon 835 SoC. (There may also be a bug relating to Oculus Quest’s “chaperone” boundaries popping up and disrupting performance.)
Until the team issues a patch, expect the app’s “walk through other people’s art” perk to fall a little flat. In good news, that still leaves the basic act of wireless, room-sized sculpting intact. I couldn’t make the Oculus Quest judder while building my own Sam-sized pieces of art. That is admittedly an anecdotal assurance of the app’s performance, but I think it’s a good indicator of the app’s Quest optimizations working where they count. I’m hopeful the team’s reputation for updating the app comes through in terms of fixing these launch-day judders.
