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Just wondering what ya'll think of the new VR craze that seems to be going on. I'm always seeing commercials for the Samsung goggles.. And oculus rift had their own South Park episode, so they must be cool. Back in the 90's VR was all the rage, and a fad that lasted a whole 6 months. Is it here to stay now? Can you play any game with them? Do they kill your eyes? Have you used them before, and what did you think?

I have the Samsung Gear VR (free when I got my phone) and the Oculus Rift CR1 (the first, and only retail version so far).

I have tried to get into the Gear, but it didn't really grab me, as it doesn't natively work with PC games. Gunjack was nice, and a good intro game, but wasn't amazing.

The Rift is very good.
It came with an XBOne controller, and I'm not a controller fan, but it works when you can't see your hands to use a keyboard.
I have played:
Eve: Valkyrie - A pretty space fighter game. Easy to control, but not very in-depth. 3 types of ship, with little story so far.
Elite: Dangerous - Very in-depth, and works well if you have the joystick setup to handle all the buttons. VR needs a bit more work doing in this game, but looks good.
Subnautica - Survival game, crash-landing in an escape pod onto an ocean planet. It is an early release game on Steam, so is still being worked on, but is nearly ready for version 1.0. Controls are not too complicated. There's an amount of depth (no pun) to it, and it is keeping me pretty busy for the past 2 weeks.

The Oculus Rift goggle set has the a long cable to the back of the PC, which is fairly heavy. I keep having to unhook if from behind me, down the back of the chair.
I wear glasses, and I have had to keep an old pair for use with this. My new pair, with the smallest lenses the shop stocked, do not fit well into the Rift, so check the size, or wear contact lenses to use it. I don't think there is a way to adjust the focus.
The Rift goggles have little or no ventilation in them, so often get hot. Wearing them for a long time (more than an hour) and my eyes often get a bit itchy. I often have to take them off to wipe my glasses, as they sometimes mist up in there.

There are a lot of 3rd-party apps and tools to make games work, either pairing the GearVR with a PC, or making non-VR games work when not listed.
Go through the Steam games list with one of the VR kits selected.
It will be here to stay, now that the kits are mainstream.
I had the nVidia 3D Vision kit beforehand, with the shutter glasses and 120Hz monitor. It didn't work, as there was no headtracking. VR has that, and it is needed for 3D to work properly.

Cool. I've been thinking about the rift, but it's pricy so I'm scared to take the plunge. I don't wanna buy it, then hate it. Do your eyes hurt when you play a lot and then switch back to reality, like they get used to the screen so to speak? I remember reading something like that somewhere.

And are the goggles a lower resolution than monitors since they're so small? Like do you need a big expensive video card for them to work good?

The goggles are 2160 x 1200, but as they are a pair of close-set screens, they look good. The lower resolution is no problem when you focus through the screens.

The hurting eyes happens after a long while (an hour or two), and is worse when my glasses steam up.
It's not bad, but like most intense concentration on an object near your eyes, close them for a second, and adjust the goggles around a bit.

A good video card is a must.
The nVidia range is referred by them, I think, and a GeForce 970 is the model listed by Elite: Dangerous. I have a 1070, and I can play all of these on max settings. A lower specced card is an option if you have one, but expect to upgrade soon.
I used my older card to offload the physics processing. But, it was causing crashes, and it works well enough without it.