Oculus Touch Review

The Oculus Rift launched last March, but unlike the HTC Vive or PSVR, it lacked motion controllers out the gate. Instead, players have interacted with games by using an Xbox One controller. With the recently released Touch controllers, Oculus puts its VR platform on par with the competition. So do these controllers fundamentally change the Rift experience? Sort of.

What You Get:
The box includes two Oculus Touch controllers, one for each of your hands, a corresponding sensor you need to use them, and a VR connector used specifically for Rock Band. No games are included with the controllers right now, but Robo Recall (a Time Crisis-like shooting gallery) will be made free to Oculus Touch owners when it releases next year. You can also download a demo for Robo Recall to help tide you over until the full game arrives. This all comes at the relatively steep price of $200, which brings the cost of the whole Oculus Rift package up to $800 – not counting the PC you need to run it.

What Works:
The Touch controllers bring a sense of freedom and movement that was lacking with the Rift’s original Xbox One controller scheme. The setup for the controllers is painless, since you only have to plug in an extra sensor into your PC. Most of the games I played required me to be standing in an open space and constantly moving about. In The Unspoken, I swerved out of the way of my opponent’s magic spells before unleashing a deadly fireball in retaliation. The controllers work well enough to simulate your hands, with each button essentially representing a finger or a cluster of fingers. This might sound complicated at first, but within moments of wrapping my hands around the controller, I knew where all the important functions on each controller were and had no problem mastering each game’s individual control scheme.

The controllers themselves are comfortable to the touch and each controller uses a single double AA battery, which lasted the entirety of the six hours I used the controllers. The column has a single button for your middle finger, while three buttons and a small joystick are embedded in the circular space at the top of the column. Like the Wii remote, there are straps to help keep the controllers in your hand and not flying across the room during intense gameplay sessions. Helpfully, the controllers also show up in VR, so you can locate them while wearing the headset.

Games specifically developed with the Touch controllers in mind, like The Unspoken and Superhot VR, are fantastic demonstrations of the extended range of mobility that they add to the Rift’s virtual reality experience. Superhot VR is a particularly enjoyable experience, requiring the player to rip weapons from enemies’ hands and duck beneath enemy fire in slow motion. I emerged from my experience breathing hard, muscles sore, and a huge smile plastered on my face. The Unspoken is a good time too, especially for those who love duels or have ever fancied themselves as a wizard or witch causing havoc in modern New York.

I also felt no nausea or motion sickness during my time with the headset and controllers across several games, though I’ve only had two instances in the past with VR making me feel motion sickness with Adr1ft and Thumper.

What Doesn’t Work:
The majority of Touch titles available for the Rift are interesting, but they are few in number. While Superhot VR, The Unspoken, and I Expect You To Die are all a good time, they still feel like expensive tech demos instead of full gaming experiences. Many of them don’t last longer than an hour. A few duds also pad out the library, including a sports minigame collection called VR Sports Challenge that feels like a weak, half-hearted attempt to capture the glory of Wii Sports. A number of previously released Oculus Rift titles have Touch compatibility as well, like Crytek’s The Climb, but the added mobility doesn’t significantly improve the experiences we played.

Setting up the controllers is an easy affair, but maintaining a consistent experience is a different story. They don’t always work the way you need them to. Though I had more than the suggested seven feet of space and had appropriately calibrated the controllers, the sensors still occasionally failed to pick up my movements. These issues didn’t arise often (usually during physically intense games like Superhot VR), but they still disrupted the experience by causing one of my “arms” to stop responding or disappear entirely from view for a few seconds.

These technical hiccups don’t bring the experience to a grinding halt, but they poke holes in the immersion that VR is trying to create. However, all the virtual reality systems I’ve used have had these issues in one way or another and occurred the least with the Oculus Touch controllers, and the Touch controllers are slightly more comfortable than the Vive’s and way more responsive than the PS Move.

It’s worth noting that Oculus recommends having a third sensor for a more accurate room scale. However, we were not sent a third sensor (which can be purchased for $79), so we worked with what consumers will be getting out of the basic box, a single sensor for both controllers, and can’t speak to any playability differences between having the additional sensor or simply having what comes out of the box.

The Final Verdict:
If you count yourself among those unenthused or still waiting for virtual reality’s must-play experience, the Oculus’ Touch controllers and the games designed for them are unlikely to get you to jump onboard.

Virtual reality is still an investment at this stage, with little immediate payoff beyond stylish tech demos. The best games for these devices are supposedly coming sometime in the future. The Touch controllers feel like a way for Oculus to play catch-up to the other platforms. However, beyond the Rift controllers feeling slightly easier to hold, there’s nothing here that sets apart the Vive and the Rift bundled with Touch Controllers; they carry same price tag, but the Vive has had time to build up a bigger library of titles with support for motion controls.

For those who have a Rift and want to keep up with the device’s evolution, it’s essential to buy the controllers in preparation for future titles. However, for those still trying figure out if they’re going to go with a Vive or Rift, there’s nothing here that puts Oculus over Vive.