26 June 2023
Tried out Gran Turismo 7 on PS5 for the first time (both normal and with the VR2). I’ve played racing games before and the experience was pretty standard for the non-VR mode (except for an extraordinarily long intro video sequence…)
Then i tried out the VR version:
- Worked really well technically, tho it starts off with the “100” screen” kind of thing for the menus and then doesn’t go into VR until you’re starting the race (which is a bit jarring).
- I got mildly nauseous right away but then it didn’t get any worse as I was driving. It was cool to look around and see the cockpit and “myself” driving and shifting and all that. However it didn’t seem “worth it” per se, as with driving games you’re looking straight ahead so much of the time, you can’t really pause to look around.
- The game does off a VR “look around” area which places your car in one of 10 places that you can look around 360 degrees, which looks cool but again doesn’t really seem worth it.
- I raced about 5 races and while it certainly is immersive, it wasn’t as engaging as something where you’re walking around and picking stuff up and such like in Horizon.
- Plus as usual, the visual fidelity isn’t super-high, so anybody with a big 4K TV or monitor is probably going to prefer the TV over the slightly grainy immersive headset. It’s too bad there’s such a tradeoff.
- Perhaps if you were a real driving game enthusiast and had the steering wheel and pedals and such, this would be more your thing.
- As mentioned, the nausea feeling was definitely there but not ‘immediately take off the headset’ bad… it took about 15min of not wearing the headset for the feeling to wear off though.
