Seeing The Future – Playstation VR At Rezzed

Though it’s not coming out until October, a lot of what PlayStation VR is and what it can do has already fallen into place. Sony are obviously going to be keen to raise awareness of the platform by getting it into the hands of prospective buyers, and a show like Rezzed that’s geared toward gamers is naturally a good fit.

Helpfully, the headset itself is also a good fit. Compared to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, it’s not strapped to the front of your head, but rather sits on it like a halo and dangles the screen in front of your eyes. It’s comfortable and light, but it was a little trickier to get everything positioned right for it to be in focus compared to my experience with the other two systems.

Not much has changed since I wrote about the headset last September – you can also read my impressions from the London Heist van chase demo that’s part of VR Worlds – but Kris also had time with the headset.

Kris’ Impressions

I haven’t used the Vive yet, but PSVR absolutely compares favourably to the DK2 version of the Oculus Rift and the Gear VR. For a start it fits snugly on your head, feeling both light and comfortable, and it’s very simple to position the actual eyepiece against your face to get a good fit.

It’s worth saying though that while it feels better to wear the PSVR, it does have some drawbacks. There’s a little light bleed around the bottom of the eyepiece, and you can see enough of the edge that it’s distracting initially. However, you tune it out pretty quickly, becoming immersed in the world you’re presented with, even if it’s a world as weird as the one Rez presents you with.

Rez Infinite

Rez Infinite is one of the more unusual uses for virtual reality that I’ve come across. While it’s not doing anything particularly revolutionary in comparison to some of the other titles out there, it’s still a rather unusual experience to play.

If you’re familiar with Rez then you’re likely not that surprised to hear that a VR version of the game remains weird. You fly through space with no control over your character, initially a humanoid but if you take damage you’ll devolve down to a weird pulsating ball, inhabiting a world rendered partially in wireframe that pulses in rhythm to the electronic music that forms the game’s soundtrack.

As an on rails shooter the game is simple enough to control. Holding down the X button allows you to lock up to six missiles onto enemies at once, which fire when you release the button. While the original used the thumbstick to select your target, Infinite uses head tracking from the PlayStation VR headset to select your targets. It’s an incredibly intuitive system that feels great to use.

While Rez Infinite is a good port of Rez, it’s fair to say that it’s not a must buy for PSVR. Fans of Rez will likely pick it up, and it’s a fun, if weird, experience, but ultimately it’s not doing much new. There is some new content for this version of Rez, and the VR integration works well, but it’s certainly not as interesting as some of the other VR titles out there.

Battlezone VR

A lot has happened in the last 36 years of gaming, but the simplicity of games like Battlezone are timeless. You step into a tank and head out into a hostile world filled with enemies. Your campaign is based on a hex grid that you choose your path through and is to be procedurally generated each time you play, with attractive neon infused graphics that gel well with the 80s retro gaming that acts as its inspiration.

You control your hover tank with the twin sticks of the DualShock 4 in your hands, which lets you smoothly glide across the battlefield, strafing and turning fluidly to try and avoid incoming fire. What a lot of developers seem to be latching onto is the notion of head tracked aiming – see our RIGS article later today – Battlezone VR keeps your cannon pointing forward, with aiming up and down done by the right analogue stick. You’re still more than free to look around the cockpit and lean in to inspect the computer readouts, though there is the odd omission of a player’s body at this point, should you look down and expect to see arms and legs.

The enemies can come at you in waves that demand different things from you. The initial tanks are easy enough to dispatch, but the second wave have heavier armour and either demand more hits or the targeting of weak spots to the rear. Then it’s the turn of turrets that are better engaged from a distance, while you’d do well to switch to the machine gun to tackle flying enemies and the menacing looking swarm of drones. Then there’s also more enemies than you can handle, but you’ve thankfully been charging up your EMP this entire time and can unleash it to destroy all the enemies around you.

There’s a purity to the concepts behind the game, which update the 1980 classic for the modern day and modern technology. The game will take you from the industrial zone to frozen wastelands and beyond, while the procedural generation will look to ensure that there’s a lot of replayability.

These are just quick looks at a couple of the games heading to the PlayStation VR system for launch, but come back later today for a look at Rigs, the game I consider to be Sony’s flagship title for the PSVR.