Reviews
The Razer Kaira Pro Headset for PS5 Elevates Horror Gaming and Film [Review]
All sorts of neat tricks have accentuated the horror experience on PS5 for me so far. The DualSense controller’s combination of speaker, adaptive triggers, and haptics being chief among them. The pulse headset adds further depth with its sublime 3D audio, but there’s something about the Razer Kaira Pro headset that really elevates horror gaming on PS5, and even horror movies.
The Razer Kaira Pro for PS5 has three levels of haptic feedback in it. So it doesn’t just rumble a bit during the loud parts, it rumbles with meaning and context. The clomp of heavy footsteps suddenly seem like they’re coming from right next to you, and the sudden banging on a door in the dark will make you jump with the sudden jolt the headset administers. Naturally, I had to test it out with a range of horror experiences I love to see what it brought to them. Turns out, a fair bit! The smart thing about this headset is that its haptics doesn’t just work on games, they work on music, TV, and film as well.
Resident Evil 3 Remake
I specifically chose this for the explosive opening, where Jill Valentine is hounded across a chaotic Raccoon City by the hulking slab of meat in a binbag that is Nemesis. It’s the best showing in the entire remake for Nemesis, making him some frightening mutant spawn of The Terminator and Michael Myers. Its initial appearance where it crashes through Jill’s apartment building is already great, but having every thundering crash of plaster and brick thump through the headset adds some real, terrifying oomph. Similarly, when Jill gets to street level, the various crashes, explosions, and panicked gunfire ring out with renewed strength. The sound quality is fantastic with the Razer, picking up the quieter, more unnerving sounds just as clearly.
The Last of Us Remastered
Another game’s opening I simply had to try the headset with. The Last of Us’ opening has a much more refined balance of quiet and loud moments, and ended up being a real showcase for what the Razer could do. The audio contrast between Sarah’s lone spell at home and the infected neighbor crashing in through the patio door not only shows how good the sound design is in The Last of Us, but just how effective the sudden hit of the Razer’s haptic feedback can be after a period of calm and quiet.
Alien/Alien Isolation/Aliens/Aliens Fireteam Elite
Two films, and two games with very distinct audio. I could have just watched the films or just tried the games with the Kaira Pro, but I ended up trying all four, and top to bottom, they were magical experiences with the headset.
Alien’s clacky, clunky retro-future spacefaring noises were especially pleasing, and hearing them again in Alien Isolation was even better because they brought the constant fear of the xenomorph’s presence. Those circular vent covers that scrape open loudly over the throbbing bassy hum of the Sevastapol’s engines were already unnerving in Isolation, but more than once, their loud screech made me jump as I fully expected the xeno to emerge nearby. It was of course, much, much worse when the thudding footfalls of the beast do follow up one of the regular ship noises because the rumbling haptic plod cranks up as it not only gets closer, but speeds up upon spotting you. This audio with a VR version of Isolation would probably be the most upsetting immersive experience ever made.
So on to Aliens. Cameron’s got some good booms going on in this film, making the battles against the Xenos especially frantic and intense with the headset on, giving staccato beats as pulse rifle fire fills the air. Fireteam Elite comes very close to replicating that feeling, with satisfying feedback from shotgun blasts and grenade detonations.
Returnal
It would be silly to use the Kaira Pro PS5 headset and not try it with a PS5 exclusive. So what game could be better than Housemarque’s award-winning sci-fi shooter Returnal?
The game already boasts phenomenal audio that is rife with discordant, otherworldly sounds, and the thunder of energy-based gunfire that resonates through the DualSense controller, so cranking that up with the Kaira Pro only adds to the audiovisual extravaganza. I didn’t think it was possible to enrich the atmosphere of Atropos any further, but the extra haptic feedback offered by the Kaira Pro manages just that.
Dead By Daylight
After all those shenanigans I asked myself, how would the headset enhance a multiplayer experience? Well, the Kaira Pro certainly made itself useful during survivor play in Dead By Daylight.
The telltale beat of a heart that quickens and grows louder as the killer draws near is one of Dead By Daylight’s ways of helping survivors weigh their options in crucial moments. Should they try to finish repairing that generator or should they hide? It’s Dead By Daylight at its nerviest, and the heightened amplification of that heartbeat on the Kaira Pro adds further intensity to it.
The Kaira Pro features a detachable mic too, so it’s a good all-rounder for your DBD needs.
Scream 5
I rounded out my testing with a watch of the latest Scream film. A slasher with lots of suspenseful builds and jolting moments would surely be a treat with the Kaira Pro’s bag of tricks, and so it proved. It’s not quite a 4D movie experience, but it did serve to make watching the film at home feel like a bigger, more cinematic deal.
Razer Kaira Pro headset for PS5 provided by Razer
Razer Kaira Pro headset for PS5 is out now.
Your enjoyment of Strung will depend on your tolerance of clichés, contrivances, and overused plot devices. There are plenty to go around in Malcolm D. Lee’s new thriller—and each one lands with a conspicuous thud. Yet this is also a movie where the formulaicness leads to amusement.
Strung is already off to a tropey start when the protagonist, a bereft violinist named Laila (Chloe Bailey), is vividly hallucinating during one of her recitals. Who does she see in that ghastly vision on stage? The sister whose death she blames herself for, of course. That’s when Laila wakes up from what’s actually a hallucination within a dream.
After a one-night stand with a handsome rando, another too-good-to-be-true opportunity soon falls into Laila’s lap. Because she’s broke, couch-surfing and forced to practice the violin inside her best friend’s closet, she jumps on it without much forethought. That opportunity is indeed suspicious, though; a wealthy grandmother (Lynn Whitfield) hires the main character to be her granddaughter’s live-in music teacher. The pay and accommodations are definitely good, but what about the client? Or clients, as it turns out.
Strung: Anna Diop as Imani, Lucien Laviscount as Marcus. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
First, there’s pianist-in-training Zuri (Romy Woods), the walking definition of “precocious child in a horror movie”. She hides behind the bizarre mask once belonging to her late father, and her preferred form of communication is sharing obscure facts. Eventually, though, Zuri is the least of Laila’s problems; it’s her neglectful, demanding, and temperamental mother (Anna Diop) who proves to be the greatest obstacle at each turn. Diop just about snatches every scene with her zealous performance as the expectant Imani. Yet as amusing as that moody matriarch can be, her behavior brings up a good question: Is this cartoonishly devious character the legit villain here, or is she simply a red herring?
The kid’s creepy mask, along with Blumhouse’s involvement, might suggest a different kind of horror movie is at work here. Strung, however, is more like a smutty modernization of classic domestic thrillers that feature big houses, imperiled women, and heaps of paranoia. Keep in mind, this is not a bait-and-switch situation; Alan B. McElroy’s screenplay never leads the viewer down a different path, only to then send them another way.
Strung feels stitched together from other (and better) movies, and your sussing out the suspects is never a hard task. But on the plus side, this movie is often bright and even a little colorful; it’s not too riddled with scenes of flat darkness or washed-out palettes. The music is also another area of interest; certain choices corroborate that comparison to old Hollywood thrillers.
Chloe Bailey as Laila. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
So while Strung does string out a number of overplayed twists—with some being less foreseeable than others—it’s a bit comforting to see how some ideas never cease to be used, no matter how familiar they’ve become. The cast’s eagerness also compensates for the general been-there-done-that quality. So often, their commitment to the story is integral to the movie’s best hand-over-mouth moments (and there are quite a few).
Joe Bob Briggs once said the best source of exploitation movies today is the Lifetime network. If you agree, as well as love Tubi’s own efforts in similar filmmaking, then Strung is made for you. This movie taps that same vein of suspense schlock, all while adding a few flourishes of its own.
Strung streams on Peacock starting on June 26.
Strung (photo: Peacock)
You must be logged in to post a comment.