PSVR Owners Thread.

[ItsThere]

Picked up Ultrawings on the strength of the comments in this thread and Paranormal Activity for something at the other end of the scale.

For anyone who read the PA reviews when it released there is a patch that allows DS4 control and smooth motion, this is the same patch that was applied to Doom VFR that turned it from a disgrace into an exceptional game.

[hudson]

What? Ultrawings on a DS4?

[teddymeow]

Played two minutes of Until Dawn Rush of Blood last night.

Got to the bit where the girl starts singing "Frère Jacques" then pretty much shat my pants and switched it off.

That game can GTFO!!

[hudson]

Yeah no ways am I playing horror games in VR. I will just weep and shout "gerroff!"

[Cassius_Smoke]

What? Ultrawings on a DS4?

I play it on a DS4.

So is Paranormal Activity good then? If i could work up the balls to play it of course.

[Family Fry]

I grabbed Resi 7 whist it was on sale and I had some credit, beginning hour shat me up good so I’m looking forward to going through this in VR.
Also bought Tumble and Deracine, had a quick go on Deracine seems pretty straightforward kinda reminds me a bit of Glass Rose, like a slow paced Japanese adventure game.

[ItsThere]

Paranormal activity with a DS4

[ItsThere]

I play it on a DS4.

So is Paranormal Activity good then? If i could work up the balls to play it of course.

It is OK. Not great but not terrible.

It is not worth the full asking price. Playthrough length is between 1-2 hours and the controls, even with a DS4, lack finesse. I might try it with the Move to see if it is any better as that is how it was originally designed.

There is at least one alternative ending and apparently the game jumbles things up each time you play to keep it a bit fresher.

What it does do well is atmosphere and scares. Some of them are excellent and the tension is pretty high throughout. I jumped a few times and was on the edge of my seat most of the time. Excellent sound design as well.

If you class it as a VR experience rather than a full game I'd say it is worth a shot. It pales in comparison to RE7 (as does everything else in VR IMO) but its a decent trot through a haunted house that doesn't outstay its welcome.

[wakka]

Thought you guys might like to hear about this; I decided to liven up the family visit at Christmas by bringing my PS4/VR setup to my parents' to see how they got along with it.

So to start, I hooked it all up, and had to twist their arm a bit to give it a go. On the first night, I started them each off with the basic ocean dive on the VRWorlds pack, just to be sure they wouldn't immediately develop motion sickness. To my surprise, both of them absolutely loved it! They honestly couldn't get enough, and wanted to play more, but I decided to be the bad guy and turn it off for the evening. Still, off to a good start.

So for evening two, my dad has always been a big fan of the Apollo program, having seen the landings live back in the 60s/70s, so I downloaded the Apollo 11 experience. He played it end-to-end and absolutely loved it; he just couldn't stop talking about how "real" the cockpit felt due to the 3D, doing all the usual things we've all seen people do - looking around things (over/under/sides), almost leaning on something and realising it isn't there, all of it. Afterwards he was quite quiet for a while, until he said that he felt the experience was "transformative" - had simply could not believe it was as good as it was. He was talking for ages about how powerful an educational tool it could be, and how after ~50 years of seeing documentaries, watching the event live, even seeing the remains of the spacecraft in the USA, he thought he had seen it all, but he felt that in one hour of VR he'd gained an insight that simply would not have been possible via any other means.

Then a bigger surprise. My mother has never really had any ability to play videogames. She used to try when I was a kid, and just never "got it", like she was always terrible at them and consequently never understood why they were fun. However, as is often the case with parents, she has an unusual party trick - my other is a crack shot with a rifle. I don't honestly know why this is; I think she maybe went rabbit hunting a few times with her dad when she was young. Still, at fairgrounds when you have those target shooting games (the novelty ones with the waxwork dioramas) she was always surprisingly good.

So, we put her on The Heist; specifically the shooting galleries, and she was actually very good, for a beginner. Certainly better than I've ever seen her at a videogame. This was interesting because in a normal videogame setting, she'd struggle to hit a single target. Her biggest struggle was actually the reloading aspect; she kept dropping the ammo clips. We realised after a while what the problem was - she was getting confused because you don't grip the trigger to hold the gun, but you do grip it to hold the clip. That was a real stumbling block for her, which in retrospect makes sense, as it's one element that breaks the immersion of the game, using a videogame-y abstraction to make up for some of the shortcomings of the Move controller.

This leads me to another insight from the whole experience; how the PSMove controllers really do need more development. I had completely forgotten that, for example, it's quite difficult for a non-gamer to remember where the buttons are on those controllers, and as you can't see them in VR... This also drives home how important the ability to see the joypad is during VRWorlds, and why that makes it one of the many reasons it's an effective demonstration of VR.

After this, my dad tried out the X-Wing experience on Battlefront, but said exactly what others here have said - it's a shame there isn't more. He then wanted to try out some of the more ambitious stuff, but felt a bit of eye-strain, so instead I put on Wipeout and Superhot, and he was blown away by watching me play them. There was this level in Superhot that went perfectly, where I just managed to fling a gun through the air at a guy while dodging bullets, and he was commenting on how fun it looked just to watch, never mind play.

Both of them loved it; he was even asking me where he could buy one and what was needed - though in truth, I advised him to hold off and wait a couple of years for the technology to mature just a bit more. Even so, it was great seeing how much fun it brought to people who are a bit out of the loop on this stuff, and it showed that this sort of thing has really wide-reaching implications.

Only just seen this. Really interesting post. I’d love to do the same with my parents, they’re currently baffled by Sky Q but there’s an immediacy to VR which I think would help them ‘get’ video games in a way they never have before.

[Lebowski]

Only just seen this. Really interesting post. I’d love to do the same with my parents, they’re currently baffled by Sky Q but there’s an immediacy to VR which I think would help them ‘get’ video games in a way they never have before.

I got my dad who isn't the slightest bit interested in games but is a big train enthusiast to play a bit of Derail valley in VR on PC and he loved it. It's a train driving game where you drive old trains through a fictional European valley, Controls are pretty intuitive and he picked it up in no time. The diesel train has various dials and switches but is really easy to drive with a multi speed throttle, break and a laser pointer (for changing points).

We messed about for a bit exploring the countryside and even found an old abandoned train yard in the forest it would probably be pretty dull as a standard game but the tactile nature of vr really elevates the experience.

[noobish hat]

I got my dad who isn't the slightest bit interested in games but is a big train enthusiast to play a bit of Derail valley in VR on PC and he loved it. It's a train driving game where you drive an old trains through a fictional European valley, Controls are pretty intuitive and he picked it up in no time. The diesel train has various dials and switches but is really easy to drive with a multi speed throttle, break and a laser pointer (for changing points).

We messed about for a bit exploring the countryside and even found an old abandoned train yard in the forest it would probably be pretty dull as a standard game but the tactile nature of vr really elevates the experience.

I hope you had an open can of diesel in the room

[Lebowski]

I hope you had an open can of diesel in the room

You've got me thinking now, some sort of smell-o-vision that mixed in country side air with a whiff of diesel would probably really elevate this experience, add in a few rumble motors to the chair to emulate the rumble of the engine and it would be a really sensory experience. The slow nature off the experience and the massive cockpit your sat in makes this the perfect game for vr newbies as your well and truly grounded by your surroundings.

[teddymeow]

Thumper is a bit good.

Like a really basic Amplitude (the good PS2 one).

[QualityChimp]

[Asura]

3DRudder

I assume that's just a device which converts the rocking motion to the left analog stick of a pad, and the twisting motion to the x-axis of the right analog stick?

It's similar to how in the 90s, you could use a joypad to be the "pedal" in Time Crisis on the PS1 - so you could actually put it on the floor and press the analog sticks with your foot.

Not a bad idea, all told, if it works; though what's that fantasy game that's in the early part of the trailer? I don't recognise it. They also show a bunch of what I think are non-VR games, but I would venture few people play non-VR games with the PSVR.