Nature Treks VR Review Including 3dRudder (Windows Mixed Reality)
For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a review code does not affect my judgement of the game.
Where I love my VR games, I also personally feel that experiences if priced correctly have a huge part to play when it comes the VR medium – this has been shows with titles like theBlu and Virry VR in the past. Nature Treks VR certainly falls under an experience and not a game, but what does it bring with it?
Nature Treks VR brings with it a large amount of content, which in turn gives you a huge number of environments to explore and all offering something different. Overall you are going to get to explore fifteen different worlds, and possibly more in the future as it seems to keep getting updates.
What you are getting with the game is basically a walking simulator, there is no dangers in the world, there is no way to win or lose – its all about relaxing and taking in these environments. You might think with the game including fifteen worlds these must be small, but they do vary in size, with most being on quite a big scale.
While wandering these environments you are going to come across animals, and even if they are dangerous they will not attack or you can’t interact with them in any way. Although above I said it is walking simulator it is like you are an entity in this world, and nothing is seeing you there. The other aspect that Nature Treks VR brings into it’s world is the ability for you manipulate it if you want. This is done be a belt of orbs floating around you, from here you can change the setting to day or night, change the weather and bring extra objects into the world. In order to bring the extra objects it depends on what you are adding, if its trees, plants or rocks you will be throwing the orbs around you into the ground, then other things like butterflies and schools of fish need the orb thrown away from you. Doing this is totally optional and you can even turn these off it you just want to explore – but it gives something extra to the experience.
With this being the sort of the experience it is presentation was going to be essential, and I am happy to say the worlds all look beautiful. You will really enjoy walking around these settings and taking in the differences from each world. Also I really looks fantastic when you throw out these orbs and the trees, plants or rocks grow from the environment in front of you. When you encounter the number of creatures throughout the worlds these are also well detailed, and it’s nice to just get to take it all in. Then add the ambient electronic music and the sounds of the world and it really is easy to appreciate what the experience is offering, while feeling so relaxed. There was one little issue I found with the presentation, and that was at times you would witness some clipping, be it with objects you added to the environment or the animals walking through plants.
The experience supports seated, standing and room-scale, meaning you have a choice to play it however you want. This continues in how you traverse these settings, there is a number of options available to you. You can teleport, free roam with free locomotion or if you have one use the 3dRudder (I will get to this later). The teleport is controlled using the trigger on the right hand controller and to use free locomotion you need to hold down the trigger on the left controller while using the left touch pad to click rotate. The right hand touch pad will all you to control if the orbs show or the music is playing, and the final input is the grab button to grab the orbs around you. I like that the experience has given the options of movement, and when I played using the free locomotion I did not feel any motion sickness or discomfort – but this could differ for others.
3dRudder Support
The experience also brings with it support for the 3dRudder controller. If you are not sure what this is, the 3dRudder allows games to be controlled using your feet. As this is supported this will allow you to push forward on the 3dRudder to move forward, tilt it backwards to reverse and left and right to strafe, turning the 3dRudder will allow for rotation as well. However, if you chose to use this method of control you have to play the game seated, due to this being how you have to use this controller.
You will find that the 3dRudder is also very responsive while you are using it, and after a short time focusing it soon becomes second nature as you roam around the settings. This leaves the controllers in your hand only being used for grabbing the orbs, and putting these together really makes for some extra immersion with the experience.
When it comes to how much time you will spend in Nature Treks VR it all depends on your views of experiences. So, if you love this sort of thing in VR, it really is going to endless, as when you need to relax there is so many different settings to jump into. Meaning you will have a huge number of choices depending on your mood. This is something that makes Nature Treks VR stand out from the others, the time you can spend in the game is prolonged by the option to visit different settings.
Conclusion
It is really hard to find anything bad to say about my time in Nature Treks VR, as I have mentioned this is very much an VR experience – so if that not your thing, it wont be for you. With it providing the fifteen worlds for the £7.99 price point, you really are getting a lot of content for your money. Allowing you the ability to just relax be it underwater with dolphins to being on land with dinosaurs, you really will lose yourself in the worlds.
Also available on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift
Developer: John Carline
