Do we need another peripheral for the Playstation? The answer, in short, is yes, if the PSVR Aim is anything to go by.
The Aim was developed with the game Farpoint in mind, and its purpose is singular; I mean, it’s shaped somewhat like a gun. There will no doubt be criticism that it’s nothing like a rifle that you’d see in video games, but because children will form a large segment of users, so it’s understandable that it’s toy-like. If the Farpoint experience is well-received, there’ll be more ‘realistic’ third party accessories to look forward to in future.
The Aim is lightweight, the buttons have nice, solid feel to them, and more importantly, it’s comfortable and instinctively familiar; your left and right hands perform the same functions on the Dual Shock controller. I felt I could use it for hours with ease. However, in the context of Farpoint, the temptation to line it up like a rifle was there, but it just didn’t feel right sometimes. But ultimately, it’s a small niggle in the grand scheme of things.
Much of the experience is dependent on the video game in question, and this case, Farpoint and the Aim work well together, and the Aim turns a vanilla first-person shooter into something quite magical. Imagine peering down a virtual red dot sight to shoot, and having to adjust your weapon to line up the shot – you have to try it to believe it.
As a controller it’s well-made, but what’s more exciting is the future it brings; we know for sure now it works and we’re looking for more games that support this peripheral (Arizona Sunshine, Dick Wilde, ROM: Extraction, The Brookhaven Experiment are upcoming) The onus is on developers to create games that can leverage this cool piece of kit. Perhaps vibration feedback when you fire off shots or when you reload or melee attack?
Rating: 4.5/5
The PSVR Aim just works, and that’s as good a compliment as you can give it. We can only hope game developers will create more VR-based first person shooters in this vein, because it really is, by far, the most natural and the most immersive way to shoot stuff up.
S$89, Farpoint bundle S$129
asia.playstation.com
