Valve invites you up to The Lab with the HTC Vive (pictures)

Available from April 5 (but already pre-ordered into oblivion) the Vive is the VR headset made by HTC in collaboration with Valve, the software developers behind the Steam digital distribution service.

The system is priced a fairly solid $799 ($899 in US dollars for Australia, currently around AU$1185, and £689 in the UK) but unlike the PlayStation VR, the sticker price includes the controllers and eveything you need to play.

Much has been made about the controllers and how intuitive they are.

Which, honestly, is surprising when you see how completely weird they look.

A lot of the demos have been more of the "interactive experience" variety leading people to ask...

..."Where are the games?"

That's why Valve has used the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to show off The Lab on the Vive.

It's a suite of 12 mini-games all connected by a central hub.

As you might expect from something called The Lab from Valve, there are shades of the Portal series.

Of course, Valve wants to be the hub for a lot of VR experiences and the Vive wants to offer its users more than just Valve-made games.

The games are designed to show off the Vive system, especially its controllers.

That means games like Longbow which has you battling two-dimensional paper warriors storming your castle with your trusty bow and arrows. Using the controllers you nock arrows, aim, draw and fire.

Vive needs to prove it's worth the extra $100 than the Oculus Rift.

More importantly, it needs to be something fun to use, that won't just end up on a dusty shelf in 6 months time.