PSX - PSVR Battle Report
Since I live about 40 minutes from Disneyland, I got a chance to play a lot of upcoming PS4 titles at Sony's grand show this weekend. Overall I had a blast, and everyone should go to one at least once if you have the chance. Here are my impressions of some PSVR games I tried.
For a bit of background, I have a PS4 Pro and a PSVR unit. I have most of the popular VR titles, so I'm already comfortable with the system does. Only Rigs so far is a game me noticeable queasiness (finished the tutorial only), but the rest of the stuff in my library I've been fine (including the new RE VR 1st Hour patch, but I haven't tried DriveClub yet). With that said....
- Gran Turismo Sport VR. This was the second PSVR game I tried at the show, but I want to address it first. After waiting in line for awhile to try it, we are able to see the glorious GT Sport graphics on display in the non-VR cockpits that Sony set up (and I do mean glorious). This game will be a visual wonder. The wait for the VR version was extra long because they only had four of those set ups compared to 12 for non-VR, and almost everyone wanted to try VR.
When it was my turn, I put on the headset and it started up. It is in cockpit view for the entire experience, unlike Trackmania VR (most times). Visually, GT:S VR is soooo disappointing. Jaggies everywhere, and not especially sharp looking, unlike Trackmania VR.
There are no other cars on the road in the demo, so I couldn't check that out, but everything about it was blah. I didn't feel queasy at all, even on the turns. The sense of speed on the straight-aways is weak, and with all the dumb assists turned on, I couldn't get a feel for the realism of its handling. Unless it improves drastically (it was not on PS4 Pro, I'm guessing), I will not get this game primarily for VR. It was my least favorite playing experience at the show.
Farpoint VR
I played Farpoint as soon as the opening conference ended, and I have to say, this game has fantastic potential. It offers a full, arcade-like solo FPS shooting experience with high-tier visuals wrapped up in the immersive greatness of virtual reality.
Besides the "you are there" in the environment wow factor, the first thing I noticed was the weird controls - there is no option to turn! you can freely move forward and back, and you can strafe left or right, but other than turning your head/body, you are facing forward the whole time. I'm not sure if this is how it plays in the final release, but I quickly got used to it, and there was not queasiness whatsoever. There's this one part where you walk alongside a thin edge of a mountain, and I can see some people scared of heights not wanting to look down.
I was able to try the game out using the upcoming light-gun peripheral you guys may have seen. It works just as expected, with all the necessary buttons set in logical spots. It's comfortable to hold, and aiming was very, very smooth.
Farpoint's gameplay is pretty straight-forward... move to the next area and shoot anything that moves with a variety of weapons. One awesome feature is how aiming-down-the-sights is just that with the new gun controller. When I raised it up to my eye while closing the other one, looking through the VR sight that matched the motion literally improved my aiming.
The demo ended with a humongous mega-monster bearing down on me, which suggest that the game will give us some dino-like battle experience that we crave. Overall, this was the best experience I had at the show.
Dino Frontier
This got my vote as the most pleasant surprise at PSX. I would not have waited in line to try it if not for a few positive comments I read in this thread from some who already did. Generally speaking, RTS is not a major genre that I play which is why it did not have my interest, but I'll dabble here and there. The chance to try it for free seemed like a no brainer, and it is now a day one purchase for me.
You are a mayor of a early settler town in the old west that is terrorized by dinosaurs wandering the surrounding wilderness. The perspective is that of a deity in that you float above the entire landscape as if it is played out on your table, but you are actually issuing orders as opposed to impressing them in how omnipotent you are.
In the end it's more accurate to think you are indeed the mayor making the major decisions for the people, like what shops to upgrade and what resources to gather by picking up a citizen and putting him in the right profession hut and/or work area. When there are dinos to capture or kill, you pluck them up again to strategically handle those situations. Both Move controllers are used as input, and it handles perfectly as hands in order to interact with the game, including panning and zooming in and out to see the action up close.
As boring as that seems in text, the VR aspect (along with the charming, cartoon graphics) adds a TON of appeal to the title. And again, I am not a RTS fan and have played plenty of VR games to not be easily impressed by this feature. Get this game!
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I tried some other stuff that I don't own on PSVR but is already available on the PSN store (like Robinson and the new RE demo). No need to add those impressions here. I'll end by adding that I'm disappointed Wipeout was not announced with VR support, but hopefully that changes sometime down the line.
Since I live about 40 minutes from Disneyland, I got a chance to play a lot of upcoming PS4 titles at Sony's grand show this weekend. Overall I had a blast, and everyone should go to one at least once if you have the chance. Here are my impressions of some PSVR games I tried.
For a bit of background, I have a PS4 Pro and a PSVR unit. I have most of the popular VR titles, so I'm already comfortable with the system does. Only Rigs so far is a game me noticeable queasiness (finished the tutorial only), but the rest of the stuff in my library I've been fine (including the new RE VR 1st Hour patch, but I haven't tried DriveClub yet). With that said....
- Gran Turismo Sport VR. This was the second PSVR game I tried at the show, but I want to address it first. After waiting in line for awhile to try it, we are able to see the glorious GT Sport graphics on display in the non-VR cockpits that Sony set up (and I do mean glorious). This game will be a visual wonder. The wait for the VR version was extra long because they only had four of those set ups compared to 12 for non-VR, and almost everyone wanted to try VR.
When it was my turn, I put on the headset and it started up. It is in cockpit view for the entire experience, unlike Trackmania VR (most times). Visually, GT:S VR is soooo disappointing. Jaggies everywhere, and not especially sharp looking, unlike Trackmania VR.
There are no other cars on the road in the demo, so I couldn't check that out, but everything about it was blah. I didn't feel queasy at all, even on the turns. The sense of speed on the straight-aways is weak, and with all the dumb assists turned on, I couldn't get a feel for the realism of its handling. Unless it improves drastically (it was not on PS4 Pro, I'm guessing), I will not get this game primarily for VR. It was my least favorite playing experience at the show.
Farpoint VR
I played Farpoint as soon as the opening conference ended, and I have to say, this game has fantastic potential. It offers a full, arcade-like solo FPS shooting experience with high-tier visuals wrapped up in the immersive greatness of virtual reality.
Besides the "you are there" in the environment wow factor, the first thing I noticed was the weird controls - there is no option to turn! you can freely move forward and back, and you can strafe left or right, but other than turning your head/body, you are facing forward the whole time. I'm not sure if this is how it plays in the final release, but I quickly got used to it, and there was not queasiness whatsoever. There's this one part where you walk alongside a thin edge of a mountain, and I can see some people scared of heights not wanting to look down.
I was able to try the game out using the upcoming light-gun peripheral you guys may have seen. It works just as expected, with all the necessary buttons set in logical spots. It's comfortable to hold, and aiming was very, very smooth.
Farpoint's gameplay is pretty straight-forward... move to the next area and shoot anything that moves with a variety of weapons. One awesome feature is how aiming-down-the-sights is just that with the new gun controller. When I raised it up to my eye while closing the other one, looking through the VR sight that matched the motion literally improved my aiming.
The demo ended with a humongous mega-monster bearing down on me, which suggest that the game will give us some dino-like battle experience that we crave. Overall, this was the best experience I had at the show.
Dino Frontier
This got my vote as the most pleasant surprise at PSX. I would not have waited in line to try it if not for a few positive comments I read in this thread from some who already did. Generally speaking, RTS is not a major genre that I play which is why it did not have my interest, but I'll dabble here and there. The chance to try it for free seemed like a no brainer, and it is now a day one purchase for me.
You are a mayor of a early settler town in the old west that is terrorized by dinosaurs wandering the surrounding wilderness. The perspective is that of a deity in that you float above the entire landscape as if it is played out on your table, but you are actually issuing orders as opposed to impressing them in how omnipotent you are.
In the end it's more accurate to think you are indeed the mayor making the major decisions for the people, like what shops to upgrade and what resources to gather by picking up a citizen and putting him in the right profession hut and/or work area. When there are dinos to capture or kill, you pluck them up again to strategically handle those situations. Both Move controllers are used as input, and it handles perfectly as hands in order to interact with the game, including panning and zooming in and out to see the action up close.
As boring as that seems in text, the VR aspect (along with the charming, cartoon graphics) adds a TON of appeal to the title. And again, I am not a RTS fan and have played plenty of VR games to not be easily impressed by this feature. Get this game!
~~~~
I tried some other stuff that I don't own on PSVR but is already available on the PSN store (like Robinson and the new RE demo). No need to add those impressions here. I'll end by adding that I'm disappointed Wipeout was not announced with VR support, but hopefully that changes sometime down the line.
