I finally caved to boredom last night and picked up a PSVR2, here are my initial impressions after only an hour or so of use. For reference I normally game on a 65" LG OLED and I previously owned the PSVR, Quest, Quest 2.
Build Quality and Setup
The PSVR itself is great quality and feels very much the first PSVR, all of the materials feel great and the controllers again are really nice. Coming recently from the Quest 2 I found PSVR2 to feel a bit heavy on my head. To keep the headset in that sweet spot for clarity I had to have the band nice and snug so that it didn't move, which did put a bit of pressure on my head after a while. Setup was nice and straightforward however the first attempt failed as the controllers had very little charge out of the box and couldn't get through the setup process, so I abandoned and charged them for a bit. Weirdly you only get one charging cable so I had to plug my second controller into my Series X with another USB-C cable I had. Some sort of split charging cable would have been nice but then you wouldn't have bought the official charging base right?
Image Quality
Once the headset was on and I was at the PS5 dashboard I must admit my first impressions of the image quality weren't great. The first thing I noticed was that the clarity wasn't great, or rather, less clear than I was expecting for these high resolution panels. I guess you could call it screen door effect or speckly? Not
bad as such but worse than I was expecting. Also the sweet spot for image sharpness seems to be very small and the slightest headset movements resulted in blurry text. I don't remember the Quest 2 being affected as much in this aspect. I do however appreciate the controls for adjusting according to your eyes, that seemed really good and I will see if I can fine tune them further.
Audio
I love the included earphones design, very nice and neat. Sound quality however didn't impress me and it sounded a bit, flat? Saying that I am used to gaming on a Dolby Atmos system but the 3D audio didn't do a lot for me. Will have to investigate further. Also the rubber tipped earphones never fit my right ear and always just fall out! Not the PSVR's fault I am deformed I guess!
Games
The first game I played was GT7 and yep, it was as awesome as people were saying. Being IN the cockpit in such a convincing way transforms the game and I was able to judge my corners/speed far better. It felt crazy to glance at the the wing mirrors and rear view mirror quickly just like in a real car. Also glancing to your side as you pass cars. Genuinely great and a perfect example of VR done very right. Next I fired up Tetris Effect Connected and couldn't work out how to play in VR, then I realised I had the PS4 version, doh! That was basically it for the evening and today I will try RE8 and more GT7. At this point I'd also like to say that I wish Xbox did VR just so that I could play FH5 in the same way as GT7, it would be incredible.
Verdict
I initially held off buying PSVR2 because I feel I am over VR in general in its current form. I have no intention of supporting Meta any further with the Quest 3 and I feel that I have experienced all that VR currently has to offer. The PSVR2 is a nice piece of kit but unfortunately I don't think it's going to change my mind. I don't miss coming away from a gaming session with flat hair, feeling sweaty and queasy. I also think it's overpriced but so applaud Sony for continuing to bring VR to the masses (well the ones who can afford to sped so much on an accessory). For me though I'll spend a bit of time with the experiences it has to offer and then send it back within the returns window...or will it change my mind in the next few days.