We’re not a few days removed from the start of the PSVR 2 era, but on a personal level, my week has been completely and utterly consumed by wearing a fancy hat. The sole exception was Monday, where I went to preview one of those games you need a TV or computer screen for, but aside from that, I’ve spent big chunks of time streaming Horizon Call of the Mountain and Gran Turismo 7 in VR, as well as plugging away at Rez, Tetris, Cosmonious High, Tentacular, Star Wars, and plenty of other PSVR 2 launch games.
We’ve had a steady stream of write ups and videos because of this, and I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen.
Tuffcub’s PSVR 2 arrived on day one, making him the second person on the team to be able to dive into all manner of VR games – Resident Evil Village scared his cat, he reviewed The Last Clockwinder, and gave Rez Infinite and Horizon Call of the Mountain a go as well. He also, yes, played Destiny 2 for a bit in the headset’s Cinema mode.
Gamoc also had the opportunity to try out some PSVR 2 games, going round to a friend’s to check out Pistol Whip, After the Fall and Horizon Call of the Mountain, but his main job this week was to review Atomic Heart.
Steve also played a few hours of Atomic Heart – “one of the most inconsistent and bizarre games I’ve played in a long while” – is knee deep in a very different sci-fi adventure for review, and tried to put up with the bad jumping in The Terminator on Mega Drive.
There was no PSVR 2 in Miguel’s life, but he did think about buying a long USB-C cable and a Quest so he can get his PC to do some virtual reality. In the meantime, he was tied to a flat screen, where he started Like a Dragon: Ishin and finished Hi-Fi Rush, which is now his new favourite game. He also started The Forgotten City, played a weird little shmup called Black Bird, played some Theathrythm Final Bar Line – “how is Final Fantasy not actually in the title of that game?” – and played more Fire Emblem Engage.
It’s been a lot of the usual for Nick P – Dead by Daylight, Fortnite, Overwatch 2, Call of Duty and Marvel Snap – but he’s also pulled together a review for Blood Bowl 3 which will be going live soon.
Nic B’s been down the rabbit hole of Marvel Snap, with the weather keeping him indoors. Alongside that was a “truly meh” deck-builder called Nadir, and the tail end of a play through of Hogwarts Legacy.
It was Sniper Elite 4 from PS Plus for Ade, who’s playing the series for the first time and thoroughly enjoying himself, while Jason’s played one thing he can’t tell us about, as well as a lot of Rocket League, Genshin Impact, and the DMZ Call of Duty mode. He’s also been spending a lot of time with the Honkai Star Rail beta.
And having come back from holiday in Mexico, Aran is missing the 30C heat and clear blue skies. So, with drizzle outside, he unleashed some Spartan rage in God of War Ragnarok.
Now then, what have you been playing?
MrYd
An unexpected 4 days off work, along with a surprisingly prompt delivery from the nice DPD man (just before 9am!) worked out well. So, freshly behatted with the fanciest of Fancy Hats, I sat down to be impressed. Then stood up to be impressed by things that required standing. Then sat down again because I was knackered.
On the hardware side, I’m impressed. As comfy as the original, set up is stupidly easy, and the controllers are great (although I’d like to use the DualSense when it’s appropriate and the game already has support for it – I’m looking at you, RE Village and NMS!) Controller battery life is, however, terrible.
GT7 is a huge improvement over the VR support in GT Sport. Not convinced by the claims the whole game was built for VR in the first place. Flat menus and replays (until you quit the replay and start the VR replay?? And then the fixed camera view seems to be facing the wrong way most of the time). But it’s GT7 in VR, and it just works as it should when racing.
Kayak VR is nice and relaxing, and quite gorgeous looking. As is Puzzling Places. Which is all good, because I also got my hands on Pistol Whip and Synth Riders. Both of which are far too fun and energetic, with perfect tracking of the controllers. Hopefully we’ll hear about the Beat Saber update soon enough, because tracking on that with the Moves was a bit crap.
And because I needed to shoot things in VR, Pavlov. Which has some confusing game design choices, including use of the worst of the buttons (R3!!!). But everyone seems to be confused and trying to work out how it all works. R3 to buy weapons! And actually crouch for real to crouch in game. Although I think mine’s a bit confused as to where the floor is, and I need to go downstairs to pick up a gun from the floor.
Plus some NMS, which they’ll hopefully update so you can use the DualSense. Because trying to fly without is a bit rubbish.
I also should possibly not have tried to save money by not buying the charging station. Or maybe see what anyone thinks of any of the other, non-Sony options.
TSBonyman
I’m still gonna wait a bit but hopefully more PSVR developers will update their games for PSVR2. Having to crouch for real? That could get tiring fast – especially if it’s up and down stairs! xD
Andrewww
In the end I gave in and ordered PSVR2, even without an announcement for HL:Alyx or, even more unrealistcally, Alien:Isolation just yet.
But, although this Horizon game seemed ok, it all left me slightly disappointed. First, for my head, PSVR2 seems much less comfortable than the first PSVR. Maybe I did something wrong, but I got quite a headache from playing it, something I never had with the first one. As a result, I didn’t have the wow effect I had hoped for. I’ll try to reset and set it up again, and hope that’ll improve it for me.
Then, although the controllers seem cool, I got a low battery warning in no time.
Also, I’m clearly lacking software for it. Although I got sh**loads of games and many for PSVR, I don’t see an easy way to find out which of the games I own would run on this thing. No backwards compatibility of PSVR2 is ok, I accept that, but offering no way to find out whether anything I own would work, even with a paid update, seems lame. Sony never had an excellent store, but come on, some effort would be nice.
And finally, the rubbish PS5 UI became more obvious again, as on my PS4 I got a folder for all my PSVR games. The folders on PS5 I never touched again after trying it out back then, it’s so badly implemented, no wonder they hid it somewhere off the dashboard.
So, for the moment, it was quite a mixed first impression, it can only get better.
TSBonyman
That’s 2 votes against the battery life then. hope you overcome the comfort issues you’ve been having.