The screaming in our office yesterday was one of our video guys, John, trying a shark attack demo in PlayStation VR. You can see and hear that glorious moment at the tail of of our video here showcasing several of the launch PSVR games in action.
The video is an archive of a livestream we shot in the office on Wednesday. We had a camera on me (and, eventually, John), so you could see what a person using PSVR does while we also showed a direct feed of the “spectator” view of the games in action. Spectator view is the same as what you would see on a TV when a person is using PSVR. It’s designed, as you probably surmised, to give the people not wearing the headset a sense of what is happening in a VR game.
Unlike the VR imagery in the actual headset, the spectator feed is 2D and runs at a relatively low resolution. PSVR graphics look more impressive and much more immersive when you see them through the headset. As I’ve written before, it’s the difference between looking at a postcard of the Grand Canyon and being in it.
Games included in the stream are:
- Super Hypercube, my favorite PSVR title so far. It’s a pretty simple puzzle game from the folks at Polytron and Kokoromi. That game starts at around 6:00 into the stream.
- Battlezone, a fun tank game that looks like a big Tron-like experience. It’s really visually impressive in VR. It shows up in the stream at 11:15 or so
- Wayward Sky, a lovely point-and-click adventure with pretty basic gameplay but a good sense of scale. That’s from Uber Entertainment. We get to it at 16:40.
- Batman: Arkham VR, which is as ambitious as it is odd. I reviewed it here, and you can see it in the stream at 25:09.
- PlayStation VR Worlds, which is a compilation of short experiences, some more interactive than others. We did the shark sequence in the compilation’s Ocean Descent mode. It’s more of a spectating, experiential thing than it is a game. It’s also the best thing to show to VR newcomers, as you’ll see when we start it on the stream at 39:20. Warning: John freaks out starting at 48:30 or thereabouts. Adjust your speaker volume accordingly.