HTC Vive review

Most of us grew up imagining VR as first-person simulations. Whether it was trading virtual gunfire, exploring fantastic worlds you'd never see in real life or chatting with people who only exist inside a computer, the VR of our dreams was always a first-person experience. It turns out our imaginations were onto something, as that's where today's VR is indeed the most magical. It's also where the stellar HTC Vive leaps past its competitors.

Mobile, gamepad-based and third-person VR can work better than you might expect. But in VR games where you're sitting down with a gamepad in your hand, there's a disconnect between physical and virtual. You're controlling the action with sticks and buttons; it's more video game that happens to be in VR than it is virtual reality in the most literal sense.

Moving to standing/motion controller VR kicks it up to another level of immersion, but after a while that starts to feel a little confined; you'll eventually want to stretch those boundaries and walk around a larger space.

That's what separates the Vive from Facebook's Oculus Rift. There will be more layers of immersion revealed in the years and decades to come, but right now room-scale VR is the leading edge – and the Vive owns it.