Mike Andronico and I just finished streaming an hour of Resident Evil 7 and my heart's still pounding.
By itself, Capcom's latest title is a cauldron of doom, gloom and jump scares, but Andronico and I took it up a notch and played the digital scare factory in virtual reality with PlayStation VR. Even better, we streamed it on Facebook Live. The result was a whole lot of screaming, bargaining, nervous laughter and an unbelievable desire to jump back in.
It's been a while since I've donned PS VR, and I immediately noticed the difference in graphical fidelity between Sony's VR headset and the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. As I walked towards the foreboding house, the overgrown weeds on the path looked like glowing clumps instead of actual plant life.
I'm not going to lie, I yelped in terror as a dead, rotting corpse floated by me as I made my way towards my first objective.
The people however, were so close to being photorealistic, it was unnerving. I'm not going to lie, I yelped in terror as a dead, rotting corpse floated by me as I made my way towards my first objective.
Playing horror games on a screen already makes me jittery. But playing in virtual reality, particularly in the PS VR, ramps the terror up significantly. For one, in a 360-degree environment, you can't hide from the boogie man. At most you can close your eyes and flail around until you kill it or vice versa. Second, the light shields on the PS VR blocks out any and all light from the real world, further submerging you in the game.
Combine all that with the excellent sound effects and you've got the recipe for a sea of funny videos with people screaming their heads off, much like I was.
