So, how is PS VR?

I was fortunate enough to come across one of Sony’s pop-up demo areas for PlayStation VR at my local shopping mall this past weekend. Sony had been encouraging people to book their slots ahead of time to guarantee entry, and despite how busy it was I managed to get in without booking. There were a number of games to choose from, and I decided to try my hand at RIGS: Mechanized Combat League. A few of the other games on show were EVE Valkyrie, Resident Evil 7 and Farpoint. After queuing up for around 10 minutes, I was led to a booth and sat down by a representative who gave me a headset and headphones, and a brief overview of the controls and objective. RIGS is a game in which the player assumes the role of a mech pilot, competing in a professional sports league. There are different game modes, but the one I was playing had us collect little yellow triangles to enter a state called ‘Overdrive’ and then run and jump through a hoop. On initially putting the headset on, I was greeted by a number of mechanics in an underground loading bay. You have to tilt your head left or right to select your mech, and upon doing so are lifted in to your chosen rig by a flying drone. Obviously this is all in VR, and is really quite convincing. To say that in reality I didn’t move an inch from my seat, it can easily trick your brain and give the illusion and feeling of movement. I didn’t feel much of this when running around the the arena and shooting enemies, but I did find a fairly intense instance of it when descending through the hoop, I genuinely felt I was falling. And it’s quite a spectacular feeling if I’m being honest. The graphics were fine, but just that. I found them a little grainy, but this could very well have been due to the fact that the headset may not have been focused correctly. I was not made aware of the ability to focus the image at the time, which other users have claimed had drastically improved their experience after doing so. I feel it is only fair though to mention some of my issues with the PS VR at this point. After using it for around 10 minutes, I felt quite nauseous. Not enough so that I was going to be sick, but enough so that I had a fairly dull but very noticeable feeling of unease for around six hours after playing. It’s worth keeping in mind that everyone will react differently to motion sickness, and many users will find they react completely differently to various games. I’m really not very prone to motion sickness, and I think that there may have been a few factors at play here. I’m not really used to using VR, with my only proper experiences being a quick go on an Oculus Rift dev kit a few years ago at a convention, and my Google Cardboard. I would imagine that after acclimatising to VR I’d feel far less nauseous. I had also just eaten a ginormous meal before playing and had been fairly exhausted from walking around a busy shopping centre. I would not be surprised if these had played a major part, along with perhaps not having the headset properly focused. It’s also worth noting that whilst the unit is very light, you have essentially got a plastic box strapped to your face, and it gets very sweaty in there. Glasses wearers beware, as they will steam up like nobody’s business. A handy cloth is provided with the retail unit to wipe the lenses down however. If you’re uncomfortable with a bit of heat and sweat, do consider this in your purchasing decisions. The only other real negative I have is the price. To fully function, you will need not only the headset (and the PS4 itself of course), but also a PlayStation Camera, and two PlayStation Move controllers. Despite the move controllers being essentially the same as when they originally released, they are a full premium price. The complete package with one game (and no PS4 console included) will run you £399.99. To put that in perspective, that’s around the same price as buying both the Xbox One S and PS4 Slim base consoles brand new (without games). The PS VR costs the same as two games consoles. It’s a really serious investment, and Sony very much have a track record of growing bored of hardware they put out and moving on to something new and shiny after anywhere between a few months to a couple of years. Whilst Sony may very well continue to support the PS VR, the risk is certainly there, and with the price of entry being so high, I can really see many consumers being put off. It’s a very impressive piece of kit, and a lot of fun, but not without issues. A few of the initial releases are more or less tech demos, but thankfully there are some rather solid releases launching with it and more for the near future at least. I’d say if it interests you, and you can afford it, by all means pick it up, but for the rest of us, it may be wiser to steer clear for the time being.

#videogames #vr