The PSVR2 Experience

[SauRoNZA]

So I was a launch day adopter of the original PSVR system having demo'd it beforehand at one of these mall expo things and being blown away.

I was very lucky to have gotten it on eBucks for 40% off at the time which made it pretty much free and that somewhat camouflaged the blow that the protect always felt somewhat unfinished, or rather a parts bin exercise to get rid of old stock Sony was sitting on rather that proper planning and then along with that also just a number of truly bizarre design decisions.

Besides the fact that I had pretty bad mura effect (a permanent sort of dirty/vaseline like layer caused by the organic nature of OLED) I needed to learn to look through, there was the annoyances of shortcuts and design flaws like having the MASSIVE connector box on the headset wire that would always be pulling at it when standing or hooking on stuff when sitting. Then there was the entire HDMI connector box abomination which happened due to a lack of foresight when designing the PS4 but the real failure here was not addressing this when the PS4 Pro came about. Then of course there was the real parts bin antics with the Move controllers and the Camera re-sure which meant it was always going to be a half-arsed thing straight out of the gate compared to the competition. When it worked it worked, but it was so finicky and sensitive with light in the room or reflections.

In the early days there were never any real games and just a bunch of hashed together tech demos and while it was awesome for a social experience when watching other people play VR for the first time longevity was an issue and so I ended up selling it off when I could basically get more for it than I paid so it was a win win.

Needless to say it was with some trepidation that I ordered the PSVR2 for Christmas this year, by and large because my kids are very keen for it and that gives me a good excuse to justify it to myself. Then I got scammed on my first purchase and almost took that as a sign to skip the hardware, but in the last few months I've bought a couple of PSVR2 games on special so I had already made some investment and sunk cost fallacy and all that.

Usually I'm the eternally patient person who will buy stuff months in advance and leave it in the cupboard to go under the tree at Christmas, but partly because of all the drama I figured let me just make sure the thing actually works and also do all the updates and things so that on Christmas Day it's just plug and play and the kids can have a bit of fun without bouncing off the walls while I try to figure stuff out.

What's in the box?

So the first surprise is actually how compact it is. It came inside a larger box but that already felt so small that I wondered if they sent the right thing and immediately checked before letting the courier go. Sony really needs to up their game in letting you feel special about buying their **** off expensive hardware because this thing isn't cheap, costing more than the console itself and three times more than the previous one. Not to venture into fanboy territory but they can really learn a thing or two from Apple and Microsoft in just making something feel as expensive as it is instead of the ludicrously cheap ass packaging they use and the complete lack of ceremony in opening their products. I mean it doesn't even have easy peel stickers, you have to take a knife to them to get them off and then it's just thing wrapped in foam sheets. I know it's a silly, once off thing, but when you've just burned 15k on a device would it be too much to ask to put in a funky little leaflet or give the box a nice pull tab or something?

So it's literally the headset, two controllers and some ultra shitty stereo earbuds nobody should ever use as well as a USB-C cable. Now this is where I feel Sony is being very cheeky selling the charge dock separately because it's pretty much essential to have but at the very least put in a double-headed USB-C cable so you can charge both at once.

On that notion I also think they could have done better than USB-C. Sure proprietary connectors are an issue and USB-C is universal but I can't help but feel some sort of magnetic lock in system could have worked better here. Especially considering the Charge Dock comes with these little USB-C magnet connectors you need to insert to make use of I feel they could have just built that right into the units and then had the cable attach magnetically and achieved the same thing with the dock. It would offer more longevity and cut out any issues with potential wear over time..more on that later but it's my biggest concern with this whole thing.

Speaking of the charge dock a lot of people complained saying not to buy the official Sony one as it's hard to connect the controllers and hard to know when they are charging but honestly I don't know what these people are doing. You put them on the thing, the white lights go on and the PS5 shows you they are charging so I don't know you can get this wrong.

Syncing and Updates...with wires...are we not in 2023?

So finally we get to plug it in and make magic happen right? NOPE! Headset is plugged in and immediately updates no biggie. Sense controllers however need to be plugged in and then you need to manually sync them to the console to pair them, but the part that confused the issue there is that they want you to press the PS button which is very flat almost embossed type of thing that doesn't feel very tactile at all. The actual problem was that the controllers were dead as dead can be and so needed a few minutes of charge before they would actually be responsive but there is nothing that tells you this and so I was left thinking I had received a dud.

Eventually they paired and I was then told sorry you can't setup the thing because our batteries are flat and need to charge. R15k later and you can't use the thing because it's flat...let me not go into how Xbox got it right with batteries...

Anyway plonk them on the charge dock and go have a beer and touch grass or some **** and come back half an hour later. Try the entire thing again and it's forcing me to plug them into USB-C to update and I'm getting very annoyed because they are sitting right there on the charge dock so why can't they update only for me to eventually realise but hang on the charge dock isn't connected to the PS5 console at all, it has it's own power supply and is therefore independent and these things need to be physically wired to update. Which is now a massive finicky pain in the ass because you need to take the little USB-C adaptors out and then plug one Sense controller in before swopping to the other and so forth.

Why on earth can't the bloody thing update wirelessly with enough power? I know Sony took forever and a day to get this right with the normal controllers but you would think it would just be there from day one with the new stuff. But assuming some technical reason for it...why not just make the Charge Dock plug directly into the PS5 and solve two problems in one shot? Sometimes I honestly wonder about these guys and their complete lack of foresight for customer experience.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Finally we can start!

It's now more than an hour later after I opened the box and at this stage I'm more than a little irritated with the entire thing and my feelings of trepidation have just increased ten fold that I'm about to get go into full blown buyer's remorse mode.

First things first you hold up the headset and do a brightness check of the room before it lets you continue and then guides you step by step on how to put the headset on. Very oddly they want you to put the stereo earphones in first which makes no sense to me as surely that's the last thing you want to do and most people will likely use other headphone setups anyway.

Much like he PSVR1 you have a telescoping system on the front that slides in and out a few centimetres and then the headband that sits on your forehead and then had a twist and tighten system around the back. It will take some time to get the groove of this but the idea is you put the "frame" itself on your head first and then you just pull the telescopic part in and adjust it for distance to your face and nose.

The major change from the PSVR1 now is that the pupil adjustment is a hardware wheel sitting on the top left side which sounds frivolous but previously this was software controlled and it makes the biggest difference to focus which comes into play very quickly when swopping between different people. It's pretty easy to get a near as perfect focus just by hand but if you need to you can popup the calibration menu with two button pressed and do it like that, whereas before this was a thing hidden multiple menus deep as they pretty much attached it to your user profile on the console and seemingly didn't consider more than one person would use it. The benefit however with that setup was that if someone used their own profile on the console it would always be setup for them. I prefer it with the physical adjustment as I'll likely be using the PSVR2 socially much more often than I need to adjust it for myself.

Gone is the crappy camera on top of your TV that is tracking your headset and instead it's all inside and outside of the headset, which means you can see the real world outside with a quick touch of an oddly soft button that feels like it will break prematurely on the bottom right of the goggles. This is massively useful for finding and putting on the controllers, which is quite a trick with the mandatory and definitely always required straps, but also for setting up your play area.

You are prompted to do a scan up, down and all around and then you can edit that by adjusting the grid accordingly for things it may have detected wrong. I didn't spend too much time with this but I feel like some "presets" could have been nice here to switch between different setups for sitting or standing and so on. Maybe this does exist and I just need to spend more time with it but it felt like I needed to redo this or switch to the "Temporary Play Area" every time I deviated from the initial setup. The temporary play area just puts a very small zone around you can the moment you breach it shows you the real world which works but also causes some issues in some games which I'll get into later.

At this point with the thing finally on my face I'm starting to get a real feel for it and any deep concern is washing away as I am guided through the controllers and getting a real feel for them while doing the Play Area setup. I don't have the sense of vaseline I need to learn to "look through" as I did with the PSVR1 and my glasses are also a non-issue (apart from forgetting about them every single damn time I take it off). General comfort is great and I'm sure in time you'll find exactly how to go about getting it perfect every time, but most of all the wire coming out of your head is amazingly transparent.

By transparent I mean you forget it exists. Unlike the constant reminder on the PSVR1 (1st gen, I believe it's better on 2nd gen) it's long enough and light enough and just a single cable with a USB-C connector to the front of the console meaning you can disconnect and pack it away quite easily. Again I feel Sony could have gone one step further here and put some magnetic quick release system in place because while it is very long there is always the risk of it hooking or someone tripping on it and pulling the console along with it and either breaking the port of the cable itself. Which is right back to my concern on longevity, the cable is wired right into the headset and cannot be removed and there is also nothing that allows it to pivot or adjust in any way. On top of that it doesn't do anything to keep it from tangling and it becomes a mess pretty quickly. I can't help but worry that this will be the primary failure point of the entire unit and it should have been braided at the very least and had some kind of mechanism to allow it to release as well as move around.

I've not used the cinema mode at all, which is where any normal non-VR content is just displayed in a massive 2D fake screen in front of you but overall clarity is much improved and while I won't go so far as to say it's crystal clear it's not the case as with the PSVR1 where it was obviously low resolution and terrible. In this case it's more about the adjustment to having two massive screens bolted onto your face and given a couple of minutes you quickly forget that's even the case. I'm not about to throw out my TV to use the PSVR2 instead, or even play non-VR content on the massive screen, but I could see someone who maybe has a smaller setup potentially favouring this way of playing regular games.

 

[SauRoNZA]

But enough faffing, where games?

Luckily I had the foresight to redeem the Horizon : Call of The Mountain code that came in the box first thing before I did anything else so in the time I spent charging and updating and all that **** it had finished downloading so I jumped straight into it...and holy **** I didn't even have the headphones on for the Spatial Audio and within the first minute I was physically covered in goose bumps from the sheer visceral insanity of suddenly being IN Horizon Zero Dawn and having machines run past me and a Glinthawk swooping down from above me.

Typical nerd I immediately got stuck in the the fact that I could release my fingers and actually see it happen in front of me. Sure it only picks up your thumb, forefinger and middle finger and then kind of bullshits the others but it's tough to explain how much immersion this adds to the entire experience and immediately you forget about the floating hands being disconnected and your body being invisible because of how this trick plays on your sense of reality.

PSVR1 you put on the headset and it was immediately obvious you were in a fake world and then you played for 15-20min and then at some point you would just adjust and forget there is a reality. Your brain kind of accepts the crappy graphics and the weird motion and you kind of disconnect. Well that happens almost immediately now, between the far superior graphic fidelity and the high frame rate coupled with motion controls that are rock solid and also feel much more natural in your hands your brain very accept your new fake reality and you become entirely immersed...well until you need to run by waving your hands around like an idiot that is.

Climbing up a ladder is no big deal...climbing across a chasm with a river below you is an entirely different story and brings the world of Horizon to a whole new light very quickly. The PSVR2 scans your floor when you first set it up and even lets you calibrate it for accuracy, which means you feel like yourself in stature in game but also you can bend down and reach for stuff on the floor and have a true sense of heigh which is not something I ever considered before.

Horizon did offer two control styles at startup and I'll go back to those to test them out but I suspect having conventional analog stick controls for movement will be the better way to go about things that going all motion. People have forgotten that the biggest failure point of the PSVR1 was the fact that there were no analog sticks on the motion controllers which means you either had to use a DS4 or do some weird ****, well now you have a ton more options to make things work.

At this point I called my wife and said you better come try this, because we are on a completely different level than ever before. Now she's a little motion sensitive and while not so bad that she can't do VR she'd usually do 15-20min and tap out. She played Horizon for an hour and had a little vertigo vibe here and there but even she said it wasn't the headset itself but rather just the intense experience and didn't make her feel sick as such just the same way she would have felt in those actual situations. She'd probably have carried on if I didn't stop her and say let's try something else.

We switched to Synth Riders which is new to me but competition for Beat Saber which I've spent quite a bit of time with before. I can happily say while they are similar it's well worth having both as they play quite differently. Synth Riders essentially just puts "notes" on the screen linked to the music in various ways and you just smack them or glide along them following their trajectory and it's pretty easy to pick up and play as there aren't buttons but just actions. It's an insane workout and definitely a standing game, but what makes it great is that the controllers are ninja accurate. The PSVR1 often blipped out with these kinds of games where you knew it wasn't your fault but rather the technology failing. I read a few people complained they would knock their controllers together when doing some of the combo actions which use both hands but I didn't experience that at all.

While I wanted to have a look at Resident Evil Village we've set that aside for NYE when some friends are coming over so didn't want to spoil the experience before then, so I fired up Drums Rock which is exactly what it sounds like. You play rock music on virtual drums (oddly without the bass drum but that makes sense I guess) based on the usual Guitar Hero/Rock Band line grid flying towards you puzzle pattern kind of thing.

This was the only fail I had experienced so far and I can mostly attribute it to the game itself. Of course I did this was sitting and had a bit of a fiddle to get the Play Area to change/reset accordingly and maybe that was causing some of the issues as the barrier kept popping up in my view but the biggest issue I think was the lack of adjustment for the drums in individual spacing and height. I kept failing at hitting the two cymbals together by either missing entirely or hitting one of the other drums because they are too close.

The game also has the odd choice of needing to hold the trigger to keep hold of the drumstick which I hope you can flip around as it makes it unnecessarily taxing. It is quite a lot of fun to throw and catch a drumstick in VR though as a silly tech demo thing. I played around in the settings but while I could adjust the height it adjusted them all together and I just couldn't find an option that felt natural and realistic. As someone who has an electronic drum kit in the house the fact I couldn't make it feel like a real drum kit with someone as simply as adjusting the virtual drums really broke the entire experience and it's so easy to fix and make it better. I'll obviously come back and give it another go after Christmas as I also expect the kids to enjoy this one the most.


Sony, you money hungry bastards.

So one thing I simply cannot let go is this bullshit that PSVR1 games don't work on PSVR2 right out of the box no patch required. This is literally to me Sony just giving their customers the finger once again as they do so often because it's not something that isn't achievable it just requires the tiniest bit of effort on their part. I have a large library of PSVR1 games that are simply there sitting dead in the water that cannot be used at all.

The saddest of all is that Sony aren't even making the effort with their very OWN games like Astro Bot Rescue Mission which I know my son is looking forward to as probably the primary motivation for getting PSVR2 as it's punted so much in Astro's Playroom.

To add insult to injury a number of games that do support the patches are now forcing you to do the PS5 Upgrade to make them work with PSVR2 and sure it's a R100 here and a R150 there but come on I've just spent FIFTEEN THOUSAND RAND with you, yet again against my better judgement, surely you could just upgrade my existing library for free because of that.

She be pricey!

Beyond the lack of PSVR1 content working on PSVR2 this is also a very dedicated device that only works on the PS5. Further to this there appears to be no way to consume non-game content like movies or some of the interactive experiences like you had on the PSVR1 which makes it feels like an extremely limited device for the huge amount of money that it costs.

The cost is justified in the hardware that it's packing but really it only goes so far. The fact that Sony could also easily make it work with other devices even just in cinematic mode is yet another way they spite their customers. They aren't subsidising this hardware, it wouldn't hurt them to not actively block the device from being used on PC/Mac or even your phone/tablet or even for once be the good guys and actually build the driver packs to make that work.

Other than the headband getting in the way and making it uncomfortable to lie down I could see myself using the PSVR2 as screen for my phone or tablet to watch movies on the "big screen" or even to play games.

You certainly get what you pay for and I'm glad Sony didn't compromise in this regard and offer an inferior product to meet a price point rather than the top-tier product this is, but I can't help but feel they could be doing more especially as a massive media company themselves and even if it's only on the PS5 there is massive scope for doing much more non-game type content which is simply dead right now.

More to follow

I've packed it all away and sealed it in the box for Christmas but I'm sure I'll have many more in depth thoughts in the weeks to come.

All in all I don't have any of the buyer's remorse I had with the PSVR1 and I'm glad I pulled the trigger, now to just find the time to really get into some proper games. At the same time some of the biggest joys of VR are seeing others experience it for the first time so I suspect plenty of social engagements in the new few months.

 

[Mirai]

LOL, they didn't develop their PSVR2 to let people use it for other things and not buy games from them. They make more profit on the software side.

Sony actually had products which could be hooked up to HDMI slots, with various devices, for watching movies, namely the HMZ-T1 and T2. These were never really popular.

I suppose it's the same as with Apple. I would like to be able to not have the Macbook power on by merely opening it or touching a random key, but I suppose that's too much too. Just learn to use the devices the way Sony wants you to use them. Sony knows best. Cheers.

 

[SauRoNZA]

So I fired up Humanity tonight without the VR since it now lives under the Christmas tree until the end of the weekend.

It’s such an odd contrast to do it reverse for a change where I played the game in VR first and now the “flat” version afterwards and it is incredible how much harder it is to place the dog for the sudden lack of spatial awareness.

Not even once did I let the dog fall in VR. Now I moer off everything all the time.

But really an excellent game even in normal mode and also free on PS+. If someone had simply pitched it to me as Lemmings in steroids I wouldn't have ignored it this long.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Having my kids experience VR for the first time yesterday made it absolutely worth the exorbitant cost.

I was most worried that my 5 year old wouldn’t be able to use the thing at all because his head may be too small for the entire design but it was actually a non-issue.

We didn’t try to do the pupil alignment for him just because of the logistics of setup, but will get round to that even though I’m pretty sure the minimum setting is all that will work for a long while, but still want to see just how far off it is.

One really annoying thing is that for reasons I can’t fathom Sony decides to block the Social Screen (as in the normal TV) during many parts of the setup which makes it extremely hard to guide someone who isn’t super familiar with what to do where and it likely already overwhelmed, so I ended up taking the headset doing the thing, giving it back, taking it again etc which could easily be avoided.

This is less of an issue handing it over to someone on your own profile, it’s just a problem when setting it up on a new profile that hasn’t done it before.

My daughter is mad for Horizon so wanted to try that first of course but for some reason even though the Social Screen border was there the content was blanked out so it was very frustrating for her and for us to try and help her. I couldn’t quick fix it and didn’t want to restart everything but it’s annoying that things just don’t work when they are supposed to.

I see no reason to ever block the Social Screen, unless you don’t want the TV to come on at all which is easily achieved just starting the control from the VR Sense controllers.

I specifically chose to have them playing sitting down just to get used to the experience first, but they both complained about the border at times, which I agree seems way too sensitive on its default “Medium” setting so I’ve actually changed it to Low now. Presumably this is a liability thing and Sony likely going by the average play area size and being safe.

All in all they were both very keen to try it again and didn’t suffer any ill effects from it. You know when coins are being flipped for who goes first the interest is there.

I wanted to put the grand parents in the thing but with the alcohol going strong over Christmas I thought better of it.

 

[SauRoNZA]

My kids went on an early morning hike with their aunt and so I was awake bright and early and with my leg being hammered from cooking all day yesterday I figured it’s time for a sit down VR experience.

It seems once your Play Area is setup properly for your profile it’s a reasonably easy business of setting a “temporary area” when sitting down and just getting a ring around your immediate person.

Only problem is this doesn’t seem adjustable in any way and even after adjusting the warning area to Low I’m not sure if it blocks tracking or just pops up in your vision.

Decided to go without my glasses because as someone with astigmatism as long as I’m looking “through” at a longer distance like when I’m riding/driving and not something like a screen in front of me I tend to be just fine and also don’t get headaches easily.

This worked pretty well because while it sounds silly with the screens right up against your eye balls, you actually look "over there" while in VR so your focus is entirely different.

Results will certainly vary from one person to the next depending on their optical issues, but for me an almost two hour session now had no ill effects so it’s worth a try and I’ll likely go without glasses if I remember to.

Moss

So this is the game my son played right after Drumsrock as a filler for Sony’s failure to provide the Astro game on PSVR2.

Ironically this was a PSVR1 game that has been updated for PSVR2 and the second iteration won VR game of the year but I wanted to start at the beginning.

It’s essentially a puzzle platformer narrated inside an interactive storybook so it’s very kid friendly, especially since there is no reading required.

Yesterday when he was playing he got stuck on some of the things and I tried to guide him via the Social Screen but after trying it myself this morning I realise just how important the 3D spatial awareness is to figure out what to do.

The start of the game reminds me a lot of Ori in setting, maybe just not as colourful.

It’s the first time I’ve actually noticed the headset vibration and it added a massive sense of tension right in the beginning as you start out.

Basically you are this god figure that can interact with the world but at the same time you control this Mouse. So everything consists of these platformer set pieces where you alter the world in different ways and then navigate through it with the mouse.

Because it’s essential side scrolling you are very much aware of the three dimensional depth of space and things more towards and away from you are so much more pronounced.

When you get to the first town area it feels incredibly alive with other mouse characters walking about and doing their thing and the sounds of the forest in the background.

Later on you suddenly realise how big everything else is as you’ve just been focused on this miniature world. It’s very similar to Grounded in that way and you have this moment of looking around going oh wow I’m just a little mouse in a huge world.

So this being a sit down experience it’s very chilled out and as such you have time to notice things.


One of those things I noticed is a very weird “twitch” as I move my head off centre some of the time which can be a bit nauseating when you take note of it. I’m not sure if it’s this game or if I’ve just not noticed it before, but that being said I was also playing with all the windows wide open so maybe there a light/brightness issue with the tracking.

Maybe it’s the chair I was sitting in which I quickly realised is not ideal for VR. It’s a softish, deep sitting, high arm rest almost recliner vibe and I especially had some trouble when needing to pull things up out of the water from low down as if my head and the lowest point for the controllers was too close together.

I think next time I’ll try the more rigid wingback chair I had used before when playing the PSVR1. The nice thing is now that you don’t need to face the TV to play you can happily have a chair off to the side to play VR and not infringe too much on your normal seating arrangement.

An hour in playing this I had no real comfort concerns. The PlayStation Wireless headset even wasn’t sweaty and the headband also does a great job of absorbing pressure.

I can say the VR Sense controllers don’t fit perfectly into my hands and I want to say maybe they are too small for my liking and I would have liked them more chunky. Obviously this would always be the case to cater for as many as possible and I find tightening the straps as close as possible also makes it feel less like it’s slipping out of your hands.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Walking Dead : Saints and Sinners

Now I’m not a big horror game fan and through my entire life they’ve pretty much always been coop experiences, from playing Resident Evil on the PSOne on a tiny TV with a friend or doing the same with Silent Hill later on.

If it’s not full blown coop then at the very least it’s a case of someone else watches and comments while I do it.

I bought this one very much as a showcase title as it’s rated as one of the best VR games and my wife being a huge fan of the series I figured would would alternate and play through this together.

Now my leg is so ****ed standing is not an option. The games starts off with a very confusing thing saying press *something* to switch between standing and seated…I think…it buggered off so fast never to be seen again I’ll have to Google it after writing this.

So let’s assume it was actually in seated mode, there’s nowhere to check this and in retrospect I shouldn’t have just force quit the game and restarted.

Anyway that aside things kick off with a dark room floating menu tutorial because this is a VERY interactive game. As in everything is carried on your body, you need to reach down to your hips for a knife on one side and a gun on the other and then grab and hold it with the inner middle finger button (L1/R1). Similarly you reach over your shoulder for an axe, left chest area for a flashlight and right chest area for your journal which is also your settings screen.

Then your inventory is over your left shoulder, but you need to interact with this using your right hand to take stuff out and then to heal you literally take a bandage and wind it around your arm.

I don’t mind any of this but it can be a little overwhelming all at once but I’m sure in time it becomes natural. You can look down and see most of these as well so it’s not a case of needing to memorise all of it.

It did immediately make me think this is not going to work well being seated, but against as said above a more rigid seating position will also go a long way.

Once you know all this you enter the typical camp tutorial vibe taking you through the motions.

Now the game is an FPS but you don’t have full camera control. What I mean by this is your “window” is a kind of snap system I guess of 45-degrees or so, maybe more in which you can then look around with headtracking. It seems odd at first but I can only think this is done to keep motion sickness at bay and after a few minutes it’s quickly forgotten.

What is not quickly forgotten is that actually stabbing a zombie in the head with a knife and feeling it get stuck and then having to pull it out again…is an entirely different vibe in VR land. I can see how some people would eject from the experience right here, because it is incredibly hardcore and visceral and realistic on a level you’ve never experienced before.

If the idea of zombies always seemed like fun and games to you before…that is going to change very quickly.

Next up I had to take the axe with both hands and murder some more undead. This is where the seated experience went a bit loopy and things didn’t quite track as they should have. Impressively though it felt perfectly natural grabbing the axe with both hands and it’s a very weird mind trick when you think about it as your hands just float in the air and don’t even knock into each other.

Picking up a gun was next on the menu of course and this works by taking a magazine off your belt and loading it into the gun and then cocking it as well. Amazingly you don’t knock the Sense controllers together when doing this even though it feels like you should be but it’s a very satisfying exercise.

And then you point and shoot and it goes where you told it to go and another zombie dies.

Tutorial done the game starts and it’s not quite as eerie as I expected it to be but I only played a few minutes before I had to run.

Again this was a PSVR1 title that got updated to PSVR2 but even so it looks great and I’m keen to get into it.

 

[lkpat]

VR has to be the most unsociable invention next to the mobile phone.

 

[Kaapie]

The more posts about on hand experience I read, the more I WANT!!!!

 

[SauRoNZA]

I must say I’m struggling a bit with Gran Turismo both as a game in general and then as a VR experience as well.

A little history

Now before someone calls me an Xbox fanboy let me say that I’m a petrolhead first before I’m even a gamer and I was there when Gran Turismo 1 came out and subsequently Gran Turismo 2 and spent hundreds of hours playing each.

Gran Turismo 3 (alongside MGS2 of course) was the game that made me buy a PS2 and probably the one I played the most of them all.

GT4 was a bit more of the same and came too late on the generation and I played a lot of it but nothing like the ones before.

In between Forza 1 came along which was interesting but certainly not stealing the crown.

Forza 2 however shifted the balance somewhat and saw me spending a lot of time within but still enjoying GT as a similar but different game.

By the time Forza 3 came along I feel that was the turning point that simply eclipsed Gran Turismo and added to that Gran Turismo 5 was very late to the console generation.

When Gran Turismo 6 eventually came around the “Japanese” nature of it was just too much me. The menus and everything about it just felt like work and when you finally got to actual racing you always started at the back and every race just the same and physics was weird. Cars had no weight to them and felt like matchbox cars and had magical braking abilities and it all was just very arcade except for being on a track.

Forza of course split into Motorsport and Horizon which gave you options depending on how you felt at any given point and this made Gran Turismo feel like the weird halfway house except for one thing it kept music in the track-focused game.

The non-VR problems

So much like with previous games the menu system and the entire way the game operates seems to be anti-progression.

These talking head idiots who don’t actually talk but just put overlapping text on screen add absolutely nothing but frustration and annoyance and taking just this one thing away or the option to turn it off may help it all along.

Then forcing them on you makes it even worse with this weird Café and food menu bullshit. I had no idea how to make progress because where you expect it to live…under the career is instead in this Café crap.

Then you get to licenses and some other idiot keeps talking to you and then besides adding a whole bunch of confirmations for no good reason. And it’s not once…it’s over and over again. To make it worse there is no “next” thing button but instead a back and forth across the same menus. The UX or complete lack there of is actually shocking.

I hate to make the comparison but Forza on the other hand takes you one a journey of progress that keeps you playing and going from the one thing into the next seamlessly while treating you as an adult and doesn’t need to hold your hand the whole damn time.

It’s just a terrible and annoying experience that makes me want to put it down not get deeper into it.

Then we get to the gameplay. I realise a lot of this is about not wanting to alienate a fan base, but as someone who has actually spent a bit of time on actual tracks and driven a great many cars over the years this is nothing of a “real driving simulator”. It’s still the same thing with weightless matchbox cars with magical levels of grip and incredibly turning circles with this weird disconnect between how far the wheel turns and the actual wheels steer.

Yes Forza isn’t a super simulator either, but at the very least they actual feel like cars.

The VR problems

So okay I hate the gameplay but maybe the VR aspect is enough to keep me playing.

Well…the way they’ve implemented it has lead to the first PSVR2 game actually making me nauseous because instead of being VR all the time it’s 2D most of the time and then very last minute as you are about to start the race it throws you into the VR mode in half a second before you take control and you just want to eject.

Then it takes about a lap to settle down and you acclimatise to it, which means it’s alright when you start doing longer races but when you just began the game it’s this constant back and forth in and out experience and I can’t understand why it’s not just all in VR all the time.

When you are finally driving there are no controls to setup where/how you are sitting in the car. Some cars are better than others but it means most of the time I’m sitting on a position I would never sit in an actual car which makes the entire perspective feel wrong.

Taking it further when you run off the road slightly there is no feedback from either the controller or the headset to give you any indication you are on the curb or running wide, which is a quintessential part of racing an actual car as it’s so noisy you can’t hear **** and need to feel everything.

So ultimately the VR factor which is supposed to make it all feel very realistic actually does exactly the opposite and makes it feel more like a toy car.

Then add the visual disconnect of the steering wheel turning into seeming infinity and it all just gets very strange.

I would like to have said the VR-factor made it worth playing for me, but the reality is I would have refunded it if I could.

By far the worst PSVR2 experience.