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.
