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Demo PlayStation VR at Select Best Buy Stores (Every weekend through December)

nhX375H.jpg
They're giving time tickets here in Montebello.
 

trikster40

Member
My best friend got to try it today at BB, and it made him a believer. He went from "couldn't care less" to "gotta have it NOW!" Still trying to get more details but he's super pumped now.
 

AlexIIDX

Member
Tried it out at gamestop today, the guy couldn't get the move controllers working so we couldn't try the London Heist which for some reason he said is what we were "supposed to play". I was glad though cause I went with the intention of playing Eve Valkyrie, which I did.

The headset is super comfortable, waaay more comfortable than my gear vr. Unfortunately I think the screen had condensation on it from the 3 guys ahead of me cause I couldn't get it to fully focus(I told the guy after I was done and he wiped it for my friend who said it was clear for him). Besides that, it was awesome. I didn't notice any screen door effect. Flying around doing barrel rolls felt great and I never felt a moment of motion sickness. The inverted flight controls were a pain to get used to but I was mostly just looking around doing cool maneuvers anyway. There was black on the sides of my fov but at least for eve I didn't notice it at all once I started playing. It really felt like I was flying through space and I'm sure it will only be better when I have my own with all the lights turned down. And my friend who was skeptical beforehand said it was awesome and for a second he forgot where he was and really got immersed in the game. Glad I pre-ordered and definitely getting Eve Valkyrie now. Also got a dope playstation vr pen lol.
 

AlexIIDX

Member
Battlezone, Eve Valkyrie, Headmaster, London Heist and the body tetris one. BB supposedly isn't showing London Heist due to language, at least based on the rep here.

Super Hyper Cube, and they also had the Ocean descent where you're in the shark cage.
 
I'm at a GameStop and they're having all kinda of issues. They actually said they have to "reinstall all the games".... does that mean they're redownloading games? If so I'm going to be waiting here for hours.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Keep the impressions going guys. It sounds awesome.
 
The processing box

i was about to post the pic i took too. :)

it really is tiny to the point of being a non issue. if space is a concern i'm sure you could either stack it on top of your PS4, or at worst have it tucked behind your TV or entertainment center so long as the vents aren't obstructed.

another thing i forgot to mention is that the reps were VERY strict about how you hold and adjust the headset. as in: do NOT under any circumstances try to remove the headset by grabbing the main screen box on the front. you have to grab that black top part that touches your forehead, and then grab the back band with another hand to pull it off.

the adjustment mechanisms are really neat though. the sliding bit in the front that adjusts how close to your face the screen is worked really smoothly, and the clicking wheel i the back tightened it nicely onto my head.

me:

the weight was perfect too. it felt solid and substantial, but when it was on my head i didn't seem to notice it. they really nailed the weight distribution like a lot of the previews have been describing.
 

AlexIIDX

Member
I'll also say about the Eve Valkyrie demo. It was really cool that I could look down infront of me at the console of the ship i was flying to check out a radar and see where I had to turn to find enemies. With multiplayer and VR with this game, its gonna be awesome.
 

VRMN

Member
Tried out EVE: Valkyrie. I was slightly concerned that I could see a little light coming in from the bottom of the headset, but honestly, once I was in the game I didn't notice anymore. It was surprisingly immersive and intuitive. Very glad I got a pre-order in now.
 

Relique

Member
Just came back from my local BB and checked out the Battle Zone demo. I wanted to try out The Heist but it was blocked by BB corporate due to language. The demo is played with a controller. Here are some impressions:

The good:

- Headset is extremely easy to use. Press a button on the back and it stretches open like a rubber band. It wraps around your head and you click it in place. Another button allows you to move the front part up/down and forward/backwards. Really fucking intuitive and comfortable. The screen floats in front of your face and doesn't sit it on it. While playing I couldn't feel it on my head, I could only feel the headphones but not the PSVR itself. It's light and comfy.

- Although graphics on a TV look pretty basic for today, they are much more impressive when viewed with the headset.

- I struggled to find any screen door effect and I was on the lookout for it. I tried to focus on the brightest part of the screen but could not see it no matter how hard i tried. This was probably my biggest concern and the reason I went to see it.

- Tracking is spot on with no perceived delay. Truth be told the way the game is you don't move your head much during the action but when I was just looking around the cockpit before and after the action it was very responsive.

- Motion is smooth. I am pretty sensitive to even a few dropped frames or bad motion blur on a regular screen but in this it felt very smooth. I was told the game is reprojected to 120fps. Although you could kinda tell the game isn't exactly nativel 120fps the tech still works so damn well when in motion.

- The game was pretty fun. Cockpit really works well here. Things like look like notification screens on a tv seem like augmented reality with the PSVR.

- Seeing the controller ingame does wonders for immersion, should be mandatory for every game where you are in a cockpit.

The bad:

- Unfortunately there was condensation on the lenses and it was a tiny bit wet at parts due to constant cleaning with wet sanitized wipes between uses every 10 or so minutes. This made it blurry at times with a slight rainbow effect on screen.

- The resolution is pretty bad but this is the limitation of the tech I guess. We will have to put up with it until 2-4k VR is a thing. Big text is readable but smaller text you have to really focus on. It was really obvious when I first put it on but once the scene brightened up and I played a bit I didn't care about the resolution as much.

All in all really impressed with it and wish I hadn't cancelled my preorder. If it comes up again I'll be sure to snag one
 
All of the "no screen door" comments have me super intrigued. Having been on the VR train from DK1 to my CV1 and (now sold) Vive, the concept of not being able to perceive a screen door effect seems really foreign to me. I'm excited.

That said, the nearest BB is like an hour long drive for me.
 
Okay so they finally got it set up, but there's only one set and they're giving everyone the full time allotted... So there's 5 people in front of me and I'm looking at a 50'ish minute wait.
 
Just came back from my local BB and checked out the Battle Zone demo. I wanted to try out The Heist but it was blocked by BB corporate due to language. The demo is played with a controller. Here are some impressions:
The bad:

- Unfortunately there was condensation on the lenses and it was a tiny bit wet at parts due to constant cleaning with wet sanitized wipes between uses every 10 or so minutes. This made it blurry at times with a slight rainbow effect on screen.

Well the good thing is that this won't happen when you get the headset, considering you don't have to share with 10 sweaty men and disinfect your own headset.
 
Apparently it's still going to be there Sunday too according to sonys demo site. I'm about to head there now actually if anyone else is going in Toledo

I called the Best Buy there and they said were told that Sony won't be there, but maybe it's brand new information.

EDIT: It's in July. No Bueno. I am from Sandusky, so that's quite a drive for a quick demo. I'll just wait for my GameStop to get a kiosk.
 

Stiler

Member
Not a single one in my state :(.

I hope gamestop is given more expansion for them cause there nearest best buy for me is over an hour drive away.
 

daveo42

Banned
Just came back from my local BB and checked out the Battle Zone demo. I wanted to try out The Heist but it was blocked by BB corporate due to language. The demo is played with a controller. Here are some impressions:

The good:

- Headset is extremely easy to use. Press a button on the back and it stretches open like a rubber band. It wraps around your head and you click it in place. Another button allows you to move the front part up/down and forward/backwards. Really fucking intuitive and comfortable. The screen floats in front of your face and doesn't sit it on it. While playing I couldn't feel it on my head, I could only feel the headphones but not the PSVR itself. It's light and comfy.

- Although graphics on a TV look pretty basic for today, they are much more impressive when viewed with the headset.

- I struggled to find any screen door effect and I was on the lookout for it. I tried to focus on the brightest part of the screen but could not see it no matter how hard i tried. This was probably my biggest concern and the reason I went to see it.

- Tracking is spot on with no perceived delay. Truth be told the way the game is you don't move your head much during the action but when I was just looking around the cockpit before and after the action it was very responsive.

- Motion is smooth. I am pretty sensitive to even a few dropped frames or bad motion blur on a regular screen but in this it felt very smooth. I was told the game is reprojected to 120fps. Although you could kinda tell the game isn't exactly nativel 120fps the tech still works so damn well when in motion.

- The game was pretty fun. Cockpit really works well here. Things like look like notification screens on a tv seem like augmented reality with the PSVR.

- Seeing the controller ingame does wonders for immersion, should be mandatory for every game where you are in a cockpit.

The bad:

- Unfortunately there was condensation on the lenses and it was a tiny bit wet at parts due to constant cleaning with wet sanitized wipes between uses every 10 or so minutes. This made it blurry at times with a slight rainbow effect on screen.

- The resolution is pretty bad but this is the limitation of the tech I guess. We will have to put up with it until 2-4k VR is a thing. Big text is readable but smaller text you have to really focus on. It was really obvious when I first put it on but once the scene brightened up and I played a bit I didn't care about the resolution as much.

I'm stealing your post for my impressions. Real similar experience outside of the condensation. I didn't encounter any during my play. I will say I really loved the Battle Zone demo they had and I plan on trying out a few other games over the next few months.

I still worry more about the launch line up for this than anything else. The tech is fine and works, but none of that matters if there's no games to play. Hopefully Sony has a compelling list of games come launch.
 

Thoraxes

Member
Oh man, the Best Buy and Gamestop 2 minutes from my house will have demo kiosks on Friday June 24. I'll be sure to try it when I go to pick up my copy of #FE.
 
Just got back from the nearest BB from demoing VR. Long line, and i had about an hour wait.

Short Answer: VR is sooo awesome!!!

Long Answer:

I have been very intersted in VR since the Oculous first was announced. I've been following it for years but have never really tried any of the modern VR headsets. I got PSVR pre-ordered from amazon as it seems like a good entry level item, as i'd want to get a Vive but would wait for at least Gen 2 of the tech for that price.

Anyway, I picked Eve Valkyrie as the demo since its essentially the dream since a kid while watching Macross, Star Wars, etc.

The person demoing it said since it was my first time doing VR to probably take it slow, but early on i decided to just do barrell rolls out of the shoot which was a ton of fun. And surprised him. haha. I hate rollercoasters and that sense of drop, but i don't get motion sickness and I had no issues with VR in that sense. You could *feel* what seemed like the Gs of the sharp turns in VR which i thought was amazing.

The headset itself was very light, i had no issues with it. Granted its only an 8-10 minute demo but early impressions were great.

At the start you can see the detail/image quality isn't as good as regular PS4 games. It is expected but a minute or two into the demo I didn't even notice. Everything else that was happened washed that away. There might have been a screen door effect? Its hard to tell. I kind of think of this like screen tearing. I didn't know what it was, and then when pointed out, its all I see. I could see "graininess" ot things but nothing major.

Overall the experience was amazing. Everything I hoped VR could do and was so happy that it lived up to the hype for me in the small amount of time playing it.

However afterward I noticed my eyes had eye strain for a good 15-20 minutes. Like from staring at a monitor too long. I'm hoping this is just me being new to VR as a whole and then jumping into Eve which is easily the most intense of the demo's they held.

Still, it was great. No doubt i'm keeping my pro-order. I feel like this is the start of a cool new thing in games. I can't wait to show this off to friends and family when it launches. I liken this to when game developers first started doing 3D games. It took them years in game design to figure out things we take for granted now (i.e. how to manage the camera). It will take time from the SW and the Tech but this feels like the moment when a new branch of gaming shows up. The things that people touted with motion controls last gen as the future is actually manifesting itself in the form of VR. Its the real deal.
 
I still worry more about the launch line up for this than anything else. The tech is fine and works, but none of that matters if there's no games to play. Hopefully Sony has a compelling list of games come launch.

I wouldn't worry to much on the launch line up: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1044658

With launch games like:

RIGS, Battlezone, Robinson: The Journey, EVE: Valkyrie, Here They Lie, Rez Infinite,Wayward Sky and Xing: The Land Beyond, etc.

There is enough variety on every genre to enjoy your PSVR headset.
 
One interesting thing I'm seeing while I wait is how attention grabbing the headset itself is. The bright LEDs makes everyone do a double take as they walk by.
 

Zalusithix

Member
At the start you can see the detail/image quality isn't as good as regular PS4 games. It is expected but a minute or two into the demo I didn't even notice. Everything else that was happened washed that away. There might have been a screen door effect? Its hard to tell. I kind of think of this like screen tearing. I didn't know what it was, and then when pointed out, its all I see. I could see "graininess" ot things but nothing major.

Screen door isn't anything like tearing. That sounds more like you're picking up on the reprojection artifacts. Screen door would manifest more like the graininess you speak of. Minor gaps between light points. Given the lack of people really picking up on it, I'm guessing Sony used a diffusion filter on the screens before the optics. It'd help mask any SDE at the cost of clarity. Clarity wasn't going to be the strong point of PSVR in the first place, so that's a sensible trade-off.

Glad to see (mostly) positive impressions coming in. It'll be good for more people to "understand" VR and its limitations, but at the same time realize that those limitations aren't a total dealbreaker. No, it's not going to have graphics as fancy as your traditional games. No, the displays wont look anywhere near as crisp as your TV/monitor. No, you're not going to get 30-40 hour epic journeys out of the gate. And none of that matters! (much) This is just the ground floor of new tech, where the experience can't be had elsewhere. People had to put up with much worse at the dawn of the video game era, and they liked it.
 

daveo42

Banned
I wouldn't worry to much on the launch line up: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1044658

With launch games like:

RIGS, Battlezone, Robinson: The Journey, EVE: Valkyrie, Here They Lie, Rez Infinite,Wayward Sky and Xing: The Land Beyond, etc.

There is enough variety on every genre to enjoy your PSVR headset.

The worry stems from how many are games and how many are tech demos. Especially after what the launch line up of both the Rift and Vive.
 

N.Domixis

Banned
What if there is a person with lice? Are the cleaning them after each use? There is one a couple hours away and I a tempted.
 

nikos

Member
Going to try my luck at the Chelsea BB in NYC tomorrow. Wonder how early I should get there. Been dying to try VR forever.
 

YuShtink

Member
My best friend got to try it today at BB, and it made him a believer. He went from "couldn't care less" to "gotta have it NOW!" Still trying to get more details but he's super pumped now.

Never gets old hearing this from people. Good VR tends to do that.
 

LowSignal

Member
I went and got a ticket for later in the night so i could come back, but I got wrapped up at work. I will try again tomorrow.
 
Was able to try it today. Wasn't entirely sure if I would make it cause I had to drive to the event from where I was working during rush hour, but luckily I was one of the last few people to play. I did have trouble getting a clear view while wearing the headset even after a few adjustments. Might just need to get new glasses, but I was able to get a clear view while trying to squint. Decided to play Super Hyper Cube instead of EVE Valkyrie. Didn't realize I had to hold the controller a little bit closer to me in order to see the controls on the screen. Playtime didn't last very long as I got three game overs in relatively quick succession. I really couldn't make out what I was supposed to other than make patterns that would fit through a wall since I was squinting a lot.

Overall, it was a decent experience. It could have been better. I'll have to work on the headset adjustment tomorrow before I try out the EVE game.
 

Naudi

Banned
I see a couple best buys and game stops in the beaverton oregon area have it! I'll have to check it out this weekend, see if I want to keep my previous order lol (I will)
 
What if there is a person with lice? Are the cleaning them after each use? There is one a couple hours away and I a tempted.

At my demo they were cleaning after each person with disinfecting clothes. Just the headset though, they weren't cleaning the move controllers.

My thoughts:

To get the bad out of the way, the screen door effect was in FULL force with my demo (The Heist), and honestly it was somewhat distracting. I have a distinct feeling my headset wasn't calibrated correctly, but since it was close enough I went with it (I felt bad for the people in line behind me).

The sense of presence is very, very, very surreal. At first, when I was in a menu I was thinking, "This just looks like a 3D screen, one with bad IQ at that," but when the game started I immediately felt as though I was inside a video game. For somebody who has never experienced VR but was dying to do so, this exceeded my expectations. The world no longer begins and ends at the screen, but instead encapsulates you. Being inside a videogame is mind blowing.

In The Heist (or is it called The Getaway now?), there's a few props to play with before the action begins, and this was actually the most impressive part of the demo. Your hand eye coordination carries over from real life into the virtual world. THIS IS FUCKING CRAZY... You're able to pick up an object (a soda can in my case) and toss it from hand to hand in a very convincing manner. It felt correct in a way that allows your subconscious mind take over. You're not doing math calculations to complete the task; you're using your natural ability to move and catch an object. This is so rad in a video game setting. This comes up again during the action, where instead of relying on tracer rounds to aim your bullets, you can simply aim down the sights. It's absurdly cool, and it's not something you think of before trying VR.

So overall it was a good experience. The wait was too long at nearly two hours, but I'm glad I went and finally learned that VR actually works.

Edit: I should add that the headset fit perfectly over my glasses. It's nuts how the headphones are far more noticeable than the hulking mass of plastic covering your entire face.

Also that buff dude GAFer who got shit for "being too buff" in this off topic thread , pretty sure I saw him during my demo. Either that or he has an identical twin.
 
At my demo they were cleaning after each person with disinfecting clothes. Just the headset though, they weren't cleaning the move controllers.

My thoughts:

To get the bad out of the way, the screen door effect was in FULL force with my demo (The Heist), and honestly it was somewhat distracting. I have a distinct feeling my headset wasn't calibrated correctly, but since it was close enough I went with it (I felt bad for the people in line behind me).

How much time do they give you to calibrate the headset to your taste(vision) before you start the demo?
 

Vlaphor

Member
The nearest one is about 50 miles away and I still want to try it. I just don't know if I want to drive all the way put there for a 10 minute demo. I have a Gear VR and I've already tried a demo of HTC Vive that made me want one, but I can't really afford the Vive or the PSVR right now, so I'm still trying to decide.
 
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