The VR Critic is Dr Luke Buckmaster, a professional critic of VR (virtual reality) and MR (mixed reality) experiences. Read more about this site and its author.
LATEST REVIEWS
There was a point, during this immensely powerful 360 documentary, when I wondered whether I might cry – and whether my tears might mist up the headset. What a moment of immersion-breaking…
There are three layers of reality in this elegantly crafted climate-change-themed documentary, which is narrated by actor Mark Ruffalo and unpacks the stories of Solomon Islands citizens adversely affected by rising sea…
This zany half-hour mixed-reality experience, co-directed by Andy Serkis and Josh Nelson Youssef, imagines a computer folder as a fantastical otherworldly landscape, phosphorescently coloured but junkyard-like, filled with discarded characters created by…
When the Apple Vision Pro arrived, commentators such as myself noted a conspicuous lack of original experiences—yet another example of the tech industry’s frustrating tendency to invest big in new headsets, and…
Anyone who’s taken a walking tour at an international landmark will know roughly what to expect from Smithsonian Starstruck: lots of strolling around looking at things, and lots of talking and facts-sharing,…
Games don’t have to be about scoring, succeeding, exploring, advancing, conquering, winning. They don’t have to tell stories. They don’t need characters or enemies to overcome. Sometimes acts of playing don’t even…
In Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes, narrative is never as important as tone. And that tone is very evocatively wrapped up in worldbuilding and environmental design. You can’t help but feel this…
Perhaps it sounds a little hyperbolic to describe ArtsQuest VR as an experience that reminded me of the simple pleasures of standing before a painting. And maybe that’s weird, given the galleries…
It didn’t take long for immersive video creators to cotton on to the following equation: high-altitude shots + picturesque environments = irresistible spectacle. Before VR and MR headsets, audiences were familiar with…
Countless artists, across every medium, have attempted to externalise the mind’s eye, transforming thoughts and feelings into sensory experiences. That process takes on particular nuances and complications when the “eye” in question…
It feels rather frustrating to be somewhere interesting, at a moment in time that’s interesting, yet still sense that you’re not where you should be—that you’re missing out on the real action.…
The titular location in Hotel Infinity is extremely warped and surreal: a labyrinth of spaces connected in impossible ways, folding together time and space, designed to make you think: wow, that’s trippy.…
If in doubt, kick off with a hell-for-leather chase scene! This is how the Deadpool VR game begins—the player in a car hurtling through picturesque scenery with bad guys, bullets, and explosions…
Orson Welles once discussed how constraints can spark rather than stifle creativity: “the enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” That line came back to me while I was moving through…
