Picked up a PlayStation VR this week. I've been closely following VR from the start but this is my first hands-on experience with a real HMD.
First impressions: the headset itself is extremely comfortable and well made, but the screen deserves to be a higher resolution than it is. I've only tried cardboard and Gear VR and this is (no surprise) significantly better than both. There's no hassle in passing the headset around between multiple people too, it's very quick and easy to get the lenses in focus.
It's 'only' 1080p however which is just about the minimum for VR - you can see individual pixels and distant objects can sometimes blur to shit depending on the game. The resolution isn't a deal breaker but it's a noticeable compromise, and with such an expensive piece of hardware I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a bit more.
It comes with a generous sixteen demos, of those the most interesting was probably Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and Here They Lie. Rush of Blood is just a rail shooter (literally, you're on a roller coaster) but the added immersion of VR, seeing your guns and physical moving them goes a long way in improving the experience even compared to light gun shooters, with added little nuances like having to physically move to dodge oncoming obstacles. It's really fun. I've never been a big proponent of motion control, but here it feels right.
Here They Lie is one of the few games in the lot with full analogue movement. This one got bad reviews largely because it makes everyone motion sick but I had no issue with the demo and actually like the VR implementation much more than Resident Evil 7's.
On that note, I've been playing Resident Evil 7. It's great. Feels like a very solid middle ground between RE1 and RE4 with enough new ideas to seem fresh.
The VR implementation on the other hand is a bit disappointing and I'll focus on that for this post. I'll just list some comparisons between what I feel this game does wrong and how Here They Lie did it better.
1. Turning - in RE7 you can use incremental snap-turning or smooth turning like a regular FPS, the former is extremely jarring and immersion breaking and the later makes me rapidly more nauseous the longer I use it, with the added effect of limiting the value of physically turning my head and thus undermining the VR.
Here They Lie still has incremental turning but with a nice fade-out fade-in instead of an instant snap which is much easier to look at, and has the added feature of head-turning, where your character's body slowly turns the direction you're facing while you walk. So you never have to use the snap turning outside of situations where you need to do a quick 180 and run away. I'm hoping all locomotive VR games have this in future.
2. Body - in regular RE7 Ethan has a full body that you can look down and see, and Here They Lie is the same, but when playing VR mode Ethan is reduced to a pair of floating hands and forerms that are once again jarring and immersion breaking every time you see them. It doesn't help that seeing hands you can't control is inherently weird in VR. Here They Lie has a full body in VR and it doesn't cause any issue.
3. Flashlight - a relatively small thing, but both games feature a flashlight. In RE7 it's automatic and you can't turn it on or off, despite some of the ''flashlight off'' areas being extremely dark and some ''flashlight on'' areas being blinding. Add the snap turning to that and you have moments where you're squinting at something far away, then tap right and suddenly you're having your retinas scorched because you're staring at a bright surface with your bright flashlight. And on top of that it's awkwardly attached to your head , so you can't just shine it away from you. You're literally forced to use it when the game arbitrarily decides. It's not even noticeable when playing the game normally but it's a horrendous choice for a VR game.
in Here They Lie you also have a flashlight, but you can turn it on and off at any time, it's in your hand rather than on your head and it's loose so you can move it around and aim it with the dualshock's motion, it's a really intuitive method and works great.
Lastly, the cutscenes switch between flat 2D scenes and full VR, and once again it's jarring as hell. You can also move your head away from Ethan's position in the scripted VR sequences, so for example a character slashes Ethan's face but it doesn't accurately line up with where the player's head actually is. The end result has you (me) wondering what the hell is meant to be happening far too often in the scripted parts. I don't know why they don't restrict VR movement for those parts.
The graphics take a serious hit in VR mode as well. It's still an interesting experience and immersive to just walk around in the Baker house but I can't imagine playing the whole game that way, there's too many missteps and I have to constantly wonder if this is a better experience or not. In fairness there's two whole pages of VR options and trying to find the right combo has made it easier to enjoy in VR mode, but for me at least the right options aren't there at all.
RE7 and PSVR seems like an ideal match but after playing I reckon the game wasn't made for VR until late in development, and then adapted to suit.
Ultimately VR is still in its infancy (hopefully - provided it doesn't die out like motion control and 3D TV's) and has a lot of issues yet to sort out.
Vehicular games (Driveclub, Battle Tanks and the mecha one, RIGS) are near enough perfect already, but more traditional movement based games have a long way to go.
I have a lot of respect for what VR tech can do compared to previous gimmicks, and it'll be a huge shame if all it ever amounts to is driving games, rail shooters and hour long ''experiences''.
Pic related is the before and after images in the manual, illustrating the ungodly amount of wires that come with this thing. That 'processor unit' is loud as balls on it's own btw, and the hdmi passes from the ps4 through that to the TV so it needs to be turned on even if you're not using the VR.
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