Recently I was given the opportunity to try out the PlayStation VR at a local Best Buy through Sony’sExperience PlayStation VRevents. I made my way to my nearest location and gave it a go, what follows are some impressions from the experience.
When we arrived, a child was trying out the underwater VR worlds demo which has you in a dive cage with a large shark floating around. Before the shark comes in there were some other fish, however the main focus was the shark and the dive cage going deeper and deeper underwater. The amount of light coming through slowly changed to almost pitch black with just the flash on your suit being the only available light. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more to this demo, as it does not seem very interactive. Whether this was due to it being a demo or if that’s the goal of the final version is unknown. The kid was screaming quite a bit as the shark circled him and began to tear apart the dive cage. The representative mentioned she had witnessed several adults screaming themselves from the demo which is a testament to the immersion, so I am hopeful that the final version has even more interaction with the environment.
When it was my turn, I stepped up and put the device on. The visor can be moved in and out to adjust focus and the headband can be tightened and loosened to adjust the fit to your head. After I first put it on things were a bit blurry, but after I moved the visor in and out a bit I found the sweet spot. I wear glasses and have a wide face and they fit fine within the headset, though I do wonder if PlayStation VR would become a bit uncomfortable after extended use.
I immediately requested to demoEve Valkyrie. To me this was something I was absolutely required to play. Games where you sit in a cockpit, be it a ship, plane, tank, car, etc. are likely going to be among the best experiences when it comes to traditional games and VR, so I wanted to get a sense of the peripheral’s potential to deliver on those experiences.
In Eve you start off in a capital ship’s hanger and rocket out of it into space. After some simple following patterns the real fun picks up and the dogfighting begins. I have seen some comments about this game being repetitive, but that is what a competitive experience like this is. It’s a whirl of motion, attacking and defending and the thrill lies in the chase.
Control was very smooth, despite some odd button choices. Looking around to control your view and controlling the ship with the DualShock’s control sticks felt very natural. A game like this could be even more interesting and immersive on PC with a flight stick. Overall it was a lot of fun to play and the most immersive experience I had with PlayStation VR.
Next up wasBattlezone, a game in which you’re a tank whose mission is to blow stuff up. There’s not much more to it and really not much more you can ask for. It is fun and engaging and a certain bit of wish fulfillment to get behind the controls of a tank. It was a bit disorienting dealing with inverted controls, though this is something that worked great in Eve Valkyrie.
The final game demoed wasSuperHyperCube, a puzzle game where you have a block that is rapidly approaching a wall and you have to rotate it on the x and y axis to make it fit the hole in the wall. The biggest challenge is presented when the block gets increasingly bigger and more complex. Now you have to try to peak around the block to see what the hole looks like ahead of time. The game itself in execution was pretty standard but it was an interesting concept and demonstration of how puzzle games in particular could be an intriguing genre for the VR experience.
I never felt motion sickness, though to be fair, I’m not one to get motion sick. I did get fairly engrossed in Eve Valkyrie, but full immersion was elusive due to the noisy surroundings. With a good pair of headphones and quiet surroundings the PlayStation VR should deliver a fantastic immersion experience.
Overall, I was pleased with the Playstation VR. I’ve had a pre-order for a while now and still plan to keep it after playing the demos. VR is more about the potential I see from these demos than the actual final quality of the demos themselves. Eve Valkyrie was easily the most interesting of the options but if these were the only games the peripheral would see, they wouldn’t set the world on fire. But when you start to think about the possibilities a developer like Bethesda or Bungie could tap into, the promise of VR could equate to the promise of what games are really all about, which is a complete engagement of the player in worlds that are imagination brought to reality. I’m looking forward to October and beyond.
