All three of the high-profile consumer PlayStation VR Controller platforms support motion controllers, but only one of them now has an official accessory designed specifically for first-person gameplay and shooters. This is where Sony’s big budget sci-fi shooter for PlayStation 4, Farpoint, comes into play, launching today in bundles and alongside the PlayStation VR Aim Controller.
Farpoint is the first PlayStation 4 game that uses the Aim Controller and it was built around it as the showcase experience. And what a showpiece it is! Playing through all of Farpoint using the PlayStation VR Aim Controller, we can say that it’s the deepest and most satisfying sensory experience ever in a first person shooter. It’s a game-changer for VR and a must-play for any PS VRowner looking for that new killer app.
In Farpoint, players see themselves stranded on an alien world after a cosmic anomaly goes haywire, trying to locate other survivors and uncover the mystery of what really happened. And of course, on that journey there are all sorts of aliens to blast away in the most immersive console shooter made to date.
Farpoint offers a full story campaign and supports two-player co-op online with a friend (so long as they have an account with PlayStation Plus) and requires the PlayStation VR system. It does not require the Aim Controller but you’d really be missing out without it.
Note the lack of the word “gun” in that peripheral’s title, despite the device’s basic weapon shape. That’s likely as intentional as the simplistic design itself which is made to function effectively as any in-game weapon while at the same time not resembling an actual real-life weapon “so that anybody, from children to adults, feel comfortable playing with it,” says Taichi Nokuo, a designer working out of Sony PlayStation’s Tokyo offices.
The Aim Controller tracking in VR is incredibly accurate and we had no issues with lag or calibration. As intended, it worked well with all of the weapon types encountered while playing through Farpoint‘s campaign. The device finally delivers on what the Move controllers and gun attachments never could do in the PlayStation 3 era. More impressively however, and why we love Farpoint so much is how it addresses one of VR’s most prominent challenges: movement. Not once did I get a feeling of nausea while playing Farpoint, something that’s not uncommon in other movement-based games. I couldn’t play PS VR’s RIGS: Mechanized Combat League Game due to it as an example.
