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View Full Version : Project Morpheus review



alanjg007
11-07-2015, 10:55 AM
Virtual reality is an incredible thing. It's also something inherently hard to describe to someone else how disconcertingly real it feels loading a clip into your gun with both hands or having a rather sharp and bloodied butcher's knife jabbed in your face when you're not physically there.

Bear with us, though, as the hour we spent with Sony's Project Morpheus VR headset for PS4 this week has utterly convinced us that virtual reality gaming is the next big frontier for home consoles. All Sony needs now is an official price that won't break the bank and a good line-up of launch titles and we'll happily throw ourselves into our own virtual adventures when Project Morpheus eventually launches in the first half of next year.

STEP INTO THE KITCHEN

In the meantime, though, we were thoroughly impressed by each and every one of Sony's half dozen demos it had on show at its PlayStation Summer Showcase in London. That aforementioned bloodied knife, for example, comes courtesy of The Kitchen, Capcom's nightmare-inducing tech demo that borrows liberally from The Evil Within school of claret encrusted home d?cor.

With a large 5.7in, 1,920x1,080 resolution OLED display (that's 960x1,080 for each eye) and 100 degree field of view, the dark, dank, titular kitchen burst into life as soon as we slid the Morpheus headset over our eyes. The headset itself is surprisingly lightweight and we almost forgot it was there as we soaked up our surroundings with its glorious 120Hz refresh rate. That's 30Hz higher than rival headsets Oculus Rift and Valve and HTC's Vive, so visuals are super smooth.

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Unfortunately, there's not much scope for moving around in The Kitchen, as we awoke to find our hands tied and our feet bound to a wooden chair as a video camera peered eerily at us just a few metres away. A quick shrug of the DualShock 4 controller quickly knocked over the camera with our virtual hands, but it wasn't long before we noticed another dazed and confused individual rousing beside us.

Fortunately, they were friendly, despite touting a worryingly large knife as they hobbled towards us. Their intention was to cut us free, although judging by the concussed state they were in, they could have easily sliced us through the chest had we not kept our DualShock-mapped hands perfectly still as he laboured away at the wire. Still, while our brains knew this man was simply made out of polygons, we couldn't help but physically veer away when we thought our friend's blade was getting a little too close for comfort.

It was only when we noticed that our virtual legs seemed to be protruding out of our stomach that the illusion was broken, but that feeling was quickly forgotten when we saw a long-haired woman straight out of The Ring emerge from behind our unfortunate companion, a demonic smile rising on her bared teeth. Before we could blink, she'd stabbed our friend through the head and dragged them off to their doom. All we could do was listen to the hellish noises shrieking out of our headphones, until we too met our untimely demise as she yanked our head backward and brought the knife down into darkness.

As horrifying and immersive as The Kitchen is, it did highlight one of the main issues that Morpheus and VR headsets in general have yet to overcome ? and that's actions that affect your virtual in-game body. At one point, for instance, our resident demon lady plunged the knife right into our thigh, but due to the lack of physical feedback, it made no impact whatsoever, and could have easily been missed had we been cowering in fear and looking the other way. This is a shame, but unless developers can pull off the VR equivalent of the 'rubber hand illusion' and trick us into thinking our virtual body is our own, then such actions will likely fall short of expectation no matter which headset you decide to don.

ONE LAST HEIST

Still, at least Sony's London Studio has got hand gestures covered with its excellent London Heist demo. Here, two Move controllers morph into your very own, albeit disembodied, set of digits, allowing you to grab, pull open and rifle through the desk drawers of a Russian mobster's hideout by holding down the rear button and moving your arms as you would normally.

Most of our discoveries yielded copious amounts of ammo, a signal of the gunfight yet to come, but before we could unload one into the nearest gang lord, a passing guard sent us straight to the floor, forcing us to crouch down and hide while they made their nocturnal sweep of the building. It was a tense and unnerving moment, not least because our hands kept occasionally wandering away from us, but the best was yet to come.


http://youtu.be/w4ZwN__mpAY
^ In The London Heist, your hands are simulated by two Move controllers. These are tracked by the PlayStation camera to deliver realistic hand placement on your VR display

With our cover blown and armed gangsters pouring in from the study doors and accompanying balcony, we suddenly realised our pistol was completely empty. Using the desk for cover we grabbed the nearest clip we could find and shoved it into the grip as naturally as we might do with our own two hands. It was this moment that really sold us on Morpheus, particularly since Oculus Rift's equivalent Touch controllers are still only in the prototype stage at the moment, and we could barely hold back our smile each time we had to load another magazine.

The attention to detail is just staggering. In the moments before our assailants caught up with us in the second part of the demo, we happily prodded the hazard warning lights and opening the fan vents on the dashboard of our getaway van, annoying our partner. We could even freely open and close the side passenger door, prompting yet another reprimand from our cranky companion.


http://youtu.be/_f3DRcPXI70
^ ...and here's our take on The London Heist. While not representative of in-game footage, you can see just how much we need to move around in order to stay hidden and reload our gun

It wasn't long before we needed to grab our pistol once again, though, as vans and motorcycles soon pulled up beside us and opened fire. Being confined to the front seat, there's obviously less room to duck and dodge here than the Russian study, but with enemies bearing down on all sides, the chase still makes for an engaging round of gunplay.

Weapons automatically 'stick' to your preferred hand so you can concentrate on using the rear button to fire, but you can always playfully throw it between hands by bringing the two controllers close together. This is particularly useful for blowing out tires or taking out someone coming up on your opposite side, for instance, and leaning over to use the door as a shield only adds to the experience, even if the lack of realistic air resistance might be a bit of deal breaker for absolute purists.

RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES

Inertia is less of a problem in CCP's EVE: Valkyrie, but its presence is decidedly less pleasurable than we were expecting. Having managed to ward off any signs of motion sickness thus far, EVE: Valkyrie's 360 degree dogfights was the only demo in which we felt it rear its ugly, nauseating head. It was fleeting at best, but there were several moments when we looked up to keep track of an enemy ship and felt the world spin a little. Still, sitting in our own virtual cockpit and swooping into battle is undeniably what VR is made for, and bar a couple of accidental bumps and crashes, we were soon racking up points like a trained fighter pilot.


http://youtu.be/DZ4gpjwJa08

Valkyrie was one of the few demos that made use of your rear view as well, as our cockpit had a small window at the back of the ship to scout out any would-be attackers on our tail. It took a while to break down the years of muscle memory of always looking straight ahead in games, but peering out of our glass globe quickly became incredibly intuitive. Likewise, it's only by leaning forwards and glancing up at the huge monolithic motherships outside that you realise the enormity of what CCP has built in order to make this world so engaging.

TANKED UP

For those who'd rather keep their feet firmly on the ground, Rebellion's remake of Atari classic Battlezone places you deep inside the confines of a futuristic tank. While there's no rear window here, your cockpit provides a surprisingly wide vista of your surroundings, and the DualShock 4's silky smooth controls make full use of Morpheus' 120Hz refresh rate.

Much like EVE: Valkyrie, you'll need to move your head to widen your field of view, as enemies can spawn procedurally both above and below ground. For instance, once we'd taken out a wave of tanks and turret towers, we were suddenly presented with what looked like a flurry of robotic seed pods, which quickly made a beeline for our tank with deadly precision.


http://youtu.be/UZ59tfyGxSI

Fortunately, your tank is also armed with a secondary machine gun, allowing for faster, more accurate takedowns in the event of an aerial assault. You'll need to keep your eyes peeled, though, as these mechanical arrowheads can quickly outflank you if you're not paying attention. That said, it was the boost jump which really caught our fancy, as this rockets your tank up in the air before plummeting back down with a palpable thud, making for an immersive dodge tool as well as a spectacularly flamboyant way of overpowering other land-locked combatants.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Virtual reality needn't be a solitary experience, though, as Sony Japan Studio's VR Playroom showed us a great example of how Morpheus can be brought into the living room without isolating friends and family. In this particular demo, we went controller-free as a rampaging cartoon dragon (complete with waggling tail behind us, of course), smashing everything in our path with a firm nod of our head.

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^ Project Morpheus has an HDMI connection, allowing VR Playroom to take advantage of a second TV feed for other players

Meanwhile, three other players were on the TV controlling a tiny force of Power Ranger-esque fighting robots in an attempt to stop us, throwing everything from giant pink pianos to tiny garden chairs at us as they tried to ward off our assault, forcing us in turn to duck and dive as we fought to survive. It's a similar concept to some of the asymmetric games we've seen on the Wii U, such as Nintendo Land and Rayman Legends, but in terms of immersion, VR Playroom is the clear winner. We only hope the rest of its mini-games are as fun and innovative.

VIRTUAL FUTURE

The only downside to Sony's Project Morpheus is that it's still at least six months away from completion. Still, from what we've seen so far, Sony has made a convincing case for going its own way in virtual reality, if only because it already has all the controllers and camera sensor technology readily available to help round out the overall package.

For instance, we still don't know when Oculus Rift's Touch controllers will be available for instance, and the additional room sensors needed to make the most of Valve's HTC-built Vive may not end up suiting the majority of UK households. This leaves Project Morpheus as one of the most viable and complete VR products currently on the horizon. We only hope it doesn't cost the earth when it launches next year.