Well, I picked up the PSVR Move bundle for $249 yesterday and tinkered with the demo ver.2 disc…
My first thoughts, above all others, is to say thank you to @KevinC and others that helped push me over the edge. I play games. Lots and lots of games. I was jealous of neighborhood kids that had Colecovisions and Ataris. I begged my parents for quarters at pizza parlors. I collected systems and carts as I aged. I hauled computers to Doom LAN parties. I’ve built beefy gaming PCs for years. I have closets stuffed with crazy Kickstarter board games. I’ve been to niche arcade games like pods. And…I was not prepared for what I experienced last night.
The Battlezone demo was a treat. The things I read about videos not doing justice to the VR experience were way, WAY more correct than I ever could have imagined. YouTube cannot help or aid a buying decision here. PSVR was not only visually and auditorily rich, but I was not expecting how much depth there would be or how varied the lighting would seem. How the experience…feels. The 3D of movies or even rides like Star Tours now feels “meh”.
As I sat in the Battlezone tank cockpit before launch, I was marveling at how it looked like I was in some electronic pod with a closed shell around the outside of the tank. It wasn’t just a cockpit with a window. It was like a real cockpit, that I could turn inside to look around at information pads instead of just player centered UI bits (including one that even had my PSN name inscribed on the panel like a fighter jet). The window was above, but more than that, OUTSIDE the window was like a digital sheath that rolled back when the tank was deployed. It had a very immersive drone combat command module feel. Once fighting, I expected it to be like mouse look with a centered cursor, but it wasn’t. It was like I was in a car with free look everywhere and windows, panels, and levers all around. The shooting interface stayed up front as I turned. I could even see the gun move up and down outside the window. Yes all games have a gun drawn outside the cockpit, but this gun looked OUTSIDE. I was in the cockpit seeing the cannon arm raise as I aimed. It is hard to describe the difference, but it was fantastic for feeling like I was IN a tank.
More than all this though was the realization of what I guessed at from playing the Switch version. The audio of shots, explosion, and vehicles around me were impressive. Not just the surround sound that I experienced with the Switch and my theater system, but a real immersion as sound played around me as I moved not only in game, but moved my head WITHIN the game that I was moving in. Again, it is hard to describe.
Lighting too surprised me. I am still not sure how they did it, but I had a real sense of light inside the headset. When the tank docked and the shell folded back over the cockpit, there was a feeling of bright lights coming on in the cockpit. Like the goggles had a light dimmer inside it or something. It was a weird effect. Also in combat there was a real sense of light, glow, and flash as shots whizzed over or tanks blew up. I can’t really describe it, but as a gamer that has played many games, this one felt like it had not just light sourcing, but light itself as a tool. I guess like some amusement park 3D rides, but they have actual light and fire to play with. The VR headset doesn’t.
Once upon a time I was so mesmerized with one of the Star Wars pods at an arcade that I thought seriously about dropping major cash to buy one. My buddy owns pinball machines, so why not? I didn’t do it though. The experience with Battlezone last night dwarfed the pod experience. And it was in my freaking living room.
I stand by my initial review when I first took off the headset. With a boyish grin, and to an empty room I exclaimed, “holy F&@$!” It was an experience not to be missed by a gamer.
Going back to @Desslock, I can now see why the demo seemed shallow. It’s a basic tutorial/ tech demo with a very shallow arcade feel. Having the full version on Switch I can safely say the demo peels all of the game out of the game. They briefly touch on it on the map/deploy interface, but it’s pretty confusing there. The game is an FTL roguelike where you progress through random sectors and missions collecting resources and tech to upgrade. Some spots are stores. Some have new tech. There is a nemesis meter like For the King to worry about as enemies get more dangerous and boss tanks chase you on the strategic map. You combat the raising of the meter by going to certain types of sectors. You lower the final mission difficulty by going to shield generator sectors and destroying them. You also gain currency to buy upgrades by doing missions and killing enemies. However, the more sectors you go to, then more meter builds. Also sectors are unknown unless you spend currency to scan them. There is a lot of strategic give and take decisions to make. Also, certain tech unlocks can appear in future games.
I also now understand @Tim_N statement about teleporting. Even in Battlezone I felt a roller coaster like weightlessness in my stomach at times. This was most appearantly when changing elevation or looking over my shoulder while moving.
It was worse when I tried the Persistance demo. This was a different kind of immersive in a randomly generated roguelike space station with zombies. It felt like a System Shock meets Rogue Legacy. This one was rough on me though. I don’t get car sick or sea sick, and have never been ill in the slightest when playing FPS games. After a few minutes of Persistance, I felt woozy. A few minutes later I was nauseated, my face felt cool, and I was needing to burp and lay down. My fiancé, who doesn’t play FPSers and isn’t comfortable with thumbstick movement, felt severely ill after just a few minutes playing and for many hours still after she had stopped using the headset. She is afraid of trying more VR. This too was a VR element that I was really surprised by. Which sucks because Persistance seemed like a really cool, spooky sci fi/ rogue-like/ Resident Evil. I will go back and see if teleporting helps. I read a bit last night and folks said there was a bit of a learning curve to VR sickness. Others said even walking in place as you move in game can help since it is your brain fighting in game movement with a physical sedentary reality. Yesterday I saw teleporting as a controller tech limitation or a built in developer hack, but now I can get behind seeing it as a sort of technological Dramamine.