For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve had glasses framing my face. That’s not exactly true, I got them when I was a child, spent a few teenage years trying out soft lenses, and after much insistence from my optometrist, returned to glasses in university. I’m glad they’re cool now, because my god, was it not cool to wear glasses in school.
Something I can say with a bit more certainty is that I’ve had glasses framing my face for as long as I’ve been playing games. This has very obvious pros and cons. The biggest pro, of course, is that I can see the screen. Helps a lot! The con, to the detriment of my ocular veracity, is that I’m essentially focusing light into my eyes which naturally increases my exposure to, and the effects from, artificial light. Screens. Phones. Rainbow LED keyboards. Gamer things.
I’ve always wondered about gaming glasses, but the orangey yellowy lenses combined with downright gaudy visor-like frames have always detracted me. I, personally, do not want to look like I woke my wife up at 4am to make tuna sandwiches for me to take along on my trip to the coast to catch fish with my sons. I have neither a wife nor sons, so that simply won’t do. I therefore gave up on these as viable options because, again, fugly.
That is until I stumbled upon Samantha “Tech Girl” “Queen of ZA Esports” “Totally My Bestie” Wright’s review slash opinion of Oakley’s Prizm gaming lenses. Oakley, a brand I recognise for stylish frames, doing gaming glasses. Interesting… I immediately got in contact and asked for a pair to try out. I was promised a clip-on pair exists specifically for those with glasses, but sent over the Metalink framed variant instead. Regardless, by jimmying them atop my current glasses I was able to test them out, and I’m happy to confirm that they are in fact the business.
Oakley’s Prizm gaming lenses, we’ll call them Prizms for short, are from its esports range of glasses – yes that exists now – and tout the usual marketing promises like better contrast, sharper vision, blue light filtering, and reduced eye fatigue. That’s all great, but to me what matters infinitely more is that they focus on actually being good glasses, too.
The metallic frame is lightweight and comfortable, keeping just enough distance from your eyes so your luscious lashes don’t cause oil smudges on the lenses, while the clamp ensures they stay on your face without creating problems for headphone-wearers.
The lenses do look yellowy, though significantly lighter than your run-of-the-mill gaming glasses. Importantly – and honestly it boggles the mind how this is possible – they don’t affect colour accuracy nearly as much as you’d think. I spent hours going between my regular glasses and the Prizms, and the difference in colours became negligible within minutes. Comparable to a colour temperature of around 42000K, for Flux users.
The warmer tone immediately helps with both gaming sessions and office work, which I feel is very important to note for anyone currently working from home. You could have these bad-boys on all day for work, take a break for food, then move to gaming at night, and you’d hardly feel a difference. That is staggeringly good for gaming glasses.
They also come in a carbon fibre carry case with a spare set of nose-pieces.
Echoing Sam’s sentiments, I cannot believe how well these things work. I just wish I got to try out those clip-on variants, instead of having to dual-wield full frames as well as a headset. Definitely a good stress test, and about as ridiculous-looking as it sounds, though quite fun to try anyway. Hopefully I can find an optometrist willing to pop a script onto these so I can wear them alone, because I simply must have them for my gaming sessions. They feel that good for my eyes.