Ballooning Adventures VR (Oculus Rift)

Price at Time Of Review: £4.49 ($6)
Comfort Rating: Yellow (Mild Movement)
Genre: Interactive Experience,
Supported Platforms: Oculus Rift, Rift S
Supported Controllers: Oculus Touch
Best Playing Position: Standing, Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG

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Description: Take to the skies in a hot air balloon and explore a vast beautiful landscape. Pilot your balloon through breathtaking scenery. Find all of the secrets and explore all three realms. An uplifting soundtrack will accompany you through this dreamlike experience. After a while you will become an expert balloon pilot, accurately triggering each collectable. Fly thousands of feet up, find your target then swoop down to skim across the fields and drift through narrow canyons. Ballooning Adventures employs a vectored thrust and drift mechanic that combines the gentleness of balloon fight with a steerable and intuitive control.

Review: I have been playing games since I was a child and sadly knocked up over 40 years of video game playing. Why am I telling you this? Because in all those years the amount of hot air balloon games I have played can be counted on one hand. So it is a pleasure to get one in VR. Ballooning Adventures VR is not a game that holds your hand or sets you onto a path of missions, it just gives you a hot air balloon and lets you discover things for yourself. While there is a short tutorial at the start to tell you the controls it is pretty easy to get the hang of this game without them.

You really can do whatever you like in your hot air balloon. You can just fly about enjoying the flight, or you can find the hidden animals, or you can collect the letters, fire some fireworks off or go for all the landing missions. This is one adventure that you can do a little bit of everything or simply nothing at all.

It has to be said that the graphics are basic at best and the music is annoying (thankfully you can turn it off). But it is also more relaxing than many relaxation apps! This “adventure” is for those of us who just enjoy being in VR. The feeling of being free to explore and fly where you want to go is amazing and shouldn’t be undersold. Leaning out of the basket as you carefully land your balloon helps to make this basic looking game feel strangely immersive. With so many things to see and missions to do this should keep you busy for more than a while. Just be warned that at the end of the day this is a hot air balloon simulator adventure, so expect a much slower pace of gameplay than you might be used to.