System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: Free
Comfort Rating: Yellow
Genre: Interactive Experience
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers
Best Playing Position: Standing
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: 15+
VR Shop Score 1/100: 80
Description: Ever worked hundreds of meters beneath the earth, bent down in dark, narrow shafts, hitting coal out of the walls? Probably not. Now you can: The WDR, Germany’s largest public broadcaster, presents the interactive VR experience “Meet the Miner – WDR VR Bergwerk”. With an Oculus Rift, users can experience how dangerous and gruelling life of a miner was 100 years ago – feeling what it was like racing down hundreds of meters into the earth in a shaky elevator and mining coal with a virtual pickaxe. Something you will never be able to do in real life again. It is the highlight of a VR/360° project focussing on a dying tradition – the last German coal mines will be shut down at the end of 2018.
Review: ‘Meet the Miner – WDR VR Bergwerk’ is a short interactive story about the mining industry in Germany over 100 years ago. It looks amazing, there are a few things to interact with and to some people, it might even be considered eye-opening. It’s not going to interest a lot of people, but I have to give credit where it is due and this is a very well made app that really puts you into the scene. It’s a good job that it is free though because otherwise, it would have been difficult to recommend given that it only lats for 10 minutes.
