Playstation VR

A few days ago I had the chance to try out Playstation VR.  While I do think virtual reality is fascinating, I have also been disappointed by past horrendous and expensive VR hardware.  There have been way too many let downs along the years that I wasn’t too optimistic about a Playstation release.  What tickled my interest in this new PSVR, was during E3 2016 when Sony released a trailer for Batman.  I’m a huge fan of Batman, especially of the Arkham games, so to be able to play a game like that in VR got me excited.  However I wasn’t about to drop $700 plus on a new console without first trying it out.

I’m not the biggest Playstation fan, so I wasn’t going to be the first to line up for a Playstaion experience tour.  I thought I would let time go by and wait until the hype had gone so I could try PSVR relaxed and without time pressure.  Thankfully I didn’t have to wait very long because the tour came to a city near me and it so happens hardly anyone was lining up to experience Sony’s VR.

For anyone that hasn’t tried it out yet, the tour staff asks you which game you would like to try out from the menu.  I of course asked for Batman.  They then ask you to put on the headpiece, some earphones, and to hold on to the PlayStation Move controllers (all of which have been sanitized).  The headset is adjustable and the display resolution is clean and impressive.  Once the game started it felt as natural as playing a game on TV.  After Batman I “played” The Deep, an underwater game.  I was totally immersed by that world, and felt like I was somewhere else.

My final thoughts of PSVR is that it’s an incredibly amazing console.  It’s as easy to use as an Apple product, which makes technology seem natural; i.e. you don’t need to read a manual to figure out how to do things.  The graphics are great, but the gameplay is what really absorbs you into the world of the video game.  My only complaint of PSVR is that the lens kept fogging up on me; though I’m sure the solution to that is easy to solve.  I now hope to get PSVR one day, and I hope Sony keeps releasing games and doesn’t abandon it like they did with the PS Vita.