Topic: VR Gaming Discussion (PSVR, Oculus, Vive, etc.)

I know it's still pretty niche for the time being, but being a dedicated gaming forum & all, I figured there may be enough of us here who may own/have tried VR to make a thread worthwhile.

Anyhow, I got a PSVR recently, and it's absolutely stunning! If the 3DS's 3D effect (which I also enjoyed) was like staring into a little window into another world, PSVR is like actually being inside that world. Want to know if there's a hidden collectable just behind that rock? Simply lean forward and look over it as you could in real life (it's really hard to give a description that does justice to how the effect works in practice, and I now totally understand those who say you really can't "get" it until you've put some time into it).

I've been playing Moss, which is one of the two games that came with my bundle, and it's really a great time. It's a medieval fantasy game (with mice & such, it actually reminds me a lot of a book series I used to read called Redwall) with a lot of environmental puzzling mixed with some light platforming and combat. You use traditional controls to move around and attack/dodge with Quill (the main character), but you yourself take on the roll of "the Reader", a ghostly figure who can interact with Quill, enemies, and objects by moving around a cursor tied to the movement of the controller's light bar (as it's being tracked in 3D space, you actually have to lean in to interact with objects further back, pull back when things are closer to you. Needless to say, there's a lot of pushing, pulling, and even turning involved).

Feel free to discuss your own VR experiences too, whether positive or negative (I know at this point in time there's still quite a few kinks to work out, and even then it won't be for everyone).

We have some pretty bad ass PCs, the best one having 2080. I don't have any VR yet at home (have access at work) but with it looking like both Vive and Oculus will be unveiling their new VR headsets next week at GDC, we'll pick up our first home system as soon as they hit shelves. I'm hoping the Cosmos stands out as it only needs a single cable to the PC and will also work through some phones which should give the best of both worlds. High-end of the PC and ultra mobile using a phone for processing. I keep thinking to pick up a PSVR but have been holding out for next gen VR

I don't consider strapping a screen to your face to be virtual reality, and won't do until the experience can detach all senses from the real world. It just doesn't meet the expectations of what the tech should be. It's like the expectation of space travel, we can send a couple of rockets to the moon, but it's not what people envision when you mention space travel.

@RR529 Good idea for a topic; especially with Labo VR coming soon.

I got myself a PSVR last year. I wanted to get one because there were quite a few exclusive games that looked pretty good like Moss and Astro Bot, and during Black Friday, the prices came down to €189 for the V2 headset with camera and a copy of VR Worlds. Almost all PSVR were also discounted to €10, including new titles like Astro Bot; And so I thought, why not give it a try? I mainly got the headset because I knew it would be compatible with Dreams, so I was going to get one eventually; but spreading out the costs for the headset and the Move Controllers seemed like a good plan. And I still hope the latter comes down in price...

Anyway, Astro Bot quickly became one of my favourite titles of last year; and I think a must-have for any PSVR owner. I'm looking forward to trying out Moss as well. But I have other titles like RIGS, VR Worlds, WipeOut and Tetris Effect already in my backlog, so I want to play those first before buying more games.

@shaneoh I'd take a roundtrip to the Moon any day, even if the tech can't get me to Alpha Centauri.

@Octane
Sure, me too. Any trip outside the planet would be amazing, but it's not as if we can reliably get to the moon yet. If we could get there and back safely, easily and frequently, then we could consider that space travel.

@BarFooToo, I really hope you enjoy your set when you get one. I understand PSVR isn't as sharp as the more high end options on the market (even in the middle of your field of view there's a bit of graininess to the visuals), but I've had a great time with it thus far.

@Octane, I can't wait to get to Astro Bot, and it'll definintely be my next VR game (partially since it's the other game in the bundle lol). May throw the demo disc in first to try Farpoint though, as it's curently on sale & I'd like to know how I'd get on with it.

It's a mixed bag, I paid for a psvr mainly to play star trek bridge crew (because I like star trek). That game is good when the voice recognition servers are up.

The game with the east end gangsters is pretty funny too when your sitting there stroking some hard nuts face as he threatens you!

There's another one in that starter collection where you jump from rock to rock in space that gave me a fever from the motion (still) sickness.

Also tried RIGs as it was a PSplus game I acquired but again it gave me horrible motion sickness.

Rick and Morty doesn't really work for me due to space limitations unfortunately but I've heard there's a "big head" mode that can mitigate this.

Got a few more PSplus games to try and doom vfr/rest of star trek in the backlog. I'm half looking forward to it and half dreading it, it's a lot of cables to set up for what amounts to a couple hours of play before I start sweating and wretching.

It's good for watching 3d movies though (even if it is a little low resolution) as they don't make 3d TVs any more (except a couple of top end/price models).

Oh and the other thing that annoys me about it is that I can only play it at night because my TV is facing a window and the curtains don't seem to block out enough light for the headset lights to register so the PS4 always gives me grief about it when I start up a VR game.

Just finished up Moss this morning (my playtime was at just about 5 hours even, and there are a few collectables I missed that I may go back to collect one day). It was a pretty fantastic time, and I never experienced any queasiness playing it. A great introduction to VR gameplay.

I now have Astro Bot downloading off the disc, but I probably won't get to play it until tomorrow.

@gimmi_c, yeah, the queasiness is something I'm nervous about experiencing. Luckily I haven't experienced it with the only game I've played so far, but there have been a few YouTube videos that have made me a bit uneasy (not so much fast stuff like Roller Coasters, but actually some slower videos where it's clearly a person carrying around a VR camera. It's just not natural walking around in someone else's steps).

I've heard about the light sensing issues as well. Luckily I haven't experienced it, but it sounds like it'd suck.

Just started up Astro Bot: Rescue Mission this morning & it's an absolute delight!

As others have said, it definitely has the polish of a 3D Mario, and the VR effect is put to great use (unlike Moss which really only plays with 180°, which is good for beginners because it allows you to get used to VR, Astro Bot makes use of the full 360° viewing angle as you often have to look behind you to find secret paths or collectables). Levels are very imaginative with a lot of care put into them. I stopped for the day just before the first boss, which I can't wait to get to next time!

Opened up my LABO VR kit this morning. Just built the headset itself so far, and while the resolution is noticeably lower than the higher end stuff (obviously), I'm suprised at how good it does look in motion (largely due to the art direction).

Gonna build the blaster this weekend, and can't wait for the Mario & Zelda updates to hit next week!

I have Farpoint (PSVR) downloading now, so hopefully I'll be able to get into it this weekend.

@avensisdada, which headset are you referring to, PSVR? Either way, have a good time.

Im yet to but Labo VR. I really want those coding features though

@LetsGoSwitch they are pretty neat, but very confusing as to understand what does what.

@Trajan I'm experienced with coding. I've just never been able to develop personal projects on VR though. And I suppose the normal mode as I didn't get any previous LABO kits

@RR529 How are you coping with the motion sickness? I tried Rise of the Tomb Raider in VR, and I was fine with it. Moving around feels weird at first; you get that tingling sensation in your stomach, like when you're riding a roller coaster, but that wore off after a few minutes. I just wish I could walk faster/run. And it felt a bit ''artificial'' with no head bobbing while walking. Stairs are a perfect 45 degree slope it feels like.

How is Farpoint so far?

I do want to try it out some day, but I feel like it's best experienced with the Aim Controller, but I really don't want to buy an expensive controller for just one or two games.

It was pretty much an entire morning/afternoon experience for me (though I did take a few breaks during), but I think I got the LABO VR blaster successfully built, and it feels good accomplishing that. My Switch is in desperate need of a charge, but once it's good to go I'm going to be taking it for a spin.

@Octane, I haven't yet experienced motion sickness with any game. There have been a couple times I felt like I was going to get a bit dizzy (each lasting just a second), the first was the first 1 or 2 times of the first level in Astro Bot when the camera juts forward to catch up to Astro as you move him forward, and the second was just last night when I first walked backwards in Farpoint.

YouTube though is another story. Most videos where the camera is still don't bother me, but whenever I try one of those really crazy CG rollercoaster experiences that litter the site, and more unfortunately any time someone is physically carrying around the camera (so things bop with their stride), it really bothers me. Not to the point I want to throw up (I can push myself through if I really want to finish the video), but my stomach definitely feels off if I watch 3 or 4 videos like that.

As for Farpoint in particular, I've really enjoyed the hour or so I've played so far. Flying around that space station in the opening sequence was one of those "wow" moments you get with VR, and while they could have picked a more interesting environment than a desert (at least so far), walking to the edge of the play area and looking down into immense craters or canyons never seems to lose it's cool factor, and there has been at least one cave that seems to have taken inspiration from Avatar, with lots of glowy plants and brightly colored particles floating in the air. The gunplay is pretty cool itself, as the gun is tied to your controller's light bar, so you can actually physically look down your gun's sight to line up shots (there's even a little red cross hair that phases into the view of the gun sight if you have it all lined up just right for pinpoint accurate shots). So far I've only been up against a couple types of alien spiders, and the quick smaller ones are the ones that really get to you. You never really quite know when they'll burrow out of the ground in front of you, or drop down from a ceiling, and no matter how many times I encounter them I can't help but nearly jump out of my seat every time one of them lunges at my face, lol (I have no idea how people play legit horror games in VR, lol).

I'm really starting to get frustrated with Farpoint, though it's partially my fault for swapping my assault rifle for the precision rifle rather than my shotgun.

I'm in an area in mission 4 with dozens of flying drones & 4 or 5 powerful "Juggernaut" killbots, and you're supposed to take out the drones from afar with the precision rifle (they go down in a single shot), and either avoid the Juggernauts if you can, or deal with them in a one on one fight (they have attacks that can OHK you) as you come across them, but if you miss one of the drones (and that's pretty much inevitable) it's going to alert all the enemies around it and they're all coming for you, resulting in a rain of fire that you can't survive because your character has the durability of a sheet of paper (with so much going on you won't have the time needed to line up a shot with the precision rifle to kill the attacking drones, they hover just far enough away to avoid shotgun damage, and hiding under cover isn't much help as they'll just fly behind you).

I have a PSVR, but haven't properly explored it with meaty game experiences yet. It's still super cool to put on with the motion controllers and have some fun with it from time to time. I'm really hoping to get Moss, but also am super excited to try it out on a game like No Man's Sky.

I can't wait to see what they do with the inevitable revisions, though. The first step seems to be reducing the amount of wires, and PSVR desperately needs to do that. Just setting it up is tedious and borderline confusing at times. But still, I think VR is here to stay, and we'll only see it get more sophisticated as time goes on.

@PikPi Yeah, I think the next one will have a single cable, and the VR box built in the console itself.

I have everything set up, so all I need to do is plug in two HDMI; so it's not too bad. But setting it up for the first time can take some time.