Google Earth VR (Oculus Rift)

Price at Time Of Review: Free
Comfort Rating: Yellow (Mild Movement)
Genre: Tool/App
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: The world has so many beautiful and amazing places to visit. If we’re lucky, we’re able to travel and see a few of them. But even the most active travelers can only see a fraction. What if we could see them all?

Ten years ago, Google Earth began as an effort to help people everywhere explore our planet. And now, with more than two billion downloads, many have. Today, we are introducing Google Earth VR as our next step to help the world see the world. With Earth VR, you can fly over a city, stand at the top of the highest peaks, walk along new streets, and even soar into space.

Now, at 196.9 million square miles, we know the world is pretty big, so we’ve made it easy to find great places to visit. Earth VR comes with cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations that send you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps, and more.

Review: The year was 2005 and Google released their first maps system. When Google Maps first came out, everyone imagined it looked like a flight over their own homes and often wondered how there was so much detail. Everyone tried it, but now most people don’t know Google Earth (a sort of updated 3D version of Google Maps) even existed. That was until now because Google Earth has been given a VR makeover and it’s more amazing than you would ever imagine possible.

Using the Oculus Touch controllers you can navigate around the world finding sights and sounds you might want to look at or just stumble across things as you go along. The good news is there are several tours that you can go on for those of us would couldn’t find our way home from the end of the road. Cites, colour, water and general tourist destinations, these are the places with the most detail and these are the places that will blow you away the most. It often feels so real that you would swear you were actually there.

This is just one of those VR things you just have to see to believe. There is no video or screen shot that will showcase just how amazing this app is. Exploring the Earth in VR is ultimately loads of fun and at times it looks stunning in 3D. But what are most people going to do with it? They will visit their house, show their friends their own houses and a few other things and that will be about it. It’s a good job that it’s free because if you had to pay for it I doubt anyone would. But still stunning nonetheless.