The year 2016 has long been heralded as the moment virtual reality comes of age. After years of waiting, we finally have three major headsets, all available to buy, bringing us one step closer to fulfilling our deepest sci-fi fantasies. There's VR's poster child, the Oculus Rift; the 360-degree room-scale HTC Vive; and last but not least we finally have the Sony PlayStation VR, which has been built from the ground up for the PS4.
And yet, despite both Vive and Oculus Rift launching earlier this year to great critical acclaim, the general bubble of excitement around VR seems to have dissipated. Neither Vive nor Oculus has managed to cultivate a golden line-up of must-have games, and those coveted “killer apps” are still nowhere to be found. It all paints a rather gloomy picture for the PSVR, but Sony's headset might just be the one to give VR the shot in the arm it so desperately needs. It's not only significantly cheaper than its rivals, but it’s also far less rigmarole to set up.
Indeed, if you own a PS4 and a DualShock 4 controller you're already halfway there. The PSVR simply plugs into the back of the console via the bundled control box, with the only other requirement being a PlayStation Camera. This doesn't come with the headset, but several retailers are selling it as part of a PSVR bundle pack, so you shouldn't have too much trouble tracking one down.
The PS Camera you'll most likely see being sold is the new second-generation version, which now has a cylindrical design and hinge-stand making it easier to align with the headset. The hardware inside it is exactly the same as the previous model, though, so don’t make the mistake of upgrading if you already own one.
With those three things in place, you're good to go. There's no PC involved, no hassle of having to upgrade any of your rig's components, and you don't need to clear out a significant portion of your living room to use it. Sony still recommends you sit around five feet away from the camera, but given that PSVR is primarily a seated VR experience, you won't have to move the furniture around every time you want to start playing.
Setting up PSVR
The only thing you will need to deal with is the sheer number of cables. Just like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, PlayStation VR is a tethered headset. That means there’s a long cable that trails from the back of the headset into the main control box, which in turn plugs into the back of the PS4. You'll be sitting down most of the time, so it's unlikely you'll find your legs getting tangled up in them, but it's something to be aware of if your console lives in a busy living room with kids or pets rushing in and out. You can stand and move about a little bit if you're playing a game that supports Sony's optional motion-sensing PlayStation Move controllers, but these are still largely stationary experiences that don't require you to walk around.
Starting with the headset itself, you'll find two joined-up cables trailing out the back of it: one HDMI cable and one proprietary connection that can either plug into the bundled extension lead, taking the total cable length to 4.4m, or straight into the main control box. Dubbed the “Processing Unit”, this device mirrors the design of the original PS4, with a split running down one-third of the box and an LED light strip across the front.
This isn't just a simple aesthetic touch, though. The smaller section neatly slides backwards to reveal two ports, which Sony has marked with its classic Square, Circle, X and Triangle symbols, so you’ve no doubt where to plug in your headset cable. Then you slide the housing back to keep everything looking neat and tidy.
At the back of the Processing Unit is a power socket, a micro-USB port and two HDMI outputs – one for plugging into your TV and one for plugging into your PS4. All the cables are included in the box. You only get one HDMI lead, but this won’t be a problem, since you should already have an HDMI cable connecting your PS4 to your TV.
The micro-USB port is to be connected to one of your PS4's USB ports. Annoyingly, these are on the front of the console, so you'll have to put up with at least one wire trailing out in front. That’s a shame considering the lengths to which Sony has gone to make the Processing Unit box so discreet.
Finally, there's the PlayStation Camera. Rather than connecting to the Processing Unit, all you need to do is plug it into the PS4's rear aux port and place it in front of where you're likely to sit. This is vital, as it's this device that's responsible for tracking your head movements via the blue lights on the front of the headset. All in all, it's pretty painless compared to how long it took to set up the Vive; I was up and running in less than 15 minutes.
PSVR headset hardware specs
The PSVR headset itself is the most comfortable head-mounted display I've used. Its minimalist, black-and-white design not only looks like it's been teleported in from the future, but it's also exceedingly lightweight, weighing a mere 610g. That's a fraction heavier than the Vive, but whereas the Vive looks more like a first-gen prototype, with its Velcro straps and visible cable trails dangling around the back, at least Sony's gone to the effort of making it look like a proper, finished consumer product.
The flexible headband sits snugly over your forehead, and it's clear Sony has put plenty of thought into its overall design. A small button on the underside of the display allows the spring-loaded front display to retract in and out, giving you clearance to loop the headband over your head, and a button on the rear of the headband lets you stretch its two internal rubber straps to pull it all the way down over your eyes. There's also a dial just above the headband button at the rear to help tighten and fix the headset in place; finally, all you need to do is press the button beneath the display to bring the front of the headset back towards your face.
There's no individual lens adjustment, sadly, but I didn't find this to be an issue. Once I'd shifted the headset around a little and found a comfortable position, the screen was already in focus, so hopefully you shouldn't have to spend too long getting everything looking sharp and crisp. That said, other members of the Expert Reviews team who wear glasses found it less comfortable. While the display's rubber surround can be easily pushed aside for glasses, the rigid headband isn't quite so accommodating, making it difficult to get it sitting comfortably over the ears.
My advice to glasses wearers is to try one out at a shop demo before you buy; for everyone else, it’s a no-brainer. In fact, I found most of the time I forgot I was wearing it. Occasionally, I felt the tug of the headset's tether cable, particularly if the extension cable's connector box was hanging loose by my side, but as long as I draped this over my lap or had it next to me on the sofa, I barely noticed it was there.
You'll want to make sure the headset's small volume controller is within easy reach, as you'll need this to use its inline microphone and plug in a pair of headphones. Just Like the Vive, the PSVR doesn't have built-in headphones, so you'll need to supply your own if you want to take advantage of its “3D binaural audio”.
In case you're unfamiliar with binaural audio, these specially recorded tracks use 360-degree microphones to produce an all-encompassing soundtrack, which is supposed to produce a sensation of being in the room with the audio. It’s intended to be played back specifically via headphones. You can still listen to what's being pumped out of your TV speakers, but I'd recommend using headphones if you really want to feel truly present in your virtual world. You'll need to avoid headphones with built-in microphones, though, as these will conflict with the one inside the headset's controller.
Inside the headset itself is a 5.7in, 1,920 x 1,080 OLED display. That resolution is quite a bit lower than the 2,160 x 1,200 screens in the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, but the PSVR has a higher maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.
Most PSVR games available right now run at a regular 60Hz, but Sony's clever software trickery boosts this to 120Hz to make it appear smoother. Using its own so-called "reprojection" technique, this involves taking the last outputted image at 60Hz and creating a new one at 120Hz based on the user's latest head movement. This is different to regular frame interpolation, according to Sony, as it doesn’t introduce any extra lag between the images presented onscreen. Either way, while it might not be true 120Hz footage, the result is still extremely convincing. It's noticeably smoother than the Vive's 90Hz refresh rate and Sony's claimed ultra-low latency figure of just 0.018 seconds means I rarely suffered any bouts of nausea or motion sickness.
What's more, the headset has been designed in such as way that you can still see your DualShock 4 controller if you glance downwards, with a slight gap in the headset's rubber surround. This might offend VR purists who want total immersion, but even though it does cause some light bleed, it didn't adversely affect my playing experience. Likewise, the fact I could still glance down at the controls as and when I needed felt immensely reassuring.
It's an incredibly practical headset, but the one downside of the PlayStation VR is its comparatively low resolution. This made itself felt on a number of occasions during my testing. Objects onscreen often looked quite soft and pixellated, and text was visibly jagged. Luckily, most of the games I've played – including RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, PlayStation VR Worlds, Battlezone and The Playroom VR – employ a fairly soft, block-colour approach that helps mask any loss of fine detail. However, if there's one thing that's going to derail your sense of immersion, it's seeing virtual faces that are pixellated horror shows, like those in Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, or watching Driveclub VR's grand vistas blur into a single mass of colour.
However, while the low resolution is a weakness, it isn’t a deal-breaker for me. Yes, a higher-resolution display would have been nice, but that would have also made the headset more expensive. As it stands, the fact that Sony has managed to create such compelling VR for £349 is something to be applauded.
After all, there's still nothing quite like being surrounded by one of RIGS' hulking mechanoid robots or flying a spaceship in EVE: Valkyrie's full 360-degree dogfights, and for most people, I'm confident, that in itself will be enough. Those who want a higher-quality VR experience (and are willing to pay for it) have other options, namely the Vive and Oculus Rift. For everyone else, PSVR does a grand job of making you feel part of these strange, new virtual worlds, and its relatively simple setup also makes it the most accessible and consumer-friendly VR headset yet.
PSVR games
A truly great VR headset also needs plenty of fantastic games to go with it, and fortunately, Sony is in a much better position here than its PC-based rivals. It not only has a strong list of launch titles available to play from day one, but it also has a healthy roster of upcoming games coming out over the next couple of months to help sustain your interest. More than 50 titles will have launched by the end of the year, and big hitters such as Resident Evil 7, GT Sport and new space shooter Farpoint have been promised for 2017.
There are even some current PS4 titles, as well as a few imminent releases, that are compatible with the PlayStation VR for certain sections of the game. The new Blood Ties chapter in Rise of the Tomb Raider, for instance, can be played in VR, and Final Fantasy XV will have its own dedicated VR segment. Naturally, “bits” of VR aren't what you buy a £349 headset for, but they’re nice extras, and it's extremely promising that so many developers are already getting onboard, since this should mean more dedicated VR titles from them in the future.
The handful of launch titles should be more than enough to get you started, though. With a mixture of full, mainstream games and smaller indie-type offerings, PSVR's launch line-up has something for everyone, from your hardcore space fanatic to electronic music fans.
EVE: Valkyrie
It can be a little overwhelming at first, but one of your first ports of call should definitely be EVE: Valkyrie. Yes, it's already available on Oculus Rift, with Vive support coming later this year, but its 360-degree space combat is by far one of the best VR experiences I've ever had. Flipping your spaceship for the first time can do quite a number on your stomach, but sitting in EVE’s virtual cockpit, glancing around the vast expanses of space and swooping into great, epic space battles is definitely what VR is made for.
Battlezone
For those who would rather keep their feet on the ground, Rebellion's remake of Atari classic Battlezone is another great addition. With its space-age art design and bright, neon-infused visuals, this is about as close to real-life Tron as you're likely to get, only here you're placed inside the confines of a futuristic tank instead of a high-speed light bike.
As with EVE: Valkyrie, you'll need to move your head to move your turret and widen your field of view, as enemies spawn from all corners of the battlefield. It makes brilliant use of the PSVR's high refresh rate, and its silky-smooth controls work brilliantly. Even better, you can play co-operatively with up to three friends, making it one of PSVR's best multiplayer titles in addition to its engaging solo campaign.
RIGS: Mechanized Combat
Competitive types should also check out Guerilla Cambridge's RIGS: Mechanized Combat League. Best described as a first-person basketball mech shooter, the key to victory lies in building up enough overdrive energy from taking down your opponents so you can hurl yourself through a large circular goal in the middle of the arena. You aim by moving your head, but you run and jump using the DualShock 4 controller.
Again, the sense of movement can take a little getting used to, but overall the pace is steady, so it was only when I turned round very quickly that I felt my head spin a bit. It's great fun, though, and each RIGS model feels well-tuned and finely balanced. All the arenas have plenty of height and space to bomb around in, but their funnel-like design ensures you're never too far away from one of your opponents. It's perhaps a little expensive compared with other PSVR launch titles, but if you're looking for something fast and furious to sink your teeth into, RIGS certainly won't disappoint.
Rez Infinite
My favourite PSVR launch game has to be Rez Infinite. It's a port of the original PS2 classic, but playing this on-rails music game in VR is something else. The controls are fairly simple – all you need to do is move your head to target enemies and hold and release X to fire – but when you've got its incredible electronic soundtrack pumping in your ears and you're bopping your head in time with the beat, you find yourself becoming utterly lost in the music. It's an assault on your senses, utterly brilliant, and an absolute must-buy if you're a fan of the original.
Sadly, Rez Infinite isn't included on the bundled demo disc, but all the other titles mentioned above are, so you can try before you buy. All PSVR owners can download a free copy of The Playroom VR as well, which has six games, all based around asymmetric play. Here, one person uses the headset, while up to four others can join in with regular DualShock 4 controllers and play on the TV, making it a more communal experience. I've yet to rope in some willing test subjects for this, but I'll update this review with some impressions as soon as I can.
PlayStation VR Worlds
I'm slightly disappointed to see that Sony's PlayStation VR Worlds title isn't bundled in for free. It's another compilation of short VR mini-games and experiences, and for me could have been the PSVR's equivalent of Wii Sports, but I'm not sure it's worth paying an extra £30 for on top of The Playroom VR.
It's a shame, as it's VR Worlds that includes the brilliant London Heist, using the PlayStation 4’s Move controllers to great effect. Here, the Move controllers morph into your very own, albeit disembodied, set of hands, allowing you to shoot, grab objects and rifle through the drawers of a Russian mobster's desk by holding down the rear button and moving your arms. The first time you grab a clip and shove it into the grip of your gun is simply brilliant, and the attention to detail is staggering. And yet, it's not really a full game, which makes it all the more disappointing that it's not bundled as a more substantial demo showcase.
Verdict
That's a small complaint overall, though, and it certainly doesn't detract from what Sony has managed to achieve here. Resolution quibbles aside, the PSVR is a fantastic VR headset that has a great line-up of games and is excellent value for money. It's easy to set up and exceedingly simple to use, and the fact you can plug just it into an existing PS4, PS4 Slim or the upcoming PS4 Pro only makes it more attractive.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Sony will be able to sustain its game library over the next couple of years, but from what I've seen so far, the PSVR has everything it needs to be the must-have VR headset of 2016, not to mention one of the best accessories Sony has ever produced.
I'd recommend trying one out before you buy if you can, if only to see whether you're particularly susceptible to motion sickness, but if you already own a PS4 and want to take your games to the next level, then the PlayStation VR is a must-buy this Christmas.