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Elite Dangerous stunning on Oculus Rift DK2

Elite: Dangerous for the Oculus Rift DK2 could be described with one word – Epic. In a 1:1 scale this fantastic game represents our Milky Way and about 100 billion star systems more to visit.

With this game player becomes a pilot ready to explore the galaxy. He can also join groups and become a pirate, a spy, a trader… At the start player has his own ship which can be upgraded or even its possible to buy new, better one. He can get his docks, visit space stations, gain allies or attack other players, since this is massive multiplayer. And this is just beginning of long list of possibilities given by Elite Dangerous. There will also be a possibility to descend on planets and walk around. This will be available in later expansions after release of game.
This game brings out all of the developers promises with being ambitious and unbelievable. In the beta release for the Oculus Rift DK2, gameplay shows taking off from a space station, getting into out space, going to other star systems by the hyperdrive and grounding to another space dock.These are basic performances needed to play the game. The game has similar rules like most MMORPG.
At the space station player can choose assignments to fulfill and get some credits as the reward. At the station there is a board of available tasks such as transporting goods, item search, attacking strangers ships in the area. The tasks aren’t easy. Even basic transporting job is complicated. Player should leave the dock, fly out past other players and carefully navigate until he gets to the target.
The interesting and colorful part is traveling by hyperdrive, player can observe misty clouds and stars that rush alongside the cockpit. Nice effect is the sound of engines that clatter and hums while flying at speed of light. It’s even possibility of being attacked in hyperdrive, for example by pirate ship, placed deep in space waiting for victims. At the testing of beta version the attack started with messages of threat, and then pirate’s ship flew towards with weapons ready. The battle was full of sparks as a laser hits ship, and the one solution was to activate the hyper drive if engines cooled down. The other way is to run from laser fire while rotating through space.
Playing this amazing game on the Oculus Rift is one unique experience in VR. Sense of scale and presence is perfect as if you are in wide vastness of all galaxy ready to explore. Unlike playing on a regular monitor, on the Rift sensation is unique, with strong feeling like you’re actually sitting in a space ship. With just looking left or right it’s possible to access the ships navigation controls and settings. At that point holographic screens wil become live in front of players eyes in orange glow.

Thanks to positional tracking player can lean forward to read text, or look around. The text used in game is readable on the DK2 display but for reading mission text player should lean forward. For the game it’s best to use Core i7 3.40GHz, 12 GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (2GB RAM)
The game is a bit expensive and it costs $75/£50, but at that price you can get to beta and final release. Beta has only 55 star systems where you can play, but that should be enough, and so far game doesn’t feel like a beta – its bugs-free.
The game is full of the details like small floating crafts inside of space stations, vents that are blow out steam, bobbing character placed on the dashboard. By scaling game you can spot the details that you usually don’t pay attention at. For example at the ringed planet, the rings seems like they are made of numerous asteroids, and clouds are in fact group of stars. All of them players will visit after full game is released.

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VR headsets 3D
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