Emerging Tech : PlayStation VR

So recently the college invested in many Virtual reality headsets, mainly so that we could study the technology and the experiences they deliver. In the recent session we all had the chance to test out some of these headsets. I was lucky enough to try out the Playstation VR and the HTC Vive. In this blog however, I’m going to be talking about my experience with the PS VR and my experience with the Vive in my next blog. Lets get into it!So for those of you that don’t know, the Playstation VR (also known as Project Morpheus during development), came out fairly recently launching on the 13th of October 2016. The PS VR is a Virtual Reality Headset developed by Sony, exclusively for the PS4 system. And with any VR Headset, it allows you to engage the games world from your own POV.

The headset itself was pretty comfortable however, sometimes I needed to fidget around to get it right and the design was odd compared to other headsets. Despite this I found it very easy to set up and easy to get used to the design.Now onto Gameplay. Like with any headset, the gameplay has to be enjoyable and has to keep the user engaged to give them the best experience possible and honestly, I thought the gameplay was fantastic! I managed to get some footage from the PS VR and threw together a little edit to show off the gameplay. Be sure to click on the video to watch some of the gameplay I captured!

Now lets talk about my personal gameplay experiences I had with the PS VR.Drive Club VR for me was a great experience and I must say that with me playing the original game (which wasn’t very good in my opinion), the VR version of the game is a huge improvement! Everything feels so much better in the Virtual world and to actually feel as though your in the car itself is so great. And to experience the scenery in the game like your actually there is unbelievable.EVE Valkyrie was also an amazing experience for me. I really enjoyed being inside the cockpit of a spaceship during outer space warfare even though sometimes it was a bit unsettling when doing barrel roles! Also being able to see your own body in the cockpit whilst flying and dog-fighting really created an amazing immersive experience for me! I wish that they did this for Drive Club VR instead as appose to just showing the player there hands, which i believe would enhance the user experience.I also got to play other games such as Playstation Worlds (mainly The London Heist mode), Battlezone and Headmaster.I definitely think that all of the games I played (excluding Headmaster, as that is mainly about using your head movement to header footballs into a goal) could be greatly improved if we had the Playstation Move and VR combination because for some games like Playstation Worlds, I found it really difficult to control weapons and other in game objects.Overall I felt that my experience with the PS VR was amazing, due to this being my first step into VR gaming (with it being the first headset I’ve actually tried). Obviously there are downsides to the headset, mainly just the fidgeting of getting the head set just right and also the design is slightly odd but apart from that, I managed to take away a great, comfortable user experience. I definitely think that this headset is an amazing piece of tech and for this being exclusive to the PS4 console, it surprised me of how good everything turned out. The graphics were crisp and the sounds were unbelievable and sounded almost too real when I put headphones on! I really think that this headset can revolutionise VR gaming in the future.