- Virtual tourism and exploration experience.
- Beautiful visuals and high-resolution imagery.
- Free application with unique Earth perspectives.
- Lack of updates and support from developers.
- Limited 3D coverage and quality issues.
- Performance and frequent crashing problems.
Emotions
Players experience joy from the immersive exploration of various global landmarks and the ability to virtually travel to familiar and new places. The beautiful graphics, intuitive gameplay, and the emotional connection of revisiting childhood homes or significant locations also contribute to this feeling.
The excitement stems from the immersive VR experience, including the thrill of flying over and exploring familiar and new places. The innovative technology, user-friendly tutorial, and the potential for future developments in VR also contribute to this emotion.
Players feel nostalgia when revisiting places from their past, such as childhood homes and familiar streets. The ability to relive memories and share these experiences with family members, like mothers seeing their childhood neighborhoods, evokes a strong sense of nostalgia.
The awe-inspiring experience of seeing Earth from space, exploring landmarks, and the immersive 1:1 scale of the world in VR creates a surreal and mind-blowing experience. The detailed locations and the feeling of being a disembodied entity contribute to this sense of awe.
Disappointment arises from the game's inaccuracies, such as unrealistic scales and poorly maintained 3D models. The lack of updates, frequent crashes, and the perception that Google has abandoned the project also contribute to this feeling.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 86% · Negative 14%. Score: 14 / 100
Positives:
- The app is highly praised for allowing users to explore the world in VR from the comfort of their homes. It provides a magical experience of visiting various landmarks and cities in 3D, making it a great tool for adventure enthusiasts and those who cannot afford to travel.
- Users express their love for Google Earth VR, describing it as a must-have experience. The ability to dive into Google Street View in VR is seen as a whole different and beautiful experience.
- The app is noted for its stunning and breathtakingly beautiful graphics. Users find the visuals to be very beautiful and absolutely amazing, enhancing the overall experience.
- Users enjoy the fun of exploring different places, both familiar and unfamiliar. The app allows users to check out places they haven't been to and walk around familiar places, adding to the enjoyment.
- The integration of Street View is a highlighted feature, allowing users to see and click on specific parts of the street. This feature is appreciated for its coverage of most countries.
Negatives:
- Google has abandoned the project, leading to minimal updates and lack of support for new VR hardware.
- Many areas lack 3D mapping or have poorly maintained models, affecting immersion and visual quality.
- The scale of landscapes and objects feels unrealistic, and the immersion is broken by various issues like the vignette effect and lack of accurate height detection.
- The application crashes frequently, especially on certain systems, and suffers from performance issues.
- The application lacks support for multiple languages and has interface issues, such as clunky controls and lack of search functionality.
Gameplay:
- The application offers detailed 3D models and Street View integration, allowing users to explore various locations in a highly detailed and immersive manner.
- The application is compatible with VR, offering users the ability to explore the Earth and various locations in a virtual reality environment.
- Users can fly around the Earth and through clouds, providing a unique perspective and flying experience.
- Users can visit and explore specific landmarks and cities in 3D, providing a rich and detailed view of various locations around the world.
- The application allows for virtual travel and interactive tours, enabling users to have detailed and interactive travel experiences.
Performance:
- The game requires a very fast and stable internet connection, and it is quite bandwidth-hungry. This can be a limitation for players with data caps or slower internet speeds.
- The game is reported to crash randomly, especially on Linux systems. It is also described as buggy and not working properly at times.
- There are issues with low-resolution photogrammetry when zooming too close to buildings, and houses not being fully rendered. Detail is also reported to be very low when up close.
- Areas can take a long time to load, and loading times are affected by VPN speed. However, updates keep making the game run better over time.
- There are reported issues with controllers, and the game works better when skipping SteamVR's opening screens, indicating some compatibility problems.
Recommendations:
- This app is highly recommended for anyone with VR capabilities, offering one of the best and most enduring VR experiences to date.
- Users appreciate the ability to explore the world, familiar streets, different locations, and visit famous landmarks or personal places like their childhood home.
- The app is recommended for its unique experiences, even though it has some flaws that users hope will be addressed in future updates.
- Users have noted that the app requires updates and improvements, particularly in navigation options, zooming quality, and height adjustments.
- The app is highly recommended for practical uses such as checking out areas before trips, shopping for a new home, and showing off VR capabilities to others.
Miscellaneous:
- Users have expressed personal and emotional connections to locations featured in the game, such as revisiting childhood homes or recognizing places they have lived or visited.
- Players have suggested adding new features like a photo mode, search functionality, Street View, and offline caching to enhance the gaming experience.
- Users have provided instructions on how to use the application with Oculus Touch, indicating a need for clear guidance on VR controls.
- A user mentioned checking if their parent's car was parked at a specific time, indicating attention to detail and realism in the game.
- There is a mention of Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, which might be related to the game's theme or setting.
