+ PlayStation Aim Controller Review
Name: Farpoint
Developer: Impulse Gear
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PlayStation VR
Released: 17, May 2017
Reviewed on: PlayStation VR + PlayStation Aim Controller
A friend of my came over to my place after I picked up a new game at the post office.
“Let’s play the game” he said. Well I thought, why not. Oh boy! It was the new video game for my PlayStation VR system, this is going to so much fun.(Connecting the PSVR and headset, setting up the controller and boosting up Farpoint) Spiders!. For the record I hate spiders in real life, I even hate them more after playing Farpoint in VR. Here is my review of Farpoint and the new PlayStation Aim Controller.
Story
There is a small story behind Farpoint. It all starts with us flying towards a space station that’s housing two scientist who studies the anomaly in space that can give limitless energy. But as always, things has to go wrong to bring up the excitement. A huge wormhole appears sucking both the scientist and us in and stranding us on a unknown planet, filled with monsters.
Story Trailer
To proceed in Farpoint we have to scan a few environments to see what has happened to us and the two scientist. We will learn the story of how the scientists survived and learned about this new planet and how to survive. I’m not sure which storyline was the main one in Farpoint, was it my story they wanted to tell? Or was the scientist’s story they wanted to tell?
Farpoint did an excellent job on telling us the story of what happened to the scientist, making us care for them. But our own story in another hand is a complete different story, let’s say that the scientist were given feelings, souls etc and a simple gun was given to us.
PlayStation Aim Controller
The new accessory for the PlayStation VR is the aim controller. You can either buy it as bundle with Farpoint or standalone. Farpoint is for now the only VR game that supports this aim controller, but games such as ROM: Extraction, Dick Wilde and The Brookhaven Experiment will support it in the future. The Design is kind of futuristic and weird looking if the design is supposed to look like a gun. But that is okay, because when you hold this controller in your hand, with the VR headset on it feels like a gun.
The aim controller features all the buttons of a DualShock controller. (Regular PlayStation controller) Every button feels like it’s placed correctly, easy to reach and use beside one button. The R1 button, a small “strip” button on the side of the controller above the trigger. This isn’t a big issue, but it demands more of you to reach the button.
I’ve tried a lot of different “aim controllers” from the era with PlayStation Move and beyond. But I must say that PlayStation and Impulse Gear has done an incredible job on this version. You do not have to put a PlayStation Move controller inside this controller, and the tracking is excellent even with the regular PlayStation camera. To this date, this is must have for every PlayStation VR owner.
Set up video + demo gameplay
Gameplay + Graphics
The gunplay in Farpoint is very specific on where enemies will approach against you, upfront and linear. This would be extremely bad for a normal first person shooter game, but playing this in VR makes it one of the best first person shooter games on this platform at this date.
I have a small issue that most people tend to have while playing in VR mode, motion sickness. Farpoint might be a little challenging to handle, but setting on a “smooth” setting might help a little.
Gameplay itself is simple but fun to play. Friends and family who don’t have a lot of VR experience quickly learned how to use the VR mechanics and the aim controller.
There isn’t much noticeable difference between the regular PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. Framerates, visuals and textures and much more is at basic level. But Farpoint does nail these points for an VR game.
The Verdict
With Farpoint being the first complete video game launch instead of given us the feeling of a tech demo, does Farpoint deliver at it’s best. If we ignore some of the bugs, bad script / story will Farpoint deliver on the gameplay, especially with the new PlayStation Aim controller. If I would recommend a first person shooter to PSVR owner, this would be it.
8/10
+Gameplay
+Excellent tracking with PlayStation Aim Controller
+Sleek design of the Aim Controller
+Easy to learn and use
– Story
– A few bugs that is hard not to notice
