Author Topic: Hands on with PSVR  (Read 1443 times)

Hands on with PSVR
« on: October 14, 2016, 10:34:10 am »
Preface.  In all honesty, given that the PSVR costs only a little less than a Vive or Oculus and has its own pre-requisites, if you have a powerful enough gaming PC, you should probably be using Vive or Oculus.  I don't own a powerful gaming PC, but I own 2 PS4s, so PSVR was the only way I was going to give VR a try unless I go out and build a new PC.  The PSVR does require a PS4, PS4 camera, 2 move controllers, and a dualshock 4 controller.

The PSVR has quite the setup process.  The PSVR comes with a processor unit, that has its own power supply, and must be connected through USB to your PS4.  I believe this USB connection is to allow the PSVR to work in conjunction with the PS4 peripherals without a separate sync. 

The headset works exactly like the Xbox One's HDMI In/Out feature.  Hook the PS4 into the processor unit, hook the processor unit to your TV.  Since this works this way, you can technically hook ANY HDMI device up to the PSVR headset to watch, but the VR capabilities will NOT be there, and you won't be able to easily reset the positioning of the screen.  I won't go into this as it isn't an intended feature, but I thought I'd mention it, because it COULD be useful.  The processor unit doesn't quite snap, but it does fit fairly snuggly right in the middle of the ps4 where the status light is.  The processor unit looks more like an X1 than a PS4, which I thought was weird.  It's a rectangular box, instead of a parallelogram like the PS4.

I purchased the launch bundle, so it came with 2 Move controllers, VR Worlds, and a Demo disc.  The PS4 only has 2 USB ports, I'm quite surprised that the processor unit didn't come with extra USB ports, which are borderline necessary.  You do have to charge your PS4 controller, your 2 move controllers, and connect the VR headset.  I, luckily, picked up a USB 3.0 4 port hub from gamestop a while back for $2 on clearance, so I finally made use of that.  I used the whole 4 port hub to charge my 2 move controllers, ps4 controller, and ext hdd. 

This has a lot of wires, but most of the wires will stay near the PS4 system.  The wire that connects the processor unit to the headset is a fairly long cord, so you shouldn't have much trouble moving about without worrying about tugging the system.  I did notice at least once, that putting on the headset was a little awkward with the wiring coming out of the headset, but I just had to re-position the cord to my left and it was fine.

The manual shows that you should be roughly 3-6 feet away from the television (wherever your camera is mounted) with an approximate 6ftx9ft open area to move about.  I didn't find this very reasonable, but we set it up anyway, moving our coffee table out of the way.  I had probably a 4ftx6ft moving area and was able to play what games I played quite well.  I only had one issue, which was due to me not paying attention during setup during Job Simulator.  As always, pay attention and RTFM.

They provide you with some earbuds, I don't know if maybe mine were bad, or it just doesn't work that way, but the left earbud didn't work at all and I could hear my soundbar over the earbuds.  I'll try later with my Bluetooth headphones, to see if they work better, and if a pair of headphones will fit comfortably over the headset.

Of note... How the PSVR works, is the exact same way the PS Move works, there are 5 lights on the front of the headset, 2 on the sides, and 2 on the back.  The camera tracks these lights to determine your direction, movement, and angle.  So if for some reason the camera can't see your lights, it will stop working.  I believe there is a gif out there that shows a perv playing a game and trying to look up a character's skirt, but in order to do so, you would have to leave the camera's view and the game stops working until you return.  So there are many possible limitations to the system.  I've not used the Vive or Oculus, but I believe neither requires a depth camera (i.e. Kinect/PS4 Eye)  Same goes for the PS Move and Dualshock 4, if the camera can't see the light emitted from your controller, it just doesn't exist, so you can't shoot or paint.  I had some trouble with this, which I will document further down.

Wearing the headset is... a thing.  You press a button on the back to adjust the headset's size to accommodate larger heads, then you turn a little gear to tighten it back down so it is a snug fit.  There is a button on the bottom front of the headset to adjust the scope, this is helpful if you have glasses (as I do).  Overall the headset is quite comfortable.  I did find later on my ear kind of felt itchy, but that honestly could've just been my hair.

So now into the nitty gritty.  Gameplay.

I'm normally pretty adamant about being the first to take part in stuff, but I'm trying to be better about being selfish, so I insisted that my wife play first.  So these first few are all based on me watching her play. 

First, she played the Until Dawn: Rush of Blood demo.  I expected it to be an Until Dawn kind of experience.  It was a rail shooter.  Plays like most rail shooters.  Things I noticed are that the view in the headset appears to have better lighting than your average monitor, so I wasn't really able to see much of what was going on, given that the game is very dark and scary.  She however was able to see well.  She isn't very good at shooter games so I took the left Move controller to help out.  She made several complaints about how weird it looked basically seeing her left arm so far away from her body.  More than once I turned the move controller to make it look like she was pointing her gun at her own head, she said that it freaked her the fuck out, like being forced to do something without control.  Overall it seemed to play very well.

Next, she played the Kitchen Demo (which is a Resident Evil 7 experience separate from the previous demo).  No joke, this "demo" is pretty much a watch yourself and your friend get murdered simulator.  Maybe there was more interactivity to it, but we missed it.  My wife stopped playing after this.  I'll try to be spoiler free on this, but it's apparently a very freaky and fucked up experience.  The first thing my wife did playing this was stand up and look around, which seemed to break the game, so I don't think you are supposed to do that.  As it is, if you stand up and turn back, you can see your "character model", but he is missing his head.  I presume that's so you don't get any clipping from the model while looking about.

She just played Here They Lie.  Instead of actually walking, you use the dualshock 4 to physically move, but the headset to look around.  She felt that this is much preferred over actually walking around and worrying about walking into something or going out of the play area.  Atmospheric survival horror game.  I wasn't really paying attention.  The light on the dualshock works like a flashlight in game, the buttons on the controller turn on and off the light and open doors and pick up items.

She just watched Alumette, I probably spelled that wrong.  Basically a VR short film.  No interactivity.  Feels like being inside of a story book.  Very cool.

Now onto my experience.

First, I played Job Simulator, because I've been waiting so long to get to play this in VR.  Allegedly my wife recorded me playing it, but I don't know how much she actually caught, I was being pretty ridiculous.  I'm a pretty quick learner, so I took to it very quickly, noting that I need to make sure the camera can see all the lights that it needs to see, my wife wasn't as good when she played and the game let her know.  As soon as the game loads, it has you go through some setup stuff, pretty basic.  As soon as the simulator starts, you immediately have to turn left and do some things, well that will cause your left and right move controller to overlap and make the camera freak out.  I see no way around this, but the game is still entirely playable and enjoyable, you just might not be able to use both hands at certain angles, shoot, turning completely around would make both controllers stop working, so you have to stand at an angle for certain things.  Completely unavoidable with PSVR, but still entirely playable.

Next, I played Thumper.  I went into this game not really knowing much about it other than it's a music game, I was expecting something kind of like Amplitude.  From what I played, the VR aspect isn't really special.  You can look around while playing, but it isn't really ingrained into the game play.

I proceeded to toy around with Harmonix Music VR.  First they show you an island, that has areas affected by the music being played.  It's pretty nifty and kind of reminds me of the old visualizations you could get on the PS1 with CDs.  Then you have an open toybox sculpting art type of thing where you can use different tools to make different shapes that are affected by the music.  Then you have this room full of "puppets" that you can move about and make dance to the music.  I had quite a bit of fun with this one.  The last is basically sitting inside of a kaleidoscope tripping balls.  Overall a pretty enjoyable and relaxing experience.

So I bought Catlateral Damage, mostly because it was on the flash sale.  I love this game, I love the idea, I even backed the Kickstarter.  I honestly wasn't sure what to expect out of the VR feature.  I was hoping that the game would let you move around with the controller somehow, but the game makes you "jump" from location to location.  Pretty much warping, it can be very confusing for your equilibrium.  Plus you have to physically move around to hit things.  This really really doesn't work well with the PSVR.  This might work well with the Vive better with the tracking system.  After I was done playing I noticed that the headset had made my face all sweaty, so the headset doesn't appear to breath well, honestly should be expected.  I also found that my eyes and everything were very confused for a while.  I think walking in VR is something that definitely needs to be improved.

Overall, I think VR is going to go places the further along we get with it.  I think racing games can play well controller or steering wheel, but might take some special work to get just right.  I know there is a third person adventure game in the list of demos, I'll play that later, I don't know how well that will work, not being first person.  Horror games play really well as expected.  I'm sure a lot of games won't translate well into VR, but the ones that will will provide a unique and worth while experience.

PSVR is definitely a middle ground between the GearVR/CardboardVR poor man's VR setup, and the preferred Vive/Oculus setup.  I've not used Vive or Oculus, but I expect they work much better than PSVR, and PSVR works pretty well.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2016, 08:04:16 pm by ignition365 »


NickAwesome

PRO Supporter

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2016, 05:54:40 pm »
I've played all 3 major vr systems, (vive, oculus and psvr) and I just ordered a psvr system off amazon that is coming next week. 

In terms of which technically delivers the best experience, the vive wins hands down.  Being able to walk and move around in vr is just incredible and adds a whole new dimension to games.  I played a fps at pax prime this year where I had to contort my body to duck in and out of cover while robots were shooting at me.  I was kneeling and moving from side to side dodging bullets.  It was exhilarating.  Oculus and psvr don't allow for that same range of movement.  The vive controllers are also way better than the new oculus touch controllers.  However, the vive requires a relatively expensive pc build and also enough space to set up the trackers for the playing area.  I have neither the computer nor a big enough area for a vive so it's not a realistic vr option for me.

With that said, there are still a lot of great immersive vr experiences that don't require any moving around.  PSVR may be a technically inferior vr experience but that does not mean that it's still not a whole lot of fun.  A lot of reviews have been bashing the tracking and the resolution and while those are valid complaints, it is not enough to completely ruin the experience.  As long as you set up the psvr correctly and tweak the settings, everything will work pretty well.  The camera and the move controllers are old tech as well so they can be a bit finicky.  The system works better in darker rooms so it can more readily detect the light of the system and the controllers.

If you already own a vive or an oculus, it would be silly to buy a psvr, but if you want a relatively affordable vr experience that with tempered expectations is still a ton of fun, then you should pick one up. 

 



 

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2016, 07:03:39 pm »
I'm waiting for someone I know to grab PSVR to give it a test.  I think it's pretty over-priced for what little it's offering (And it's still just the mid-tier one) and not much of the actual games seem super interesting, but I might look at grabbing it once I get it for 200 bucks or less.  I can't see justifying the price for how little I'll actually utilize the thing since I can't imagine it's great for long lengths of time.

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2016, 07:27:02 pm »
Added a section on my experience with Catlateral Damage.  *spoiler* Don't buy this game solely for PSVR.  Fun game on its own, definitely worth $3 or whatever it's on sale for, but the VR is pretty weak and needs major improvement.

Also added Here They Lie, but I really didn't pay attention to her playing.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2016, 07:35:27 pm by ignition365 »


fazerco

PRO Supporter

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2016, 08:22:52 am »
Checking the Dutch site's for PSVR, and its not out yet  ???. Also you can't pre-order a bundle version  >:(. Pre-order price atm around 399€.

alkaid

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2016, 06:52:50 am »
Thanks for the review, it was pretty interesting. I want to look up a video of that Kitchen Demo, but... I'll wait until it's light out...

Likely the only thing that'd ever get me to buy a VR device would be a The World MMO. Or hell, any VR MMO. Headset to see, controller for everything else. I'd line up to buy that Day 1.
No, really.

argyle

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2016, 12:11:26 pm »
So I took advantage of some trade-in deals at GS this past Sunday, traded in a bunch of crap I have had lying around for quite a while now, and picked up the base PSVR unit for only $30 out of pocket. I already had the camera & move controller, so I didn't need the bundle set. Also, I grabbed some games from the b2g1 sale Target is running this week.  Here are my impressions so far:

I thought the setup was relatively straight forward. I expected much worse, I guess because I've heard from several places that it's involved, but I didn't find it to be much more complex than setting up a new console. I will say this - remove the clear plastic covers from the lenses inside the headset. ;) I didn't notice them and thought something was bad wrong with mine. :P

First thing I fired up was the Kitchen demo, because RE7 is one of the main early selling points for me. Full disclosure, this was also my first experience with VR of any kind. I was immediately blown away. It's one thing to play a horror game and be able to look around & still see your own living room - it's another thing completely to be completely surrounded by that environment. Before you actually hit "start" on the demo you can look around the room, and I did this a good bit at first. I was surprised at how far behind me it allowed me to look. If I did a full 180 it lost track of me of course, but I was able to get surprisingly close to that & have it still follow me. Throughout everything the tracking worked great IMO, I quickly forgot it was even a thing.

After that I fired up the REZ demo, and this was where I got my first taste of motion sickness from the unit. I am fairly susceptible to motion sickness anyway, so maybe this aspect of my experience will help others who are in the same boat as I am (I can't even ride passenger side for long trips, I have to be driving). The uneasiness I got from this one was relatively minor, but that may have been due to the shortness of the demo. By the end of the first stage you are taking 90 degree turns at break-neck speeds and flipping upside-down, so I had honestly kinda expected that one not to sit well with me. Luckily the full game still allows for non-VR play. :)  That was the only game I played the first night that bothered me, fyi.

After a short break for supper I decided to fire up Batman, one of the 3 games I had bought. I never actually went to the actual game part, rather I stayed in the batcave but I played around with it extensively. The immersion was still incredible, and I had fun playing around with ev everything here. Let me say that I had been using my controller this whole time since it turns out the battery in my Move controller is shot (that's what happens from leaving it on the charger for 2-3 years I suppose...  ::)). The only game I tried to play that *required* the Move was the Job Simulator demo. It was optional in Batman, but it's clear the immersion would be even stronger if you were using it.

I had been looking for a good game to ease my wife into trying it out and decided Batman was it, so I quit out and let her have a go with it. She had the same "wow" moment when she tried it on that I did. You can see what the other person is seeing on the TV screen, but that doesn't come close to doing justice to what actually having the headset on is like. Anyway, after playing around with Batman for a bit she decided she wanted to give the Kitchen demo a go. Even tho she knew what to expect, she admitted after it was over that she was pretty creeped out while playing it.

We then fired up the VR Playroom, which downloads for free as soon as you connect the headset to your PS4. She wanted to try out the ghost mini-game, and it was a blast. In it, she couldn't see the ghosts she was supposed to be shooting, instead she relied on me to look at the screen and tell her where they were. We had a lot of fun with this, and it showed how really fun same-room multiplayer was possible using it.

Oh, I almost forgot, at some point she started up the Drive Club demo but that was very short lived as she said it was making her very nauseous, and she doesn't get motion sick like I do. So I have given that demo a wide berth. ;)

We traded back out at this point and I tried out a few more of the demos. The one that really stood out to me was Thumper. While it's true that the gameplay is not dependent on the VR at all, it really seemed to make the whole experience more fun. This is one I definitely want to pickup, but I'm gonna wait & see if someone does a physical release of it first.

That was it for Sunday night. On Monday, I decided I was ready to give Rush of Blood a go. I am a big fan of Until Dawn so I was really looking forward to this one. And while it is a completely different type of experience, being an on-rails shooter, it's still very well done. One problem tho. This game is the worst one I have played so far in terms of motion sickness. After the first level, which admittedly seemed fairly long (15 mins?) for what it was, it was clear that I was going to be unable to play this game. Matter of fact, that ended my VR play for the night it was so bad. I think not being in control of my movements was a big part of it, combined with having to look around you to shoot instead of straight ahead.

Last night I decided I wanted to try the Here They Lie demo after watching a trailer that made it look pretty good. The demo does not look nearly as good as the trailer did, and the movement is extremely awkward. Everything just felt "off", and it was clear it was a very low-budget game. You could turn by turning your head & pushing forward, which was slow and weird, but if you moved the right stick the screen would go black for a couple of seconds & then shift your view in that direction, which was very disorienting. The awkwardness of this game made it another one that had me starting to feel uneasy, so I decided to call it quits. The last thing I tried, just after that, was the Battle Zone demo. This game was a blast - movement felt very smooth and natural, the things they did with the startup sequence of the tank made you really feel like you were in the tank (and also made me long for a Steel Battalion made for it). Shooting felt great, and overall it was just a lot of fun. I still felt a *touch* uneasy, but I felt like it was more of a lingering effect of having played the Here They Lie demo than anything Battle Zone was doing.

So basically, I'm pretty impressed so far. As far as the motion sickness goes, for me, the things I've discovered are:

1) On-rails games where you aren't in control of your own movement probably aren't for me,

and

2) There is definitely an art to making the movement in a game feel natural - if it's done poorly, as in Here They Lie, it can make the entire experience feel disorienting and trigger my motion sickness.

I'll also be playing demos before committing to any VR-only games to make sure they aren't going to negatively affect me.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing worth mentioning. I also wanted to try out the newly patched-in HDR mode of The Last of Us last night and discovered something really...dumb. The VR unit does NOT allow HDR passthrough. What this means is, in order to use HDR in a game that supports it you first have to disconnect the PS4 from the VR unit and have it cabled directly to your TV. This seems like a massive oversight, and it's hard to imagine why this wasn't caught / corrected with as big of a push as Sony is giving to both of these technologies.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2016, 12:27:09 pm by argyle »
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed
if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I
became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the
desire to be very grown up.” ― C.S. Lewis


fazerco

PRO Supporter

Re: Hands on with PSVR
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2016, 10:50:45 am »
Did anyone here had trouble with 'drifting'?