System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £6.99
Comfort Rating: Red (Extreme Movement)
Genre: Interactive Experience
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: 15+
Description: Chernobyl VR Project is a unique project by The Farm 51, as it combines video games with educational and movie narrative software. It is the very first virtual tour around the Chernobyl and Pripyat area,Visit Chernobyl without leaving home! Enthusiastic response concerning the first media information on the Chernobyl So, we decided that this should not be a simply commercial project. We met lots of people who had been near Chernobyl when the disaster happened, including the so called liquidators, who helped clean up the disaster site, often at the price of acute radiation sickness. We also managed to reach very famous people willing to support our project, among others the Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich (author of Chernobyl Prayer) and the legendary boxer Vitali Klitschko, now Mayor ofKiev. Chernobyl VR Project uses this technology and state-of-the-art graphics solutions, such as advanced 3D scans of locations and buildings, spherical photography, stereoscopic videos.
Review: It doesn’t really matter how old you are, the Chernobyl disaster is ingrained in us all. The catastrophic nuclear accident that happened will forever change our world and will do for thousands of years to come, maybe even tens of thousands. It is a part of history that needs to be remembered and never forgotten. So this is where the Chernobyl VR Project comes into it. Using state of the art 360° video cameras the team risked their own lives to bring us this and that deserves a lot of respect.
You start out overlooking the Chernobyl area with a range of places you can visit. From the abandoned theme park (loved the story behind this) to the reactor itself. There are hours of content to see here and at times it can be very moving and other times slightly disturbing. This is an app that might make a few people queasy, but I wouldn’t say it was the “Intense” that Oculus says it is, but it is there. I have to say that I found it quite emotional and while I wasn’t impressed by the often blurry video it did the job. I have to respect the team from making this, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the finished product. Sure it’s a good experience, but it wasn’t really an experience that needed VR to be told.
