The Morpheus is as exhilarating as we expected

At long last I have finally laid my hands upon the delight that is Project Morpheus. Project Morpheus is the Sony virtual reality unit in direct competition with the infamous Oculus Rift. And for better or worse, it is awesome. The Morpheus is a great fit, easy to put on, and it’s even possibly to wear glasses underneath it—something that many of my blinder friends (and editors) will appreciate.

I was actually surprised at how light and comfortable it was. Even after several minutes of spinning in circles, shooting sharks and being eaten by a dragons, I never felt like the unit shifted, or that it was too heavy to be comfortable. The image on the Morpheus wasn’t as sharp as I expected, but it still looked great. Colors were nice and bright, but edges weren’t as well defined as I would have liked. Of course the Morpheus is still in development and that could all change before the next iteration.

[fve]http://youtu.be/-8mE87qBygM[/fve]

The games Sony chose to show off their exciting new tech were impressive, one was the infamous Deep Down where players are left to the mercy of a giant man-eating shark. As a life-long hater of water with a fear of anything that lurks beneath the waves, this was a bit of a shock for me, as you can you see in this video:

The second game, The Castle was also great fun and showed off the Morpheus’ potential when combined with the Move hardware. We haven’t heard much from move recently, so it’s good to see that Sony is including it in their Morpheus plans. The Castle was all about hacking and slashing an inanimate knight. As you get the hang of it, you are quickly able to dismember the training dummy, and then fill it with crossbow bolts. Unfortunately you don’t get to feel like a badass knight for long, because you are promptly eaten by a dragon who rudely interrupts your training session and ends the demo.

Both games showed what Morpheus can do, which is entertain and terrify in equal measure. I really can’t wait to see what the future holds for Sony’s VR unit. I just hope it doesn’t involve sharks.

More virtual reality goodness: