The Adventures of Call of the Mountain: Exploring a New Sense Controller for the PlayStation VR 2 at CES 2023 in Los Alamos

CNN will be reporting the best of the show all week. Be sure to check out our CES 2023 coverage hub for hands-on previews of the biggest tech this year straight from the show floor.

The PSVR 2 has internal camera sensors that should make setup much easier than it was with the original model. Whereas the previous PlayStation required you to have a PlayStation Camera attached to track your controller movements (not to mention a clunky processor box that powered the whole thing), the new headset promises a seamless plug-and-play experience with a single cable.

The new Sense controllers were great when things went wrong and it was time to go into survival mode. It was easier to get immersed in the action due to the feedback that was given from everything from my boat to the bow and arrow. Climbing up mountains felt especially tense and thrilling, to the point where my real-life hands started to sweat as I worried about falling off a steep cliff. Fortunately, the game and controller’s hand tracking was accurate enough that I only made a few slips (and thankfully didn’t fall down in real life).

Call of the Mountain will be an ideal launch title for the headset, offering an intuitive mix of combat and stealth and plenty of narrative easter eggs. Even though it felt like a small workout, I was able to walk the game’s trails by moving my arms with the standard controller inputs. I liked how I could pick up a wooden box, a piece of fruit and a tambourine and throw them at the wasteland, as the environment was interactive.

It took me some time to accurately land shots, but the combat was intuitive and I liked it that way. During a big boss battle that required me to shoot on the fly, it was very clear that this was the kind of thing that I will get used to after more game time.

How to Get Away With Your Headband: Tips For You To Avoid Trips And Tilts When Your VR Headset is Tilted

Whether this is your first VR headset or just your most recent purchase, here are a handful of tips that might keep you from getting sick, tripping on a cord, running out of battery, or — and we hear this is particularly common — thinking Sony shipped you a blurry VR headset when it’s probably just a trick of the light.

If you want to wear a clear image and a comfortable fit that doesn’t drag on the front of your head, you should wear it properly. Take a good look at the picture above.

See how the entire headset tilts upward. Can you tell me how the headband is on my colleague Adi’s head, while the front lies on her forehead? That’s what you should be aiming for. The PSVR 2 should rest on your head, secured diagonally — not sandwich the front and back of your head in a vice. In fact, I wouldn’t cinch down the headband at all until you’ve aligned the lenses with your eyes.

When you first put the headset on, Sony will show you a lens alignment guide, but only tells you to twist the dial at the top left edge to move thelens closer or farther.

You also need to physically shove the entire eyebox up and down, and maybe even tilt it left or right like you’re straightening a picture on your wall. Want an example? In the photo below, my glasses are not close to each other, but the entire headset is.

Then, you can finish cinching down the headset with that clicky dial. It shouldn’t feel like it’s squeezing your brain, just twist until you don’t lose that sweet spot.

The more games my colleagues and I play on the PSVR 2, the more we get tangled up in its 14.7-foot cord. Turns out it’s especially easy to trip when you’re playing intense, death-dodging games like Pistol Whip, Pavlov and Resident Evil Village.

If you can, put your PS5 on the floor. You don’t want to hit it on the ground. Remember, you don’t need the PS5 plugged into your TV once you’ve set up the headset.

4) Try sliding your feet across the ground instead of stepping so you can easily feel the cord. Wear socks or barefoot instead of shoes.

How Not to Get Sick Tripping Tracking with a Thumbstick in the Resident Evil Village Mode of Superconductors (Extended Abstract)

One of the quickest ways to get sick in VR is when your virtual head and / or hands start drifting out of place — and with the PSVR 2, that can happen when bright lights are pointed directly at the headset’s cameras, interrupting their motion tracking, or when the room’s too dark to track.

Your body might be uncomfortable if you move in the game without moving the same way in the real world. When I flick a thumbstick to turn right, without turning my head right, I typically get the sweats pretty quick. Resident Evil Village suggests that you should do it with a thumbstick, but you can always do it with a real bodily movement.

Many games will let you pick snap turns, which snaps you 30 or 45 degrees to the left or right and are less triggering than smooth turns.

In some games you don’t have to aim at a spot on the ground to move from one location to the next because they don’t offer it, but in others it’s good to go to a spot near the ground. Of the many ways to move move in VR, it’s one of the more comfortable — you know where you’re going, but don’t have to experience the act of getting there.

While Sony’s headset may pop up a warning if things are far too dark or bright, I’ve also seen them silently drift when a single bright bulb is aimed at my head. The overhead lighting problem went away after I aimed it differently.

If you have a television in the room you can use it as an extra marker to help track it.

I won’t play Kayak Virtual Reality again because the act of sitting in a kayak while paddling smoothly set my brain on fire. It’s possible your mileage may change. In the Resident Evil Village mode, the game moves your head and puts it to the floor and even drags it along the ground. Forcing your head to move in ways your actual head is not moving is typically a no-no in VR, and Adi and I did not enjoy it here.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23614036/psvr-2-how-not-to-get-sick-tripping-tracking

Sound Quality of the Sony PlayStation VR2 Sense Headset and the Dual Sense Charged Controller Charging Station (SQSVR2)

The built in earbuds of the PSVR 2 don’t require you to dangle them when not in use – you can fit them into little tabbed circular openings.

You can plug in a wireless audio stick into your PS5 if you want to go for completely wireless audio. We tried it with our SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, though there are plenty of cheaper options too. Bluetooth audio is not supported, though.

You may also want a better way to keep your PlayStation VR2 Sense controller charged, because individually plugging each of them into the PS5 with a pair of USB-C cables can be a bit awkward. It can be hard to set them down wrong with Sony’s controller charging station, which has two pogo-pin adapters on top of the controller’susb-C ports. Though Sony advertises a “click-in design,” it’s nowhere near the reassuring click you get from the company’s DualSense Charging Station for the PS5’s standard gamepads.

One of the most significant hurdles to VR adoption is making a giant piece of tech that can sit on your face without being uncomfortable. If you wanted to make them smaller, it would be better if you had a pair of glasses, but Sony has taken a different approach. And for the better.

The headset itself is fairly bulky, but not heavy, per se. The headband is strong enough to sit on the head, and the lens modules can slide back and forth along the track. There’s a large dial that you can use to tighten the headband. Compared to the Meta Quest 2—even using its upgraded strap that really should be standard—the PSVR 2 is much more comfortable.

Finally, there are earbuds that plug into the headset. While technically you can use any wired headphones you’d like, these included ones are designed to attach to the headset and can be placed in little divots on the side when not in use. The earbuds are fine. The audio quality is nothing to write home about, but it’s much easier to get immersed in a game when the sound isn’t coming from your TV across the room.

X-ray Streaming with PSVR 2 in HDR/XMM-Station-I: A Complete Solution to the Problems of Screening

The nifty feature of the PSVR 2 is that it automatically streams what the user is seeing to the TV. It’s very boring for anyone to watch one person waving their arms around in the living room because other systems have complex or picky systems to pull it off.