I recently picked up an Oculus Quest 2, I am a pretty big VR mark but wanted to wait until PC-centric headsets had bumped up another level of resolution and/or FOV.  Even though the Quest 2 has been out a while now I still planned on skipping it for the resolution alone.  The screen-door effect on my aging CV1 was driving me crazy but it didn’t feel like the Quest 2 was enough of an upgrade to consider moving over.  The thing is Oculus kept improving the headset seemingly every quarter suggesting that they planned on selling the Quest 2 for a while.  I think the best products are those that get consistent updates both firmware and software so on a whim I went out and grabbed the Quest 2 and thus far I’m really impressed.

The screen-door is much improved, it’s not perfect but it’s a huge step up from the CV1.  The FOV isn’t great but I can overlook that for all the other features.

• No more external cameras, no need for active USB3 cables which were a PITA
• Lots of accessories, I changed my Quest 2 headstrap for a ‘halo-style’ head strap making the headset a LOT more comfortable
• Quest 2 is wireless, not only for Quest 2 titles but is also capable of streaming PCVR titles over WIFI to the headset, allowing you to use your PC software wirelessly
• Simple set-up, seated, standing, different rooms, different light in each room, it all just works.  Simplicity is one of the major improvements to the software side of things when comparing against the CV1
• Easier access to curated VR content, the Quest 2 has a nice dashboard where you can quickly access new content
• As I mentioned, Oculus is updating the Quest 2 software/firmware consistently, offering new features, improvements, for free

It’s not all roses and puppy-dogs, the headset isn’t perfect but for the price it gets you access to a lot of great content for cheap, at least when comparing against legacy PC only VR.  Some things I don’t like about the headset:

• The default head strap is pretty bad, not much different than the CV1 but it would be difficult to go back to the default strap after using halo-style
• battery life is not great.   Wireless is nice but the headset eats battery life, luckily it was easy to add a small battery pack which also helped balance the headset a bit more
• Gigantic gap between PCVR and Quest 2 native titles, not surprising since native titles need to use less graphical options since the GPU on the headset is still a mobile processor, this is more of a note than a negative

So in fall 2018 a new title by Rockstar (the developers behind the infamous Grand Theft Auto series) released their new project. Red Dead Redemption 2, a sequel to their first Red Dead title released 8 years ago on the XBOX 360/PS3 generation. They had been working on the sequel for 8 years which to me is a good thing, not only because the first game was so good but because RDR2 is amazing.

I won’t go into too much details on the premise of the game, there are enough reviews and blogs about the title that if you want to know more Google can help you, in general though the game is an open-world title set at the turn of the century. Cowboys, robbers, villainy… that sort of thing.

I really enjoyed the title, I upgraded our XBox One S to the XBox One X and RDR2 runs very well on the X in 4K. The HDR support is pretty bad, enough so that I turned it off on the console but the game is so pretty and believable that HDR off didn’t impact the visuals in the game. What actually stands out about RDR2 isn’t visuals, it’s how the game world is so seamless. Often playing sandbox games you can see the hole in the game, where the AI or gameplay or activities feel ‘gamey’ or clunky but RDR2 didn’t have that feeling. It plays more like a ‘cowboy simulator’ as opposed to GTA set in cowboy land. What also really stood out for me were all the random events that happen in the game. Strangers met out on the road, fist fights that break out in the saloons, people asking for help that you meet organically playing the game.

Some of the controls and aiming in the game aren’t perfect, some of these issues are likely due to all the animation they implemented in the game but none of this was something that I couldn’t live with. I didn’t get too much into the online option of the game, after finishing the single player story clocking at 97 hours, I felt I got what I wanted out of the game.