Blaine Kyllo: Oculus Rift, MechWarrior, Assassin's Creed, ultrabook Razer

This week in video games: January 11 to January 15

This week, four things you need to keep in mind before you pre-order an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, Piranha announces MechWarrior will be playable on Rift, new ultrabook Razer gets accolades at CES, and the release of Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India. 

Things to consider before pre-ordering an Oculus Rift VR headset

You can now pre-order an Oculus Rift, the virtual-reality headset that started off as a Kickstarter campaign before being acquired by Facebook for $2 billion.

Those who were first to get in their pre-orders will be getting their headsets at the end of March. Within a few hours, enough units had been ordered that the shipping dates people were getting had slipped to the end of May. 

If you were a backer of the original Oculus Rift Kickstarter, before the company was purchased by Facebook, you'll be getting one for free.

But if you weren't, and you're thinking about getting in the line, here are four important things you should consider:

1. It's expensive. The headset costs Cdn$849, plus $65 for shipping. The headset is equipped with built-in headphones. It also comes with a mic, an Xbox One wireless controller, and two games, Lucky's Tale and the space fighter simulation EVE: Valkyrie. But for the same price, you can get a PS4 and an Xbox One and a few top games. 

2. You need a top-end computer to run the system. The Rift requires a minimum of 8 GB of RAM, an HDMI output, four USB ports (three USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0), and a graphics card that is as good or better than the NVIDIA GTX 970 (which is only 15 months old).

3. The experience can make you nauseous. There are two reasons this can happen. It can be caused by simulation sickness which is caused by the dissonance between what your brain is perceiving in the VR and the incongruous signals it gets from the body. It can also be a result of a truly immersive experience in which you'd expect a response in your body. It's reasonable to assume that if you are engaged in a dogfight in space while flying a fighter that your stomach might lurch a bit. 

4. Other VR headsets are coming. The Vive, from HTC and Valve, is expected in April. And Sony is expected to have its PS VR ready this year, too. 

It's early days for the immersive entertainment experience that is virtual reality. It will mature quickly. I'm not sure about rushing to be an early adopter at this point.

Pilot a massive robot fighter in VR 

In December, Vancouver's Piranha Games had a launch party as its game MechWarrior Online became available on Steam.

The game features epic battles between players equipped with massive robot suits known as mechs, and is free to play. 

At the party, the studio had the game running on Oculus virtual reality headsets and studio head Russ Bullock announced the MechWarrior Online world championships, which will occur in 2016. $100,000 in prize money will be up for grabs.

This is the gaming laptop you're looking for

For a few years, Razer has been at the top of gaming hardware and peripherals. The company walked away from CES last week with another "Best of CES" award, its sixth in a row. 

 Winning the award was the Razer Blade Stealth ultrabook, a thin, light laptop with plenty of power for modern gaming. The laptop begins shipping this month, and starts at only US$999.

 The Stealth was designed to work with the Razer Core, a housing for a graphics processing unit (GPU) that can be used to provide desktop-type performance. It's akin to a docking station for a laptop, but one that turns your portable computer into as powerful a gaming machine as you want it to be.

 The Razer Core will be shipping later this year. Pricing on the hardware has not been announced.

Next chapter in Assassin's Creed Chronicles heads to South Asia

Set in India in 1841, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India has assassin Arbaaz Mir trying to stop a Templar plot to steal the Koh-i-noor diamond.

The Chronicles games, part of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise, are 2.5-D action platformers presented in a lush illustrative style. The first game in the planned trilogy took place in China, and featured female protagonist, Shao Jun. 

The game, for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One, was released two days ago (January 12).