EGX Rezzed 2016 - Hands on with the PlayStation VR and RIGS Mechanized Combat League

After trying out the HTC Vive, I was expecting to be a little disappointed. With the PSVR being  the cheapest option out of the Vive and the Oculus, I was unsure how much of a dip in quality the PSVR would be in comparison to the other two.  I sadly only got to try one demo due to the amount of people booking demos. While there were a fair number of games available, I only tried the game RIGS Mechanized Combat League, an FPS sports game in which a player climbs into a mech in order to blow up the other team. However, the little sports twist is, when a player gets a 3 kill streak or collecting orbs scattered around the arena or dropped from opponents, that person has an opportunity to jump through a large hoop at the top of the arena in order to score a goal. Below you can check out my quick first impressions:

First off, the PSVR itself is, as stated, a nice little VR experience. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't notice any noticeable dip in quality between the PSVR and the Oculus Dev Kits in the short demo I had with it. The 1920x1080 resolution is obviously inferior to the Oculus retail and Vive's 1080x1200 per eye. While this is noticeable within the first few minutes, I did find myself ignoring looking past the resolution after a while.

The game RIGS Mechanized Combat League itself was a lovely bit of fun. Although not as fast dynamic as I would have personally liked in an FPS, the game itself showed some promise. The sensation of getting lifted up into a 30 foot high robot was pretty great. However, I only got to play against bots in a relatively small arena, but in terms of the basic gameplay, the FPS mechanics seemed serviceable. Having only played one match and having barely got used to the controls, I don't feel confident going into any sort of explicit detail about minute mechanics. However, while the graphics were overall pretty stellar, the lack of anti-aliasing was a little jarring after having the option in a VR experience. Also, this was a personal thing, but I did find aiming by rotating my head a little tricky. I assume this will not be an issue through more exposure to the game, but the aid of auto aim does help.

I wish I could give a more in-depth analysis of the PSVR and RIGS, but sadly my experience was short lived. Overall though, I came away relatively optimistic about the future of both.