It's here, it's finally here. Sony's PlayStation VR has been a long time coming, but the headset is now available, and its release has been accompanied by a slew of new virtual reality games.
Sony has been busy equipping its first VR headset with an impressive library of games which range from short tech demos to much more expansive experiences like Battlezone.
With Sony already being the publisher behind many of the best PS4 games, we're excited to see what the future holds for its VR platform.
And the best bit is that all of these games will only require a PS4 console to run, no beefy gaming PCs required.
We've had a chance to try out almost all of the biggest games set to come out on the headset, and we've compiled a list of our favorites for you over the following pages.
Developer: Monstars + Enhance Games
Who’d have guessed that a 15 year old Dreamcast game would turn out to be one of the killer apps for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset? The second time that the classic shooter has been updated, Rez Infinite adds VR head tracking into the mix, putting you at the center of its Tron-like wireframe soundscapes.
It’s always been a game that lets you “get in the zone”, but with VR head tracking, Rez Infinite becomes almost hypnotic. With an ace, pulsing trance soundtrack that builds to a thumping crescendo as you shoot down polygonal enemies, you find yourself fully immersed in the futuristic landscape as it zips past your floating avatar.
With an insane sense of speed and spot on head-tracking enemy targeting, it’s easy to completely lose track of reality whilst playing Rez Infinite, and it’ll be hard to stop yourself dancing along to the grooves your shots produce. Packing in all the additional content of the earlier HD re-release of Rez, it’s still a relatively short VR experience at just around an hour long.
But, like a good album, it’s something you’ll want to dive into again and again. Just be careful that you don’t do a “Jeff Bridges in Tron” and find yourself so hooked that you’ll never want to leave.
Developer: Crytek
While we haven't gotten our hands on Robinson: The Journey yet, its E3 trailer completely blew us away. Set in a prehistoric time, Robinson follows one futuristic time traveler on his quest to get ... well, somewhere away from the all the frighteningly large lizards that inhabit that era. Your best defense? A talking sphere that's two parts snarky and one part truly empathetic to your awful circumstances.
Made by the same team behind the Crysis series, Robinson: The Journey will be a PlayStation VR exclusive and one of the first major collaborations with a huge studio on the platform. While dinosaurs already feel a bit worn out in the virtual reality space, Robinson could mix all the right ingredients into a thrilling prehistoric adventure for the ages.
Check out the E3 trailer for yourself below:
Developer: Capcom
The next entry in seminal horror franchise Resident Evil was clearly inspired by a spectacular game demo shown off at last year's E3 to coincide with series rival Silent Hill: P.T. But, developer Capcom is taking that one step further with an insanely immersive-looking VR implementation. Set in an abandoned mansion, you're placed in the shoes of an unknown and confused survivor in a derelict mansion. With only vague scribbles on torn sheets of paper to guide them, you must find a way out of the locked house while learning of the horrors that transpired there – but you soon learn that you're not alone and something sinister is lurking in the shadows.
If this teaser that we've played is any indication of what the final game will be like, then we've got something quite terrifying in store for us.
Developer: Rebellion
Chances are, the original Battlezone might have passed you by if you're under 40 – Atari's 1980 arcade game doesn't quite hold the same iconic status as Pong.
However, it's generally considered to be the very first VR game, which is why British developer Rebellion bought the rights from Atari so that it could remake it for modern VR headsets.
The result is one of the best VR experiences we've had to date. The gameplay is fun (think a futuristic take on World of Tanks), but it's the striking but simple graphics that are the key to the overall enjoyment.
While a lot of VR games try to go as realistic as possible, Battlezone's Tron-like game world is more absorbing than nearly everything else we've played, and better yet you'll be able to enjoy them with your friends thanks to the game's inclusion of co-operative play.
Developer: Sony
Even the coldest of hearts will be melted by The Playroom. The little robots that star in the game will be familiar to the three people who played the original Playroom, which was bundled with the PlayStation Camera when it launched with the PS4 back in November 2013. Basically, these droids are the anthropomorphised versions of the company's famous Aibo dogs, and you get to play around with them in this virtual Playroom. In one mini-game, the player with the VR headset is a monster, while four players using a TV and DualShock 4 controllers try to avoid the debris he throws at them. There are also toybox demos where you just look into a miniature house and observe the droids as they go to the gym, go swimming, watch TV and so forth. The Playroom VR will be bundled with the headset when it launches, essentially becoming PlayStation VR's version of Wii Sports.
Developer: Sony
The London Heist is Sony's most obvious attempt to make a VR game that will appeal to traditional PlayStation gamers – it could even be a sequel to The Getaway, right down to the dodgy Guy Ritchie-esque Cockerney gangster stereotypes. We've seen the game demonstrate a lot of different gameplay strands – there are interrogations, car chases and even actual heists – but from what we can ascertain the finished game is going to be an on-rails shooter. While no one was particularly asking for a VR update of Virtua Cop and Time Crisis, the genre is definitely suited to virtual reality – and leaning out of a moving car to shoot bad guys does make you feel pretty badass.
Developer: Impulse Gear
If you ever wanted a Starship Troopers simulator, Farpoint is pretty much it. The sci-fi first-person shooter places you onto a foreign planet teeming with hostile alien creatures lining up to eviscerate you. Luckily you're armed to the teeth with assault rifles and shotguns, plus a few smarter weapons like a laser-guided rocket.
It's also the first PSVR game to be shown with the new PlayStation VR Aim controller, which is essentially a gun-shaped Move device with integrated buttons, triggers and a thumb stick. While you'll be able to play the game just as well with a DualShock 4, the Aim controller lends a greater level of immersion as you sling your gun behind your back to switch weapons and butt alien bugs with your rifle.
Developer: CCP Games
Eve Valkyrie isn't exclusive to PlayStation VR – it has already come out for Oculus Rift, and it will be coming to the Vive shortly. However, because it's been in development for so long, it's one of the most polished experiences on any VR platform right now. Developer CCP Games was one of the first companies to start working on a VR-exclusive game, and while it was impressive when it was first shown a couple of years ago, it's really starting to look like a finished game now. There's no genre better suited to virtual reality than space combat: when you realise you can just move your head around to track enemies you'll wonder how you ever played such games on a flat screen.
Developer: Ubisoft
Eagle Flight is the strangely Assassin's Creed-esque flight simulator set in the skies of post-apocalyptic Paris. This strange premise puts you in control of an eagle as you swoop through narrow pathways and kill your fellow birds of prey. Eagle Flight appeases that simple wish to fly that, until now, you've only had in your dreams. Your eagle will fly wherever you look, whether that's through an open window or down a derelict sewer tunnel or straight into the wall of a 15th century chapel. Gameplay is both strangely addictive and nail-bitingly intense when you're on the wrong side of a dogfight. Best of all, according to Ubisoft the game will be available on launch day.
Developer: Sony (Guerilla Cambridge)
You might be surprised by the lack of first-person action games being developed for virtual reality platforms. However, RIGS may explain why there aren't more: it's pretty nauseating, at least when we played it at E3 2015. It's a sports game rather than a traditional shooter, although guns are involved – certain players have to make it through a hoop in the middle of an arena to score a point for their team, while the opposing team has to try and shoot them down. It's a cool concept – like a game of Capture the Flag with a basketball twist – but it's too fast and frantic for VR. Hopefully these issues will be ironed out ahead of release.
Developer: Highwire Games
Golem will be one of the first hybrid virtual reality console games. Some parts of it will be spent with DualShock 4 in hand controlling a human character and crafting the eponymous fictional creatures then, when it's time to take them out for a spin, you'll don the headset and see the world through the creature's' eyes. Golem's creator, Jaime Griesemer, was one of the creators of the original Halo on Xbox. Now he and Halo's composer Marty O'Donnell have set out to pioneer the next big platform with a platformer that they hope will sell as well as Halo did all those years ago.
Developer: Supermassive Games
One of our favorite aspects of PlayStation VR is just how many different genres of games it has. DriveClub in VR will satiate racing game fans' need for speed, while GNOG will put fans of puzzle games face-to-face with a dozens of colorful enigmas to solve. Unlike either of those, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood will join Resident Evil 7 in being PlayStation VR's first foray into the horror genre that will strap you into a carnival-esque rollercoaster and send you hurtling through of funhouse of horrors. While the controls are fairly limited, the real "fun" to be had in Rush of Blood, a standalone VR game set in Until Dawn's engrossing frightworld, comes from tumbling from one jump scare to the next with a deathgrip on both the controller and your bladder. Trust me kids, nothing is scarier than almost peeing your pants in a room full of your friends.
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