The Playstation VR has been released.  With it the VR world has opened up to the console gamer.  It also means I finally had a chance to spend some time in one of these without having to wait in a 2 hour line at GDC.  Now that I’ve been able to spend a real amount of time with the tech, I’m able to make my own observations.  Here are a couple observations that I haven’t seen many other people making.

Looking Around!

One game I’ve played is the space fighter Eve: Valkyrie.  In many fighter games, they have to cheat with indicators, or allow some easy way to let the player look around.  With VR you can just twist your head to keep eyes on your target.  It seems obvious when you read it, but it’s quite a difference maker to know where that guy ACTUALLY IS.  This also came up in REZ, when the enemy wound up behind me!

Fidelity

Because VR has to generate everything twice, and you can look at it so closely, the visuals look a little jaggy.  This may be better on the PS4 Pro, but it’s still true that when you are entirely immersed, it’s easier to notice any errors.  There are additional complications too.  One is that the focus can be tricky to get right.  Any smudge on the eye piece makes everything blurry.  If they’re a little to close, or far away, everything is blurry.  If the positioning is a little too high or low, everything is blurry.  The headsets are designed to make correct positioning as easy as possible, but there is still room for error.

Physical Comfort

Speaking of the design of the headsets, comfort can be an issue.  Most people are not used to strapping any weight to their head.  Pressure on some areas can be painful.  In addition to that, it has to grip tight, so it doesn’t fly off while you look around.  In my case, I think the biggest problem is that my hat size is bigger than the Playstation VR headset is intended for.  Cushions pressed into my temples, which added up to a headache after not too long.

Placing Yourself in Another Body

Another point from Valkyrie. Not surprisingly, this game puts the player in the cockpit of their fighter.  Somewhat unexpectedly, when I looked down, I had a body.  There’s a very strange feeling that hits you when you see a body where yours should be, but isn’t yours.  For me, I felt myself wanting to lift my arms into the position for the arms and hands I saw gripping the ship’s controls.  This brings up another point that almost no one talks about.

Proprioception

C’mon spell checker, that’s a real word.  Proprioception is the sensation of where your body is located, or orientated.  In Valkyrie, I saw arms that were “mine” according to my eyes, but my physical arms weren’t there.  The difference in visual and physical perception can be a little unsettling, at least at first.  That’s not the biggest example, though.

I also played Rush of Blood, and on rails shooter.  In this one I used the move controllers to control my guns.  The catch is that the grip I had to use on the controller didn’t match the grip I had in game, or how I would actually hold a pistol.  I’ve fired enough pistol type items (NES Zapper, NERF blasters, water guns, light gun game pistols) to have an innate awareness of how my hand should be orientated to have a rough aim with a pistol.  The move controller, at least without a gun accessory, makes that impossible.  At best I could use it as a rifle grip, but as a pistol, my wrist would be at the wrong angle.

It’s worth seeing the difference between a pistol grip and a rifle grip.  The angle of the hand and wrist are very different.

So, my proprioception of how to hold the controller to get it to do what I want is off.  This is similar to the strange feeling that the body in Eve Valkyrie gave me.

Sensory Dissonance – Tolerance Development

This dissonance is similar to what can cause motion sickness.  The eyes see something that the body disagrees with, whereas motion sickness is when the eyes see something that the inner ear disagrees with.  Ding a roll in Valkyrie makes me feel very odd.  However I expect that as young people are exposed to this at an early age, they will develop a resilience against this dissonance.  Say that when people weren’t accustomed to Movies, the realistic imagery and motion could cause this kind of dissonance.  Eventually people were able to separate themselves from the imagery, and recognize the movie as external to their body.  3D and IMAX can overwhelm that for some people, but that’s also what makes them more engaging for other viewers.  I suspect VR will have a similar path.  Some people will always have motion sickness problems.  Others will have a resilience to that dissonance.  Others will be exposed early and develop a resilience.  I only hope that this developed resilience won’t result in the immersion of the VR experience being compromised.  That people dissociate from their senses even further and VR becomes another layer of artificial stimulus that is only so much cotton candy.

Though, I think it’s more likely that we’ll find a way to get sensory data to our inner ears first to defeat the motion sickness.  Or drugs, there’s always drugs.

…cyberpunk drugs

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry. Behind the Line is written to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it. From “What’s taking this game so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else, if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com