Omg most intense immersive gaming session ever. Last night I was playing Call of the mountain, had my edible for sleeping but continued playing instead. It gets extremely real when the high kicks in. So I started Resident Evil Village. OMFG OMFG OMFG. Everything looks so incredibly real, that game is so over the top (well most are, it stands out a lot more in VR).
It starts off nice and slow with VR training. Which is already kinda spooky with the lighting. Then it throws a ton of information at you, everything has a place on you so you have to reach for the right spot for knife, different guns, map, health potion, flash light. Very cool, but I could already predict me fumbling around when shit inevitably hits the fan. The also each gun has different way to load and don't forget to cock the gun after loading and after every shot with the shotgun and sniper rifle. It is very cool though, the shooting range felt real. And this time I had my good headphones on (plugged into the headset) volume at max. Made me jump when I squeezed the trigger.
Then the game starts all nice, putting your newborn to bed. So weird to hold a baby again on my arm. That triggered lots of happy memories. I took my time exploring the house, then finally put Rose in her crib and went down for dinner. The food sizzling actually made me hungry (that and the munchies of course lol) The the shit hit the fan during dinner, omfg.
It takes a lot to scare me, still didn't really get scared but it did manage to get me to jump lol, and panicky flailing around trying to remember how to reload the gun (Got to cock the barrel with the left hand) while getting eaten. Part of my left hand got bitten off and it looked so real. I'm glad he finally bandages it up later as looking at the bone sticking out of my ring finger was a bit disturbing haha.
So amazing, so immersive. Sure the edible piled onto the immersion, but normally it just makes me lose interest in playing and I end up falling asleep while watching something, which was the plan... I didn't quit playing until 3AM lol. Intense fights (had to turn the difficulty to easy as I was fumbling around so much trying to remember how to grab and reload the gun) getting eaten over and over haha.
So if you're in anyway affected by scary games, do not play this. If you think you are way past media being able to scare you, do try it :) Walking around in the dark in VR with a flashlight only is intense, love it.
It's far improved over RE7 as well thanks to the controllers. RE7 was a Dualshock game, Village makes full use of the sense controllers. Some things still show its controller roots, like X to pick things up instead of picking them up as you do in CotM. Yet most things have VR implementations, like grabbing a latch to unlock a door, pulling out drawers, drag a bookcase to block a door, etc.
It also lets you play as you want and you can remove all comfort options. Sprinting without restrictions feel great! Smooth turning, I settled on speed 8/10. Fast turning. (10/10 is a bit too fast with 60fps render). Tunelling off (that's what RE calls the blinders that come in when you move), movement with the left analog stick. It has different options for how movement works, Forward moves to where you are looking / moves in the direction you were looking when you started moving / moves in the direction your left hand is pointing at.
Moving in the direction your left hand points at works until you get into combat. Then it's all screwed up since you use your hand for lots of things.
Moving in the direction you were looking at when starting to move works while exploring, so you can look around while continuing to move forward, but also screws up in combat, not compatible with circle strafing.
So moving in the direction the headset is facing is still overall the best way, compensate with the analog stick to look around while continuing to move in the same direction. There is no option to move relative to the way your body is oriented. I guess that's not possible without an external camera seeing which way your body is facing, but it could keep track of that while playing seated... Anyway looking right while pressing left keeps you moving 'forward', it works.
What does not work are the subtitles. It completely messes up your brain. The subtitles are projected 'far', which means they are often 'behind' what you're looking at. Not a problem for focus since everything is on the same focal plane, however VR does simulate convergence correctly. Your eyes turn in to see things closer to you. Look at your finger in front of your eyes and the background become two overlapping pictures. Out of focus in reality, in focus in VR, which makes the subtitles overlap themselves and it looks like giant word salad lol. At first I was like, am I that high words are all scrambled, but nope, it's perfectly clear letters mixed up by the left and right image of them overlapping.
Maybe this can be solved with eye tracking as the headset should be able to measure the current convergence of your eyes, relay that back to the game to place the subtitles at the distance you're focused at. Or maybe much more simple, only display the subtitles for the assigned 'dominant' eye.
Anyway, what an experience that was :) Gonna play some more now!
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