System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £3.99
Comfort Rating: Red (Extreme Movement)
Genre: Interactive Experience
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Gamepad, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: Aquila Bird Flight Simulator lets you experience soaring bird flight using virtual reality. It was originally designed for the Oculus Rift but has now been modified for OpenVR. You embody one of three species of eagle flying over either Northwest Scotland, a part of Columbia, or Graham Island in British Columbia. This is designed as a relaxing soaring flight simulation and is not arcade-style flight, and as such, you can make use of ridge lift and thermals. If you want a work out try flapping with motion controllers!
Proceeds from this project go towards a major bird of prey centre in Hampshire (UK), where I do voluntary work. Supporting this project helps towards vital conservation, rehabilitation, and education schemes throughout the UK and overseas. So on behalf of the birds, and the staff, thank you!
Review: We have seen several bird flight games in VR. From Eagle Flight to How We Soar, but Aquila Bird Flight Simulator is not like those that have gone before it. This is a realistic simulation of bird flight effectively allowing you to experience what it is like to fly like a bird int he most realistic way possible with real psychics like wind speeds, updrafts and landscape drift winds. If you thought flying like a bird was easy, this app will show why it isn’t. Birds have a lot of hard work to achieve flight and once in the air the hard work of staying in-flight really begins.
From the menu, you can change pretty much anything you want. From wind speed & direction, to which bird you fly with (there are 3 to choose from) While you can indeed set yourself challenges and goals, this game is more about helping you understand bird flight and how it is achieved, so don’t expect an easy ride and don’t expect arcade easy challenges.
Most people will download this wanting much more scenery and more laid out challenges and goals, but that is not the point of this app. I would go a lot harder on Aquila if it was just an independently made app, but at the end of the day, it is the result of fundraising money from the Hawk Conservancy Trust and their projects and research help birds of prey all over the world. Buying this app literally helps these birds of prey to survive and that is a worthy goal indeed. Download this to support the Hawk Conservancy Trust and to also understand why these birds are so majestic in flight (the secret is they work a lot harder to make it look easy than you would possibly think).
