Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Third-person VR Really Sucks Right Now

Third-person VR Really Sucks Right Now

PlayStation VR has been in the hands of consumers for a few weeks now. Critical reaction to the tech has been mostly positive, and although it bears a steep price of entry, it remains the most accessible VR option on the market. The Oculus Rift at $600 and HTC Vive at $800 come close if you factor in the price of the PS4 console required to use PSVR, but with over 40 million PS4 units sold as of May 2016 , that portion of the cost has already been eaten by most of PSVR’s target demographic. A piece of hardware, however, is only as good as its software.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to a PSVR headset since launch (thanks, roommate!) and I’ve tried out a number of games with it. I am unfortunately prone to dizziness, so I’ve encountered some physical incompatibility with the headset, but I remain absolutely fascinated by its potential. On the whole, I’ve found the most immersive experiences to be those that transport you into another world using a first-person perspective. It’s ironic, because I can’t stomach most first-person games using a traditional display, but something about putting myself into VR makes the perspective feel more organic. What I’m most excited about for PSVR is seeing how developers make use of the technology to deliver brand-new gaming experiences.

A creeping trend I’m watching with a wary eye is the lazy implementation of VR in fully third-person games. I’m referring to games where you play using a PSVR headset, but still control an avatar on the screen using a standard DualShock 4. The game that brought this trend to my attention is Touhou Kobuto V , a multiplayer arena-brawler not unlike Destrega or Dissidia Final Fantasy . Touhou Kobuto V’ s one-on-one battles are depicted in third person, except players can choose to play using the PSVR headset… and I can’t figure out for the life of me what benefit that might add. It frees up the television, sure, but it also forces the game to run at a lower resolution and offers no features unique to VR. The beautiful puzzle-platformer Bound has similar functionality . Rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X allows you to watch custom concerts in VR, only it strips away any semblance of gameplay (and Hatsune Miku: VR Future Live isn’t much better), while 100ft Robot Golf tries to shoehorn VR into a game that was clearly not designed to be played from first person. These games highlight instances where VR was added as an afterthought instead of being designed around the technology.

The recently-released horror adventure title Weeping Doll offers a compromise between the two: you view its environments in first person, but project a literal avatar into the space to solve puzzles. Weeping Doll ‘s developers explicitly implemented this feature to reduce the discomfort nausea-prone players feel when using the PSVR headset. I haven’t tested the game for myself, so it could simply be a clever marketing ploy, yet it remains an intriguing idea nonetheless.

Third-person VR Really Sucks Right Now

I don’t universally dislike all third-person VR games on principle. What I want them to do is actually leverage the technology. Rez Infinite is an excellent example of third-person VR done right: taking the role of a hacker who guides their avatar within a virtual space makes sense thematically as well as mechanically. Even though the game’s brand-new Area X was the only portion designed with VR in mind, the entire experience falls naturally into place because its original purpose was to take the player on a sensory journey. Thumper, another rhythm-centric title, makes similar use of the technology to heighten the impact of its audiovisual stimuli. These games prove to be far more interesting than their traditional counterparts. My hope going forward is that more PSVR developers will design their games with an awareness of the hardware’s unique potential instead of simply tacking on a virtual “spectator mode” to games that don’t need it.

To top