I'm old Pierre and thought Journey was a thing of beauty. It's not much of a game, but it's glorious
Anyway, the main event...
Some time ago, Sony announced Project Morpheus. I immediately started saving for it (I knew it would be expensive right from the start).
It eventually became
Playstation VR and I got my pre-order in right away.
When I was in my late teens/early 20's - VR was
the thing,
the future. I played on a Virtuality tank combat game in the Trocadero in London and loved it.
Lo-def, low frame rate and heavy as **** headsets. It was still something else.
It never took off (for those reasons) and the world of VR kind of sat in a limbo until Occulus Rift showed there was both keen interest and the technology to present it to consumers as a "thing".
It's something I've been waiting for for 20(ish) years, so had to get one. PSVR is affordable (IMO) - just.
In terms of what you get. The headset and all the cables are really good. It looks great and feels like a proper consumer device. It's polished and well presented.
In terms of comfort..? Takes a bit of getting used to getting the headset on and just right for you. It's not just about distance of the "goggles" (though it has a neat slide in and out system for that), but also height and position on your head.
Once on, it doesn't feel massively intrusive, but it has soft rubber bits by your nose that make me feel a bit like I have a mild cold - but not all the time. I think that they sometimes just touch the bridge of my nose and make me feel like that.
There's a tiny bit of a gap at the bottom of the goggles that lets the light in, but when you're playing you don't notice it.
So in terms of quality and comfort? I'd say "much better than I thought it would", but I'm not going to go completely ape over it. There's still work (or we're just stuffed with humans having odd shaped faces), but it's not a deal breaker.
You start up and your "TV" is floating in space in front of you. Imagine sitting about 10 rows back in a cinema. The edges just a little out of the edges right and left.
This is where things get a bit weird.
You can see the screens in the headset. It's a fine grain that shows up when there's an expanse of black. So you can see the pixels around the edges of the TV display.
You also notice that the right and left edges are a bit blurred. It's natural to just move your eyes right or left to see the outer edges, but there's a definite centre "sweet spot" where things are clearest. To read text at the left or right, you need to move your head. This is something I found I had to get used to a lot playing with it. Looking just with your eyes isn't good enough.
Again, neither are deal breakers because we're just viewing the PS4 menu here - but it's worth keeping in mind if you want to use to watch films, or to play standard games and use it as a second screen (I'll get onto that later).
So I loaded up
Playroom VR - it's a free suite of games for the PSVR.
It's very black and with blank space to start with. You shoot a star from your controller and it explodes like a firework over the blackness. It's a very subtle and gentle introduction to the thing. Tracking the star with your head is cool, but it's a bit like sitting in a planetarium or something - not spectacular.
Likewise, the main menu is bland. You look at the games and they "grow" to show you can select them. So far, so "meh". I found it hard to look to the far right and left games, then worked out I could actually stop looking towards the screen - this is one of many "penny drop" moments.
I loaded up a multiplayer player cat and mouse game. You are a cat hiding behind curtains and there are mice picking cheese up off the floor. You move your head forward and push through the curtains - any mouse moving that you're looking at gets caught. Very simple playground stuff. However, the next "Penny drop". You see the mice run past in the intro, but you're in a recess so they go out of sight. OMG - move your head forward and look around the corner and it does it. You actually peak around the corner. It was amazing! Honestly :lol:
There's also a platform game which shows some potential for future platformers, giving you the freedom to find routes and objects that would normally be hidden by the camera. It's okay. Most of the games are just okay and really more tech demos.
I loved the monster game though. You have to chase monkey robot things through a city street, destroying buildings as they dodge the debris. Another Penny Drop moment when I looked behind as the monster was coming out of the ocean. It has a tail, but you feel like it's you. It's that ability to have false associations with things because they're in the right space in the VR world. It's fab.
All the games are a good show off of the hardware. The graphics are in native resolutions and simple, yet detailed, enough to pass off as being high quality. They look like a PS4 game for the most part.
I then worked through the demo disk.
Playstation Worlds is a game I refuse to pay for. 5 tech demos for £30 is too much. I'll grab them when they're a tenner or something. The two games demoed are the underwater cage thing (no shark though) and a shooting gallery.
The underwater thing was really cool. You get a real feeling of motion and it's lovely. Dull though, I don't want to do it again. It really shows what could be capable.
The shooting gallery was great. It uses two Move controllers (you need them on top of the camera and PSVR - I was lucky and already had everything).
You pick up clips with one hand and slap them into the bottom of the pistol in your other hand to reload. Then shoot. It's not much different to a Wii shooting game an doesn't really benefit from the VR - not in the demo. It was a good shooting game though.
Rush for Blood is worth mentioning because it's horrific in two ways. The game itself is a superb horror and really shows what can be achieved to scare the **** out of people. there's a little roller coaster section too which is great. However, the shooting is horrific - it's awful. Two guns (again two Move controllers, but I think it also uses a dual shock), but neither seem accurate. The hands holding them always seem broken at the wrists too.
Oh, and the voice acting/script is awful. It's incredibly immersive though.
At this point, I needed a quick break. I was feeling a little bit dizzy/queasy. Nothing too bad and not "chunder central" as other previews/review mentioned. I'd just been in it for about 40-50 minutes and needed to rest. Until a later point (I'll get to it), this was the only time I ever felt any negative effects of using it.
I headed back into some demos. Lots of tech demo type stuff like Harmonix Music. Rez and Thumper were what I expected (nice, neat, fun shooters).
All so far so muchness.
I played
Driveclub VR Demo. It's ugly. The textures are very poor ad it doesn't look like it's in the native resolution but rather upscaled. You can go around the cars and look inside them, but you don't want to because it's like a PS2 game.
The actual game is okay. I loved the original and the driving is the same. It's good to be able to look right and left to look in your mirrors, but it's nothing brilliant. It does feel like a game where there's actually "a game", rather than just a short set of tech demo type stuff.
Loaded up
Battlezone demo and... Penny Drop! OMFG, I'm in a tank. It's huge! There's a cockpit I can see out of and it's just out of arm's reach. The HUD is floating around me and... I'm sitting down and I feel as though I'm actually sitting in the tank! It's this kind of thing that really makes VR something special. With some games at some points, it just clicks and you are immersed completely.
Unfortunately, the game is a bit ****.
Last demo I tried worth mentioning is
Job Simulator. Another Move controller based game (this one stand up). You're a robot in the future doing a simulation of what humans once did. It's really quirky and amusing. Very well designed.
It does show off the limitations of the Move controllers though. They have the be line of sight of the camera or they don't work. Some tasks involve you doing stuff behind you a bit and they cut out. So you have to work awkwardly to get it to do what you want.
Final (I think) Penny Drop moment though in this game. You can look out over the top of the cubicle you're working in in the game. You see an expanse of workfloor around you. It feels like a real, living environment you could walk to. Yes, it's a cartoon world, but it looks real with the depth and everything.
So, what games did I buy?
Batman Arkham VROMFG
Utterly amazing. You use the two Move controllers, but it's designed to overcome their limits. It's essentially a highly interactive point and click adventure - only as Batman.
It's so well designed to make you feel you actually are Batman. There's a superb mix of high buildings (you can lean over and look down onto Gotham hundreds of feet below) and tight spaces that you're confined in. The story is well played out and the scenes you interact with are great. It's one where at some point you just immerse completely and the world feels real to you. You reach to flip switches and pull levers and you almost believe that you can touch them. Brilliant, brilliant game and a must have for all PSVR owners.
For some reason, Sony allowed me to "buy"
Eve: Valkyrie for free. I wasn't going to complain
Though after playing for an hour, I almost asked for a refund. I've never EVER felt so sick for no medical reason in my life before. Dizzy, nauseous and headachey, I just had to have a shower and lie down. It's not much of a shame because the game is repetitive and dull. It looks gorgeous and it's another "total immersion" title (looking down to see your arms and legs, or behind to see where a fighter flew) that really shows off the possibilities. It's just not a good game and damn, it made me sick.
I also picked up
Ace Banana and
Sports Bar VR Neither come with instructions, both are clunky and annoying and neither are worth the money. Serves me right for picking up the expensive Eve for free I guess :lol: Though to be fair, the Air Hockey in Sports Bar VR is fab.
So, what about TV/films and normal games? Is it any good as a second screen? Nope. It's too blurred at the edges and it makes you just that little uncomfortable doing it. I didn't feel sick or anything, but I certainly didn't feel good. As there aren't any real advantages (other than maybe you wanting to play while your other half is watching the actual TV) so I wouldn't really bother seeing it as a selling point.
So, overall?
It exceeded my expectations in terms of what the actual VR experience was like. I really didn't expect it to be quite so mind blowing. Stand out titles like Batman, Job Simulator and, erm, those two, yeah - make it worth experiencing at the moment. Thumper and Rez are excellent, but simplistic. In fact, this is where it completely met my expectations. It's nothing really more than the Wii tech demo type games that hit the Wii for so long after release. Or quite simple games given an added "depth" with VR.
It needs games that you can (and want to) play for a few hours (I thought Eve might have been it, but it wasn't) at a time. I guess they'll come. It also needs more solid party games like the Playroom offers.
I guess we'll see what there is the come, but I'm definitely satisfied - as long as I don't think too hard about how much it was for a few demos :lol:
