I recently acquired a massive Playstation VR package in a mammoth trade with our very own Disposed Hero. You may recall from our podcast my initial excitement at PSVR being announced and my further excitement after actually trying it out at a friend's house. The steep cost of the add-on kept me from procuring one earlier, as did some apprehension about playing games in VR for prolonged periods of time. Would VR games just be gimmicky, short experiences, leaving me in a situation where I wouldn't feel like mustering the energy to set up and put the helmet on every time I want to play it? Or, is it possible to take deep, lengthy dives into more meaningful experiences like the ones I cherish on conventional platforms like televisions or handheld devices?



The VR package I got from Disposed was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (heretofore referred to as Skyrim) bundle, but he included about ten other games and there are plenty of free downloadable games on the Playstation Network. In essence I was not interested in Skyrim at all at first. After all, I played the game very thoroughly last year on the Switch. I enjoyed it well enough, but I figured I was done with it forever.

So, my first few days with PSVR were spent playing various demos, a lot of Drive Club VR, and a run-through of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. The game I wanted to play most of all, however, was Resident Evil VII. I would have loved to write a full review of that game, and someday maybe I will, but for now it was way too anxiety inducing for a VR noob such as myself.

I decided to give Skyrim a shot. I was expecting the worst, as I had for whatever reason seen a few Youtube videos in my suggested feed which really trashed the game. In fact my first session with game did not go well as the controls completely froze during the character creation screen and I had no choice but to close the game. I didn't go back until a few days later. I was very glad I did.

I was very late to the party on Skyrim and I appreciate its status as one of the most popular video games of all time. So while I won't spoil anything, I also won't waste time explaining what Skyrim is beside to say that it is an open-world action adventure RPG developed and published by Bethesda.

What I would like to convey here is how utterly blown away I am by the experience of Skyrim on the PSVR. Rather than being a throwaway, gimmicky version of a game that is commonly ridiculed for being released multiple times on every platform known to man, Skyrim in VR is the fully immersive, lengthy experience I was hoping for with VR, to the point that since I started it, I haven't played much else.

One of the first things I noticed was the level of detail that I could not have imagined was present in the Switch version. The 3D effect of the VR image is so lifelike that even after a few weeks of playing the game, I'm still finding myself slowly looking around and looking at objects and items in the world.

The sense of size is another one of the aspects of playing in VR. To say nothing of the awesomeness of going toe to claw with a dragon one on one, everything from dungeon interiors to NPCs feel appropriate and actually sized. This is one of the things with VR that cannot be conveyed with words or even in video.

Another thing I noticed right away is how great archery is in VR. When I played on the Switch, I couldn't the hang of the bow and arrow mechanics and quickly abandoned them for swords and axes. In VR, the aiming is done with head tracking. Essentially, where you look is where you shoot. Right away I knew this was going to be a sniper playthrough and I've put all my points into Archery and Sneak.

There are some drawbacks, though they are minor. You cannot pick up and hold objects in the world like you can in other versions. Usable items can be added to inventory and then dropped, but most notably, dead bodies can not be moved around. This can make looting a little challenging. Luckily, the normal physics still apply so most of the time a good force shout is enough to break up the pile.

In the end, I don't know if or when I would have otherwise acquired a PSVR, let alone Skyrim for it. But as it turns out, the Gods smiled upon me and bestowed an amazing experience that I am still enjoying and intend to finish before I start anything else in VR.   

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