Gadgetory

virtual reality has made a lot of big promises but to most people really high-end VR is still a novel to your dream it's expensive finicky and still hasn't offered a killer app that will keep people using it PlayStation VR is supposed to be the solution coming out next week it's the only big tethered virtual reality headset powered by something lots of people already have the PlayStation 4 gaming console it's cheaper than either the oculus rift or the HTC vive and is backed by Sony one of the world's great gaming companies PlayStation VR just has to be good enough to make a worthwhile holiday splurge but for something is new as virtual reality good enough is still a tough standard to pin down the heart of PlayStation VR is the space-age black and white visor once known as project Morpheus on paper the PS VR headset has some disadvantages compared to the rift and vibe it's the heaviest of all of them and the lowest resolution using a single panel instead of one for each eye but in practice the comparison isn't so clear for one thing psvr fits on your head completely differently where most headsets strap onto your face like ski masks PS VR is mounted on a plastic ring that stretches around the upper part of your head balanced by weights on the back this means that it's not putting as much pressure on your face especially your cheek bones its eye pieces slide out with the push of a button so it's wearable with glasses it seems just hair green e'er than other headsets and some experiences can look a little muddy but with a well-designed game you won't even notice the difference in resolution the hardware is full of nice touches like an inline remote that your headphones can plug into letting you easily adjust the volume and turn the headset on and off I haven't worked up much of a sweat in the psvr yet but it's the only major headset with a smooth and easily cleanable rubber facemask not one made of fabric or foam it's also easier to get to the point of using psvr in the first place setting up the system means connecting a lot of wires you plug a small processing box into your ps4 in the wall plug your TV and headset into the box and plug a tracking camera straight into the console but you don't have to worry about hunting down software and drivers like you would on PC because the console just guides you through an extremely simple introduction the toughest part is positioning the camera right if your space is too big it might not pick up the tracking lights on the headset when you sit back on the couch and although you have enough room to walk a few steps in psvr it's not a room scale experience one of the problems with PlayStation VR is that's not a completely new system it's a setup cobbled together from various pieces of Sony hardware the core $399 psvr bundle comes with the headset the box and all its cables in order to use it though you'll also need a PlayStation camera which is sold separately and in order to fully take advantage of the catalog you'll need to PlayStation Move controllers in addition to the DualShock gamepad that comes with any PlayStation 4 adding move and a camera costs an extra hundred dollars although that's still cheaper than the Rifton 5 and you might want to splurge on a charging dock so you won't start running out of USB ports for all those controllers PlayStation Move is the weakest part of PlayStation VR the move controllers were first released back in 2010 and they don't feel designed for virtual reality they're covered in tiny buttons that are tough to hit even when you can see what's written on them so the only really useful elements are a button on the top and a trigger on the bottom that's enough to handle most experiences but it feels limited compared to the vive controllers oculus touch or sometimes even a regular game pad in some games the move sticks feel just as accurate as something like the vibe controllers in others the camera doesn't seem to quite reach far enough to give you a good range of motion or the controllers drift slightly as you play a big problem when you're in an action game sony has previously said that most of its games will be playable with the normal gamepad the DualShock actually has limited motion tracking of its own thanks to a light bar in the back but in some cases it still feels like an incredibly awkward two-handed remote control if a game says it's best played with the Move controllers believe it that said there are cases where a normal controller works perfectly well or is the only choice take for example super hypercube a game where you have to look around virtual reality and rotate three-dimensional objects to fit through a series of holes a lot of PS VR is upcoming fly ship titles or gamepad base including res infinite rigs and start recruit crew there are over two dozen games and experiences launching with PlayStation VR with more listed for later this year so far we've seen about ten of them including a spatial puzzle game a Trancy series of music minigames a horror rail-shooter and a cute adventure game while it's not exclusively a gaming device it's definitely geared toward it but there's enough out there that almost anyone should be able to have some fun from the start setting it up doesn't feel like installing a new cyberspace terminal in your living room and putting it on doesn't feel like jacking into the matrix it's not exactly normal looking but it at least starts to fit into your life in a way that other high-end headsets don't it don't even create some kind of new virtual environment for you to enter just a big-screen version of the normal PlayStation 4 interface in some ways this makes psvr a little less exciting than its competition but it hits close to the same quality bar while being cheaper more accessible and more comfortable maybe the are that doesn't feel futuristic is exactly what the world needs right now you