My PSVR Experience

This past weekend I went to Best Buy and got to try out the PSVR and while my time with it was short, I have to say it was pretty awesome. I arrived at Best Buy within the first hour of the demo time and there were only three people in line so I didn't have to wait long. Even better, with the short line I was able to get right back and try out three demos before the line really started picking up.

The first demo I tried was EVE: Valkyrie. Graphically the game looked good, but the real test was the VR component of the game. The moment that really "clicked" with me was when I first looked around in the cockpit of my spaceship. It was so cool being able to see all around the cockpit and the large, industrial looking base my ship was in. A really cool touch was when looking down I could see my character's legs sitting in the pilot seat. Soon I was launched out into space, given a short time to look out into space at the stars, other ships, and planets. Then I was quickly taken into battle. I had to use the DualShock 4 controller, so the controls (other than being inverted which I hate) were easy to use. It was awesome getting to fly around and look over my shoulders for enemy ships. The game had a feeling of being in a space battle like you've seen in so many movies.

The next demo I tried was the underwater demo called The Deep. In this demo you don't move your character around other than looking around with the headset. You're submerged into a diving cage and with the VR active it almost gave me a feeling like the chair I was sitting in was actually lowering down! This demo was just simply awesome for VR. You could literally look all around you and see sea turtles, fish, and jellyfish swim by. It almost made you want to reach out and touch them. You could even look above and see the surface of the water slowly fade, and look through the bottom of the cage as you continued to descend. Things began to get dark and my diver turned on a flashlight. Suddenly a shark swam by and it was intense to watch the it circle around the cage. Of course the shark attacked the cage and ripped open the door. This almost made me want to back up slightly and turn my head away. The cage then began to raise back to the surface and the demo ended there.

The last demo I played was Battlezone. This was a little similar to EVE: Valkyrie in that you could look all around inside the cockpit my character was sitting in. This time instead of being in a spaceship, I was inside a tank. The demo started out inside a big warehouse building as the tank is picked up and carried out. You learn the controls (mainly shooting) and then you're out onto the battlefield. Again, it was really cool being able to look to my left and right and see enemies coming in during the battle. The game was more a little more on the simplistic side with graphical style, but it was colorful and had a Tron-esque vibe to it. It felt like a fun arcade type game.

As far as the comfort and feel of the PSVR, I was actually surprised at how comfortable the headset was. It didn't feel heavy on my head or face, and it didn't bother resting on my nose. There is plenty of padding on the head strap and goggle section that it doesn't cause any discomfort. The PSVR headset itself feels well built and not like a super cheap device. I'm not really prone to motion sickness, but the last time I did anything with virtual reality was around 1995, so I wasn't sure how I would feel. Thankfully I didn't get any sense of motion sickness from the demos I played.

There's no doubt that VR is a very popular item with sales and pre-orders of the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR doing quite well. Sony already stated back at E3 that the PSVR will launch with more than 50 games supporting it. While I don't think VR will be the end all be all for video games, I absolutely think that VR brings a completely different and highly entertaining level of immersion into a game. You really do feel like you are "in" the game and forget that you're sitting in a chair in your house, or in this particular case the middle of a Best Buy store. I do think that VR is and will continue to be a new, immersive, and innovative part of video games. It will be interesting to see how developers further design and implement VR into games, and it's up to developers to truly bring those core VR experience to life for the public.

Overall I was impressed with the PSVR and thought it was a really fun experience. It definitely got my hype meter going and I can't wait to see what develops and of course, can't wait for the October release. I suggest that if you're remotely interested in the PSVR, see if a Best Buy or GameStop near you is having a demo station. Right now it's limited to the United States and Canada. You can check for locations at this link: 

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-vr/trial/ 


Written by: Alter Ego 83