Farpoint - A $600 game

Last week I walked into Best Buy to look for a couple of USB cables because I somehow forgot that Best Buy still likes to charge triple price for cables.


$30 for a simple 6-ft USB cable, really?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-6-usb-2-0-transfer-cable-black/5813024.p?skuId=5813024

You mean this?
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5443

But I digress.

I followed PSVR since it's initial announcement as "Project Morpheus" and fully intended to buy one on day one, but when I saw the slate of software I was underwhelmed and canceled my pre-order.  Then last week I received a random email about "Farpoint" - which I had never heard of, or at least could not remember ever hearing of.  I couldn't believe it, an advertisement in my inbox that actually informed me about something I found interesting.  After taking a glance, I remember making a mental note to watch out for this one as it might actually be the PSVR's killer app - the thing that finally makes it worth owning.

Right inside the front door of Best Buy as I walked in was a Sony sales rep demonstrating PSVR - Farpoint product boxes littering the floor.  After watching a couple of kids try out a racing and underwater exploration "experience", I took a turn and gave Farpoint a shot.

My total VR experience up to this point was a not-lightsabre game I played at Disney Quest in 2007.  It was extremely short and felt like dated tech even for its time.  All of the equipment was heavy and connected via thick cables.  Pretty sure each one of those headsets was probably in the neighborhood of $10k.

So these impressions are coming from the perspective of someone who has not experienced GearVR, Occulus, Vive or whatever else has been circulating lately.

The PSVR headset was surprisingly comfortable.  For some reason it wasn't really possible to get the focus sorted out during the calibration steps, but after a minute or so of gameplay it just clicked and everything worked.

Despite the fact that the resolution was low enough that the textures and edges were painfully pixelated, the visuals were surprisingly convincing.  Head tracking felt absolutely solid - if there was a delay between turning or tilting my head and seeing the image change, I could not consciously detect it.

The Aim controller was by far the best part of the experience.  The system tracked it accurately enough that I felt very connected to what I was doing.  Aiming felt extremely precise.

After playing for about 25 minutes, I walked away with the intention of buying the PSVR and the game.  Ironically neither were for sale at the store.  The game was still a few days from release and Best Buy only had the PSVR headset by itself - not the bundle which included the camera which was a requirement.

PSVR Bundle - will set you back $500

I ended up ordering the PSVR bundle from Amazon, and pre-ordering the Farpoint Aim Controller bundle from Gamestop (I checked Best Buy for both first but they didn't offer free shipping on either, whereas I got free shipping from both Amazon and Gamestop). All told I paid $580 plus tax - so just north of $600.  Kinda pricey, but it's definitely an experience that can't be had for less.




Given the complicated nature of the setup I decided to wait until I had a couple of hours to dedicate to fooling around with it.

I opened the Farpoint bundle first so could have the Aim controller charging while I completed the setup.

A note about the bundle: it comes with the game on disc, and it's completely self-contained, there was no download required and the game didn't pester me to go online for any reason.  Thank God.

The PSVR setup was not difficult, but ridiculously complicated.  The instructions try to make everything look organized by showing diagrams with pretty straight lines, but in the end you'll end up with six new cords (5 if you already have a PS4 camera).

Even with the beautiful rounded right angles and straight runs, the setup is a convoluted mess.

After getting everything physically connected and turned on there was a prompt to upgrade the PSVR.  My PS4 is only connected to the internet occasionally if a firmware update comes out with a new feature I want, otherwise it stays offline.  It was offline when I was prompted to update the PSVR and it successfully performed the whole install while offline.  Not sure where the software for the update came from, but I suspect it was included in the latest system firmware update I performed last month and the PS4 just installed it onto the PSVR from there.

As soon as the PSVR is connected and turned on the system walks you through initial setup. Helpfully it allows you to see yourself from the camera perspective so you can get up and adjust the camera with the headset on if you like.

Once in the Farpoint game, however, most of the calibrations you did to appease the PS4 system software appear to have been thrown out and Farpoint wants you to do its own calibration.  This is actually pretty annoying because you have to take the PSVR off to adjust the camera, but the adjustment guide is being displayed on the headset so you have to take it off, move the camera, then put it back on to check.

All told it took about 2 hours to actually start playing Farpoint - a good chunk of that was the hefty game-to-hard-drive install.

During the demo I played last week, the ability to actually turn the character was disabled.  The rep told me this was done to prevent motion sickness, but the final game would allow it.  Well, they were absolutely right about that.  I've never gotten motion sick in my life that I'm aware of.  No carnival ride, roller coaster or video game has ever made me motion sick, but about 10 minutes after turning on "smooth" turn mode in Farpoint, I felt like I was going to throw up.  I continued to play for about 30 minutes longer, then decided to take a break.  To my complete surprise I remained sick to my stomach for about 30 minutes after taking the headset off.

The solution? Ginger, apparently.  My wife keeps a supply of the stuff so I sliced off wafer of it, and carefully gnawed on it the next time I used the headset and no nausea.

So what's the game like?  It's ridiculously fun and pretty straightforward.  The designers did a great job of giving you reasons to keep looking at your surroundings so there's plenty to see.  The atmosphere is convincing - the blackout effect from the PSVR "gasket" allows them to effectively control the light so you can go from a washed out barren rocky terrain to the soft electroluminescent glow of an alien cave.  Level design was put together to accommodate no-turn (as in the body of the character is always facing a certain direction) so you're mostly going in the same direction with occasional branches up to about 30 degrees, but this is less annoying than it sounds.  As the game progresses you end up encountering larger and tougher enemies, getting better weapons - you know the usual.  The colossal bosses really make VR shine as you find yourself aiming almost straight upward as they tower over you.

In conclusion, I believe Farpoint really is a game that makes PSVR worth owning.  Nothing terribly amazing in concept, but it manages to deliver on the promise of VR with a good and substantial adventure.