Virtual Desktop + Shadow PC on the Quest 2 is incredible. I played through Half-Life Alyx rendered on my cloud Shadow PC entirely wirelessly. It was a super smooth and responsive experience -- I didn't expect it to work at all when I first set it up.
You do need something other than the Quest to start up the Shadow PC and keep it running (it will shut down automatically if an official Shadow client is not connected for too long). I use my laptop or AppleTV for this -- both connected over ethernet so I save all my WiFi bandwidth for the Quest.
The last few weeks we've been playing Population One together since they have a very simple 6-digit-room-code way of creating private lobbies that can support > 8 people. They also have great team/voice configuration settings where you can set up who can talk to who. I worry a little about gun games and inclusivity, but it's the only app that's consistently allowed the 8 of us to get together without spending 30 minutes troubleshooting. Probably this is in part because they just avoid the quirks of the Quest party system altogether and use their own private lobby system.
Echo VR's private lobby system never worked for us (we were only able to get 2-3 people in the same private lobby at the same time).
Rec Room is nice and easy for new VR people, but when we've gone into the minigames it seems to split us up into different teams, with different team chats, and we can't talk to eachother anymore. We also couldn't figure out if it's possible to make private games. But this is one I'd like to investigate more.
Beat Saber works pretty well but maxes out at 5 people.
Spatial works well for meetings, but if you're just looking to hang out it gets kinda boring.
Immersed is super cool for coworking, but I think it costs monthly money if you want to cowork IIRC.
>I worry a little about gun games and inclusivity, but it's the only app that's consistently allowed the 8 of us to get together without spending 30 minutes troubleshooting.
Interesting pivot/fork for them - spin out a vr-group-chat service. 'Population 8'? ha
Any tips on the face cover and games/exercise apps?
Seriously. What a fun game. And it scales really well -- I play most maps on Expert+ 120%, breaking into 150% speed. Here's a recent example (this one is just Expert though): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFCxrNS9GgY -- And one on Expert+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdLZ6B2AB1Q
The only criticism I have of Beat Saber fitness-wise is that it doesn't train many muscles. It's mostly the shoulders, arms and a bit the wrists. Some songs train your core but you can't rely on that. It's awesome for rythm and reaction speed, however, so it's a good mental training too.
The sweat is a problem. The silicone masks are great (I use the VRCover ones -- https://vrcover.com/ -- Oculus sent me a pair because I had skin problems with the foam one), but they do not let my head breathe at all so I sweat even more. They're definitely less gross, though.
Thanks, though!
Are there any AR/XR applications for Quest? It'd be pretty interesting if I got multiple for the fam and we could all be in the same environment somehow. Even if I needed room reference / locator devices it would probably be worth it.
I have one, but I barely use it right now.
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2334376869949242/?l...
For a less physical game, I'm really enjoying Control Tower VR. If you remember when early touch screen games started coming out, there was a whole genre where you used the touch screen to fly planes around and safely land them at an airport without crashing into each other. Control Tower VR is like that, but in 3D. It isn't super polished, but the gameplay loop is fun enough that I don't mind.
If you're tethering to a computer or using something like Virtual Desktop, Half Life: Alyx and American Truck Simulator are both fun a lot of fun. ATS is great if you just want to put on a podcast and zone out, without having to worry about crashing your real car when you zone out too much.
Also seconding the recommendations here for Superhot. That's the game that convinced me that VR was the real deal.
Roborock Robovac - also worth its weight in gold since the whole lockdown WFH turned my apartment into a permanent office, kitchen, cinema and gym, the floors would get gross fast, full of dust, lint, hair, dead skin flakes, food crumbs and felt nasty rolling on it to do exercises in the morning.
Would have loved to get a new laptop/PC to replace my aging banger, but not in this market.