National Geographic Explore VR Review

Finally, National Geographic has created a virtual reality experience available for the Oculus Quest 2. For those who don’t know, this is basically a headset device you can wear on your head and it will show games and simulations in a virtual space. I know some people aren’t as interested in playing video games since they find them to be too distracting from real life, but if you’ve ever wanted to visit the pyramids of Egypt or swim with manta rays then this is definitely something worth checking out!

The first thing you’ll notice upon doing so is that throughout the whole game there are no menus or such… It’s just an open-world simulation of wherever you’re supposed to go! There isn’t any kind of “start menu” – even the pause menu is just where you are in real life. I have to say, it’s actually pretty interesting having this sort of interactiveness even when you stop playing the game – but more on that later.

First, let me explain how you use this thing! You put it on your head and look around with your eyes to where you want to go/what you want to do. There’s a joystick on either side of the headset which is used for moving around/pointing at things. I found that using the sticks was what worked best for me since clicking – or trying to click – with my fingers was extremely difficult (my hands were blocking my vision) due to not being able to find the right spot each time… But some people may find it easier than moving the sticks around with their hands.

As for the graphics of this game, they’re very well made! For example, if you try to hold your hand up to your face – even though there’s nothing actually there – then you can still kind of “feel” like you’re touching it (I call this phenomenon “phantom limb”) and that applies to everything else in the world as well! The only thing I found a bit strange is that when I was swimming through some coral reefs, my skin always looked wet regardless of whether or not I had just been underwater before. Now, I’m no marine biologist but I know enough about dolphins and such to know that they don’t typically look dripping wet all the time!

But, I guess that’s just one of the pitfalls of VR games – not everything can be completely accurate since we’re still in an early generation of its existence. Still, though, it’s a very interesting experience to virtually swim through coral reefs and pretend you’re a mermaid or whatever. And, somehow knowing that your character is actually a human makes it even better – for example, when I was wandering around the wildlife preserve at night I shook my fist at some lions who were roaring at me… That definitely wasn’t something I’d have done in real life but that sort of immerses you into the world more than ever before!

I would give this game five out of five stars because there really aren’t any negative aspects to it! Of course, there are some bugs here and there but those are being addressed continuously so I’m sure they’ll all be fixed in the next update.

My only complaint is that this game has no multiplayer capability whatsoever… But, given how much work goes into making something like this then I can understand why. And, of course, playing with other people is always more fun than just doing things by yourself – but that’s what makes it even more fascinating if they ever do decide to make another one of these games where you can actually connect with other players!

I would recommend this game to anyone who owns an Oculus Quest 2 or who knows somebody who does because IT IS WORTH IT! If you’ve never tried VR before then I think this would be a great choice because you only need the headset and it’s completely self-explanatory. In fact, they’ve even provided a guide on their website for people who are new to VR in general! If you already know how to use this sort of tech then you probably won’t learn anything new here – but still, this is a really cool game that everyone should have a chance to play at least once in their lifetime!

Thanks so much for reading my article! If you enjoyed then please give me a follow and be sure to share it with your friends! It makes me so happy when I see other people enjoying what I’ve written so please leave lots of comments below, too! And if anyone has any thoughts on this game then feel free to let me know in the comments below – I’d love to see what other people think about it!

As always, stay beautiful, darlings!

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