A little over a year later, is PlayStation VR worth it? Well, it’s certainly not cheap, it’s probably not the kind of thing you’re going to be playing every single day, and it’s a technology that’s still in its very early stages, but it sure makes for some amazing experiences anyway. Here are 10 of the best reasons so far to invest in VR.
#10 The Brookhaven Experiment
The Brookhaven Experiment is a very simple game, but it’s also a very effective one. It’s really just a 360 degree shooting gallery where the targets can kill you. Monsters come in deadly waves from all sides and you’ve got to be quick and accurate with your motion controllers to survive. Great monster design and a solid arsenal with tight controls make this an intensely fun action/horror experience.
#9 Thumper
Thumper is a crazy rhythm/action roller coaster ride where you play as a big metal bug for some reason. It’s surprisingly catchy and challenging, and the twisting tracks and the weird psychedelic voids that surround them are quite the sights to see in VR.
#8 End Space (review)
A space-combat sim that’s light on story and customization, but heavy on intense, tightly-designed space battles. A must-have for fans of Wing Commander and such, and hopefully a good glimpse into the future possibilities of VR gaming.
#7 Here They Lie
An incredibly surreal horror game that feels like you’re walking around in some kind of Cronenberg or Lynch film. The plot is near-incomprehensible, but the atmosphere and set-piece environments are pretty amazing (and a little bit disturbing).
#6 Statik (Review)
A VR puzzle game that contains a pile of incredibly clever and well-produced puzzles instead of just trying to dazzle you with 3D gimmicks. I wish there were more puzzle games like this.
#5 VR Worlds
What was thought to be just a tech demo disc, VR Worlds ended up containing some really impressive experiences. The London Heist is a fun action-thriller that has great characters and fun shootouts (and has its own full-sized game coming now), Scavenger’s Odyssey is a sci-fi shooter that feels a bit like a Metroid Prime game, and Danger Ball is a surprisingly compelling “sports” game that’s a kind of 3D battle Pong that looks like it’s taking place in the world of Tron. Oh, and those other 2 experiences are on there too.
#4 Until Dawn – Rush of Blood
Loosely based on Until Dawn, Rush of Blood is a strange mix of a roller coaster and a carnival shooting gallery, all with the horror themes of Until Dawn covering everything. It’s short and basic, as rail shooters usually are, but it’s incredibly well-produced and is one hell of an exciting and great looking ride for horror/shooter fans.
#3 Farpoint (Review)
Not just a first-person sci-fi shooter, but the first “real” one of its kind for PSVR. Oh sure, there are plenty of first-person shooters on there, but right now almost all of them are stationary shooting gallery kind of games. Farpoint was the first to bring a full-on fps experience, complete with a story campaign and everything, and it did a damn good job of it too. It proved that this kind of game absolutely can work very well on PSVR, and hopefully won’t be the last such game we see on there! It also made perfect use of the new (at the time) Aim controller, that’s since been incorporated into other VR shooterss.
#2 Battlezone
This was the game that sold me on PlayStation VR when I got to try a demo of it at a Best Buy (that we had to drive an hour to because it was the closest one doing the initial VR demos!). Battlezone is a futuristic tank game with amazing visuals and impressively tight controls that I couldn’t get out of my head after I tried. I was even more surprised to find that once I finally got my hands on a copy, the game actually turned out to be an incredibly difficult rogue-lite that was apparently really meant to be played online with a co-op team, but I stubbornly refused to do so and kept pushing on solo on the easier difficulties (which were still ridiculously hard). It was a lot of fun and remains one of the best-produced VR titles I’ve ever played. I hear they’ve even included a free expansion a while back, which I’ve really got to check out one of these days.
#1 Resident Evil 7
This should come as no surprise. Resident Evil 7 was not just the biggest horror game to hit PSVR, but also the biggest AAA game to hit it in general. Capcom took a real chance making the latest entry in their long-running horror series entirely VR-compatible, especially with the relatively poor reception the previous game in the series saw, but they gave it their best effort and oh boy did it pay off.
RE7 had some of the best graphics seen on PSVR, as well as having incredibly good controls in a time when PSVR was still very new and many games were struggling badly with their control schemes. Even more importantly, it was genuinely fear-inducing, even to someone as horror-desensitized as myself. It’s not just the best-produced PSVR game out there, but it’s also hands-down the creepiest game ever made (so far).
So there you have it, the 10 best reasons to invest in PlayStation VR. Don’t worry though, there are more than just 10 reasons, these are just the very best of them, and it was harder to narrow it down to just 10 than I thought it would be (Apologies to Doom VFR and Accounting+, which I have a feeling would have made this list if I’d had the time to play them before the year ended!).
And if you’re still on the fence about VR tech, do yourself a favor and find a store that does demos of it and try it for yourself. You might be surprised just how impressive it is when you actually try it for yourself, and if that doesn’t convince you, nothing will!
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 