I’ve gotta say I first tried it at a friends on a pad on his sofa, had no time to set it up properly and in a room full of distractions… I wasn’t overly impressed. I did have a bit of fun in the vr showroom though! But I persisted, all the positive reviews and over on the time trial thread; some of the fastest people there driving in VR saying they’d never go back!
Anyways, I’ve been having some great seat time in GT7 using PSVR2 and I had ‘that moment’ last night when it really blew my mind. I absolutely adore trying different track and car combos, the wheel/pedals already add an element but sitting in the cockpit of these cars and really feeling them, not just how quickly they accelerate, grip in corners or how they sound. It’s especially satisfying given that I usually use bumper cam so 99.9% of the time I see absolutely nothing of the car I’m in, except when an identical one overtakes me
Anyways last night I did some time trial lapping and then completed the final weekly challenge race and then I did two things which I’d like to become routine; pick a race I don’t normally do/pick a car I don’t normally drive and, find a car I love in real life and just look around it in the VR showroom.
So the race was I think historic masters at Willow Springs, a track I used to hate until I ‘got’ it and now I love.. I chose an AC Cobra, red with white stripes and suitable tyres/tune to get it just under the PP requirement and… wow. This is the most immersive racing I’ve ever done, what an experience. I’m sat in my ‘sun room’ cockpit at night in winter whilst it’s -5c and snowing outside and yet my brain is 95% sure I’m in a classic American car driving round a historic race track in the desert on a perfect evening surrounded by epic cars from automotive history, they are close enough to touch.
The hot air balloons are such a beautiful touch and they are so much more prominent in VR, on lap two I think there’s a bit of texture glitching in the dust down the back straight but no, it’s a perfect shadow of a balloon as it passes silently overhead. As the race progresses the sun slowly sets and the colours darken, every lap is different, I watch the sun set behind the hills and my headlights light up the last few corners which become slippery as the track cools. I enter the finish line straight slightly sideways with a small amount of opposite lock and wow, all that’s missing is the breeze through my hair and the smell of hot brakes, high octane fuel and burnt rubber.
There are many faults with this game but in terms of art, staging, realism and beauty it’s just on another level to anything that’s gone before it. I can’t wait to see what comes next; I wonder with a PS5 ‘pro’ maybe greater computing power might lead to even better/sharper graphics, longer draw distances?? I can’t wait but for now I have plenty to chew on!
And for my little R&R session I chose a stock Lamborghini Countach, wow what a thing to look at even in a digitally recreated model. Even watching the undeniably 80s indicators blinking is fascinating to me.
The whole setup feels like the bargain of the century, for less than a set of coilovers for a road legal track car you can get 90% of the experience, with an instant choice of hundreds of cars… just wow.
) aaaand since Christmas, now a PSVR2 😎
