But not my money, yet
This week at TGS, I finally had a chance to try out Sony’s take on VR. Newly christened “PlayStation VR,” the headset is sleek and flashy, and rumors suggest that it will be sold for a cheaper price than its competitors.
Of course, this is all hearsay for now. In fact, the entire prospect of the consumer market picking up VR in general is a bit of a gamble. A lot of it is still based on tech demos, with no real proof that developers will consistently put out worthwhile experiences for an audience that may not even exist based on the potential adoption rate.
For all those reasons and more I’m not completely sold on PlayStation VR, but I had a fun enough time with it.
First off, I have to say the headset is rather comfortable. While it looks like it might be too bulky it’s actually a pretty snug little device, and it’s even easier to put on by way of a button near the front of the unit that can adjust it accordingly. Thankfully, I had a rep on-hand to hand me a controller — VR takes some getting used to. PlayStation VR is aiming for 60hz, 90hz, and 120hz experiences — 90hz is the minimum suggested baseline for avoiding nausea. Three cheers for new, potentially scary technology!
In addition to Final Fantasy XIV, I had the chance to play a handful of games with the unit. One of them was a tech demo of sorts for Aquarion, an anime mecha game that basically took players on an on-rails ride throughout a short episode of sorts. Two PlayStation Move controllers acted as hands, which simulated the actions of an avatar inside of a mech. The visuals were roughly on par with a PS2 game, and although the sequence was cool enough, it wasn’t all that impressive.
Cyber Danganronpa VR: Class Trial, however, was really interesting. That damn bear Monokuma is back, and this time he’s ten times creepier in virtual reality. I was given a DualShock 4 this time, which allowed me to aim and fire a gun at various characters, placed in a courtroom setting of sorts. At the end, I was greeted with a really creepy ride on a conveyor belt (with Monokuma taunting me in a sultry manner) that led to a giant industrial crushing device. The visual style looked perfect, like a living, breathing anime episode, and the little touches like characters staring back at you when you focused on them were great. But again, this is a tech demo — will a real Danganronpa VR game like this ever get made?
Finally, the last title I was able to test out was Monster Escape/Monster Battle, another tech demo that centered around microgames. This compilation had an interesting angle — one player utilizes the VR headset, and another uses a DualShock controller (up to four players, in fact). It’s up to the VR person to do things like smash objects or dodge projectiles, while the other team competes against the monolithic monstrosity. I really liked the concept of having one person “in on it” similar to the Wii U’s clever GamePad uses. But again, it’s a tech demo.
VR just has so many what-ifs right now. It’s an entirely new platform that has proven itself to be worthwhile for enterprise use, but is the consumer-side ready to dish out $300-$400 (or a lot more) per headset? If they are, when will the bubble burst with all of these competing companies? When it comes to Sony in particular there are more questions than answers, and it’s a bit odd that they didn’t opt to announce a price along with their name change.
There’s plenty of time to ponder these burning issues, and in the meantime, I’m going to just pray that Sony ends up actually supporting VR for the long haul, none of the games require a Move (man I need to find mine, it’s somewhere in my game room), and that most of all — it’s affordable.
