Playstation VR Sports Titles at Launch

Feature Article

Submitted on: 09/27/2016 by Caley Roark

We’ve seen many technological “gimmicks” make their way into -- and out of -- the video game industry: 3D games, motion controls, playmats, the Kinect, etc. The sports genre, in particular, has had uneven success with these enhancements. For every good golf game that used a motion controller, there were three barely functioning fitness games.

The next addition on the horizon for PS4 owners is PlayStation VR, releasing on October 13. The success of this new platform, like any other, will be dependent on the quality of titles post-release. For sports fans, will there be enough offered to make PlayStation VR last once the novelty wears off?

Here’s a preview of some sports titles expected at launch:

RIGS: Mechanized Combat League

RIGS is a “mech” game, set within the context of a futuristic sports league. While much of the action is based around combat, two of the announced modes add a level of sport strategy. One mode features a ball that you need to advance to an end zone. The other mode replaces the ball with your entire mech -- score by jumping through a goal.

Multiplayer seems to be a focus, like many arena-style combat games. However, Sony promises a single-player career mode with some levels of team building, sponsorship management, and equipment unlocks.

Early preview reports of this game indicated that nausea was a problem for some. In fact, GameStop sells a “VR Anti-nausea” wristband. The most common item purchased with it: RIGS.

100ft Robot Golf

This game perfectly describes itself in the title. Climb into a 100-foot tall robot to play some golf through a variety of destructible landscapes. That’s right, you can use your robot and club to aid your shot by eliminating obstacles, or impede your opponent’s ability to find the green.

While the arcade-like nature of the title is unique, so is the fact that it’s golf in real-time. From the trailers, it looks like all robots shoot and play at the same time. I’m curious to see how that works, and if the chaos level upends any semblance of actual golf.

DriveClub VR

I initially reviewed DriveClub two years ago, and praised its photo-realistic visuals. The game has gotten a lot better since then, thanks to a variety of expansions and increased online connectivity.

DriveClub VR is a standalone title, not an expansion. However, Paul Rustchynsky (the game's director) confirmed on Twitter that some tracks will be available for the previous title.

I can’t think of a sports game more suited to VR than racing. The ability to look around the cockpit (without three separate monitors) coupled with a steering wheel should bring you closer to real-life driving than ever.

Sony touts 114 tracks and 80 “iconic” cars.

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Member Comments

# 1 BQ32 @ 09/27/16 01:06 PM

drive club VR is all the rave of the vr community right now so I am sure that will deliver, especially in conjunction with my logitech g29 wheel. Riggs looks really cool for multuplayer gamers such as myself. Been holding off on the rift and might just go with PSVR instead even though i have a high end VR ready pc with a 1080. Hoping someone will put out a hotfix fpr PSVR compatibility on PC.

# 2 bryan1 @ 09/28/16 06:34 PM

Driveclub is about to be amazing

# 3 My993C2 @ 09/30/16 01:53 PM

I own a Vive VR HMD along with a high end PC running the i7 CPU, 16 GBs of RAM and the nVidia 1080 GPU. I picked this all up recently to get into VR sim racing on Project Cars as well as iRacing now that iRacing supports the Vive and it is an incredible experience. Even though the resolution of the first gen VR HMDs like the Vive and the Rift are not as good as high end monitors, the immersion factor kicks in where you actually feel like you are in the car when under the VR hood. Plus I have played a number of other VR games which themselves are pretty cool and pretty immersive.

But I am having a hard time thinking that these new Play Station VR consoles will be remotely as capable as the Vive or Rift VR experiences on a high end PC because the Play Station VR console simply won't have the same performance capabilities that a high end PC could have. Plus I can constantly upgrade my PC as newer more powerful GPUs hit the market. I could be wrong though, perhaps the Play Station VR consoles will be powerful enough and until one tries the new VR console one won't know what it's capable of doing.

With all that said, one really needs to experience one of the VR HMDs for themselves. Those of us who have a VR system now can try and describe our experiences until the cows come home. But you really need to try it for yourself.

# 4 BQ32 @ 09/30/16 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by My993C2


	I own a Vive VR HMD along with a high end PC running the i7 CPU, 16 GBs of RAM and the nVidia 1080 GPU. I picked this all up recently to get into VR sim racing on Project Cars as well as iRacing now that iRacing supports the Vive and it is an incredible experience. Even though the resolution of the first gen VR HMDs like the Vive and the Rift are not as good as high end monitors, the immersion factor kicks in where you actually feel like you are in the car when under the VR hood. Plus I have played a number of other VR games which themselves are pretty cool and pretty immersive. But I am having a hard time thinking that these new Play Station VR consoles will be remotely as capable as the Vive or Rift VR experiences on a high end PC because the Play Station VR console simply won't have the same performance capabilities that a high end PC could have. Plus I can constantly upgrade my PC as newer more powerful GPUs hit the market. I could be wrong though, perhaps the Play Station VR consoles will be powerful enough and until one tries the new VR console one won't know what it's capable of doing. With all that said, one really needs to experience one of the VR HMDs for themselves. Those of us who have a VR system now can try and describe our experiences until the cows come home. But you really need to try it for yourself.

I completely understand what your saying man and have been thinking the same way. I have maybe the same exact setup which I also bought a couple of months ago with VR in mind. I needed a bit of time after the computer build to buy a headset and now have the expendable cash. My problem is that PC VR user adoption rate is quickly slowing and the Playstation exclusives such as riggs and driveclub look very enticing. With the PS Pro about to drop the VR capabilities should be increased as well as their first party studios and the magic they make happen on inferior hardware. I mean the last of us remastered still looks better then 90% of the games out there using assets from the PS3 days. All the reports coming in also say that it is quite remarkable that the games look and feel as good as they do. Still not sure what to do. Don't want to waste the money on the PC build, but really interested in the PS exclusives.

# 5 Picci @ 10/02/16 02:49 PM

Don't know how the PS Pro will be with VR but if there are any indications from my VR demo experiences with our launch PS4's, they more than not do the services we hope to receive with VR. I had the opportunity to play with 3 separate titles and was immersed with the whole experience. The games were not "sports related", but I'm hoping someone does give us an opportunity within the top 5 major sporting events in the not so far future.

I also believe that the PS PRO is geared to help Sony with VR in competing with the other VR devices in delivering that different and new gaming experience.

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