Virtual Reality: An Oasis During Isolation

One of the hardest parts of the coronavirus pandemic was isolation.

Sitting alone in my room all the time, doing college courses at my computer, and only seeing my family for weeks at a time definitely takes its toll.

I, just as many others, felt extremely isolated. I missed seeing people in general. I longed for actual human interaction.

That is when the Oculus Quest 2 came in and helped me deal with my isolation.

In this blog post, I am going to give an overview of the Quest 2, highlight my favorite game, and show how this headset helped me feel less isolated during the pandemic.

Quest 2 Overview

The Oculus Quest 2, Facebook's latest virtual reality headset, released on October 13 and had a starting price of $299.

On the headset, you are able to play fully-fledged games, watch movies and TV shows, and hang out with friends in virtual reality.

I bought the Quest 2 on Sunday, October 18, 2020, and have never looked back. The graphics are incredible at approximately 1832x1920p per eye, according to Peter Graham of VR Focus. To put this into perspective, a standard TV without 4K is 1920x1080p. The Quest 2 has graphics on par with a lot of televisions.

These incredible graphics nearly eliminate the "screen door effect," which is when you feel like you are looking through a screen door in the headset.

Watching YouTube videos or Amazon Prime TV shows on the Quest 2 looks amazing, and having the video shown right in front of you with nothing around it is truly incredible. In essence, the Quest 2 is like a movie theater in a headset.

This is the Oculus Quest 2 headset and its controllers. I bought the black grips on the controllers separately on Amazon, and they are made by AMVR. Photo taken by Ethan Roberts.

My Favorite Game

The main reason I bought the Quest 2 was to play VR games. I have always been enticed by playing games in virtual reality, and the Quest 2 does not disappoint.

The best game on the Quest 2 is, in my opinion, Blaston.

Blaston, developed by Resolution Games, is a $10 game in which you duel other people 1:1. There is a large variety of weapons, including regular pistols, laser beams, and shields you can quickly put up.

I fully agree with Charlie Kelly, a writer for Checkpoint Gaming, when she says that matches finishing in just a few minutes is a great thing. Wearing a VR headset for a long time can be very tiring, and I love the fact that I can play a couple matches without getting tired.

Furthermore, because you duel other players in this game, you see them moving in real time. You can see their arms reach for a weapon behind them and their torso quickly move as they dodge a bullet. It is still so cool to me that the technology for this even exists.

Here is a video of gameplay I just recorded in Blaston:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AowfrhVB9C4

How Virtual Reality Helped with Isolation

I never would have guessed that the Oculus Quest 2 would help me deal with isolation during the coronavirus pandemic, but it absolutely did.

While I may not have been in a physical room with people, playing games with other people and seeing their bodies move in real time made it feel that way. Talking with people and seeing them move in other games, including two first-person shooters called Onward and Population: One, gave me that human contact I missed.

Even now, when I am away from my brothers and at college, I can play games with them in VR and still be connected to them in real time.

The Oculus Quest 2 was such a great purchase during the pandemic, and I hope it helped others the way it helped me.

This is a picture of me using the Oculus Quest 2. Do I look ridiculous? Absolutely. Photo taken by Ethan Roberts, using a tripod and a bluetooth remote.