Post by Pigmagnet on Oct 21, 2016 9:59:43 GMT
That's second as in after trying a second unit. Same old windbag!
My second PSVR arrived yesterday. I went through all the set-up/calibration procedures before I looked at any software so I think I’m safe in assuming that I was seeing what I was supposed to be seeing. I’m still underwhelmed – in some respects, not in others.
My main criticism was screen resolution, and that criticism stands. It’s not the graphics that look bad, of course, it’s the low res screen letting them down, and even a tiny screen looks low res when it’s so close to your eyes. Turning down the brightness does help (the default setting is maximum) but the system really needs a contrast control too. I still maintain that the general experience is like sitting slightly too close to a CRT screen. Effects vary depending on what you look at of course, so I’ll just scoot through the stuff I looked at – which is mainly different from what I looked at first time round.
I also seemed to spend a lot of time recalibrating, because everything seemed to drift off to the left. I’ll have to look into that because I never had to do it on my first magic hat.
Allumette – best experience so far. See own thread for details.
EVE Valkyrie. As far as I could tell it looked the same, so all the calibration may have been unnecessary. The demo is really stingy and cuts out after a couple of minutes, but it’s long enough for me to know I’d never buy it. Graphics are poor – little ships are just smudges, like DriveClub cars in space. The high point was looking down at my body and realising I was playing a female character. Yes – indeed, I did have a pair of tits. That was a weird few seconds.
Thumper. I thought it would give me migraines, but it’s very good fun, though I think the demo might be enough for me as I’ve heard it gets very hard. It’s a very flashy rhythm game, and I had a (brief) blast. It’s not very 'VR' however – it looks 'big' because of the goggles, but it’s not really one to be immersed in.
Rez. I played it on Dreamcast, then on 360, and now appear to be the only one on the planet who doesn’t prefer it in VR. The graphical downgrade wasn’t too bad, actually, but then the graphics by today’s standards aren’t too intricate. It was immersive, to be sure, especially when I had to physically turn round to shoot the lanky boss behind me. But I found it just too overwhelming and in my face to want to buy the full game.
Rush of Blood. I played the demo with the pad so I knew in advance I wasn’t going to get the full dual-aiming experience. It's not for me. Spent most of the time just riding through corridors looking at blurred scenery, with something to shoot occasionally. I can see the appeal, it just doesn’t appeal to me. Spent much of the time correcting the tracking, because my arms often appeared skewed way off to the left, like I'd just had a lift from Harry Redknapp.
VR Worlds – Descent. I think it’s called Descent, anyway – the one where you’re in a diving cage. It’s just looking round at fishies, really. Despite the soft graphics it IS very impressive from the immersion point of view, with lovely gurgly sound from the unexpectedly good bundled plugs. Best use of hat so far! Nothing to do but look round, but I think the best thing so far just to show off the system to others. As you go deeper you can see the area below you is pitch black, and this actually filled me slightly with dread. I haven’t had a swim in a sea since I saw Jaws, and as the dark bit at the bottom got closer I got quite uneasy. When I got there I only saw some luminous jellyfish, which were very pretty. I knew that I wasn’t going to see any big beasties because the shark bit was locked in the demo – but the thought that the blackness could have some terrors lurking in it, fair put the willies up me.
That's what I looked at, all stuff from the download demo - which contains much more than you get on the free disc. Then:
Destiny. This looked a hell of a lot better than I was expecting. But too big for a non-VR game screen. I found it just too big for comfortable play. That was on the medium size setting - smallest made all the text break up, and biggest was just far too big.
In short - well, it won't be going back in the box again, but it's still a long way from perfect. I've been itching to get VR for decades and now the itch has been scratched so in that respect I'm satisfied. However I don't think I'll be spending much time with it yet. It can be truly jaw-dropping, but for me those moments haven't come with the big titles. Encouragingly, I have a feeling there will be a few more little gems that will impress. And I'm confident that there will be some big games that will properly knock my socks off. They just aren't here yet.
My second PSVR arrived yesterday. I went through all the set-up/calibration procedures before I looked at any software so I think I’m safe in assuming that I was seeing what I was supposed to be seeing. I’m still underwhelmed – in some respects, not in others.
My main criticism was screen resolution, and that criticism stands. It’s not the graphics that look bad, of course, it’s the low res screen letting them down, and even a tiny screen looks low res when it’s so close to your eyes. Turning down the brightness does help (the default setting is maximum) but the system really needs a contrast control too. I still maintain that the general experience is like sitting slightly too close to a CRT screen. Effects vary depending on what you look at of course, so I’ll just scoot through the stuff I looked at – which is mainly different from what I looked at first time round.
I also seemed to spend a lot of time recalibrating, because everything seemed to drift off to the left. I’ll have to look into that because I never had to do it on my first magic hat.
Allumette – best experience so far. See own thread for details.
EVE Valkyrie. As far as I could tell it looked the same, so all the calibration may have been unnecessary. The demo is really stingy and cuts out after a couple of minutes, but it’s long enough for me to know I’d never buy it. Graphics are poor – little ships are just smudges, like DriveClub cars in space. The high point was looking down at my body and realising I was playing a female character. Yes – indeed, I did have a pair of tits. That was a weird few seconds.
Thumper. I thought it would give me migraines, but it’s very good fun, though I think the demo might be enough for me as I’ve heard it gets very hard. It’s a very flashy rhythm game, and I had a (brief) blast. It’s not very 'VR' however – it looks 'big' because of the goggles, but it’s not really one to be immersed in.
Rez. I played it on Dreamcast, then on 360, and now appear to be the only one on the planet who doesn’t prefer it in VR. The graphical downgrade wasn’t too bad, actually, but then the graphics by today’s standards aren’t too intricate. It was immersive, to be sure, especially when I had to physically turn round to shoot the lanky boss behind me. But I found it just too overwhelming and in my face to want to buy the full game.
Rush of Blood. I played the demo with the pad so I knew in advance I wasn’t going to get the full dual-aiming experience. It's not for me. Spent most of the time just riding through corridors looking at blurred scenery, with something to shoot occasionally. I can see the appeal, it just doesn’t appeal to me. Spent much of the time correcting the tracking, because my arms often appeared skewed way off to the left, like I'd just had a lift from Harry Redknapp.
VR Worlds – Descent. I think it’s called Descent, anyway – the one where you’re in a diving cage. It’s just looking round at fishies, really. Despite the soft graphics it IS very impressive from the immersion point of view, with lovely gurgly sound from the unexpectedly good bundled plugs. Best use of hat so far! Nothing to do but look round, but I think the best thing so far just to show off the system to others. As you go deeper you can see the area below you is pitch black, and this actually filled me slightly with dread. I haven’t had a swim in a sea since I saw Jaws, and as the dark bit at the bottom got closer I got quite uneasy. When I got there I only saw some luminous jellyfish, which were very pretty. I knew that I wasn’t going to see any big beasties because the shark bit was locked in the demo – but the thought that the blackness could have some terrors lurking in it, fair put the willies up me.
That's what I looked at, all stuff from the download demo - which contains much more than you get on the free disc. Then:
Destiny. This looked a hell of a lot better than I was expecting. But too big for a non-VR game screen. I found it just too big for comfortable play. That was on the medium size setting - smallest made all the text break up, and biggest was just far too big.
In short - well, it won't be going back in the box again, but it's still a long way from perfect. I've been itching to get VR for decades and now the itch has been scratched so in that respect I'm satisfied. However I don't think I'll be spending much time with it yet. It can be truly jaw-dropping, but for me those moments haven't come with the big titles. Encouragingly, I have a feeling there will be a few more little gems that will impress. And I'm confident that there will be some big games that will properly knock my socks off. They just aren't here yet.