Flume Gorge in Winter Review

Excellent use of photography

Reviewed by Johnny_Programmer on 29th May 2022 on Oculus Rift

Review

An immersive VR experience featuring photorealistic graphics and some roomscale navigation

Graphics & Presentation

Graphics make use of photogrammetry so they are photorealistic

Sound FX & Music

There is an ambient background sound track of running water, that adds to the overall immersion. The Narrator does a great job of explaining points of interest in the area.

Gameplay & Immersion

Immersion is quite good once you get into it. The graphics and sound make it immersive, but the suggested controls (trigger to move forwards) breaks the immersion a tiny bit, but only becuase it can let you go up vertically. Having said that, the experince supports roomscale navigation so instead of using the trigger, you might find yourself simply walking around with your actual legs. This make the experience very immersive IMHO

Controls

There are waypoints dotted around the landscape, some trigger sound tracks, some teleport you to that location. You may also use the trigger to fly in a straight line to where you were pointing when you first pressed the trigger. A lot of care and attention has been put in to make this as comfortable as possible to new users, and it is explained when you start the experience. Note you can use roomscale to just walk around if you on the ground, to me this felt like the best control method

Value & Replayability

These sort of experiences are the ones that you will want to show people that are new to VR, its immersive, its clean, it should be good to show to just about anyone.

Final Thoughts

I wish the author to continue making these sorts of experiences, and somehow maybe integrate normal stick navigation (keep the roomscale in there though)