Björk Vulnicura Virtual Reality Album Reviews

An absolute must buy for Björk fans who also happen to own a VR headset! I'll keep it at that, and let you discover all of the details for yourself. :)

how do you rate another limb, albeit sometimes a bit new, and numb, of a masterpiece? to me personally, still a masterpiece though, in another, and fairly new garn..i´ll come back for the technical part of the review, after my (real life) tears dried.. i was late to the game i admit, but thank you bjork and team. ! brilliant experience so far. :)

Where id have to go from my short experience before a refund sorry to say is. If you are a huge fan of Bjork and like her music to a point you would pay this price this is a must have. But to a general VR gamer. This is not a game yet a uninteractive film of music video's with 360 view. But if you are a big fan of this music this experience would probably be worth it .

It is quite well done but the UX could use more work. I am using a Metsqeust 2; the controllers are really wonky; I thought the app was broken. Also a loading screen would help in VR, it was some time before the app actually displayed anything in VR; it made me think it crashed. The content is really good - quite high production value. It could use a bit more polish & UX tweaks then it would be a great experience. I do hope we get to see more apps like this in VR.

10/10 I like the album very much. A VR show with Björk music is the best experience I've ever experienced. Of course, I saw the Vr show at Björk Digital in Poznań, but seeing it in person at home is much better. I turned a blind eye to a few missing VR visualizations for some songs and 3 video 360. I recommend seeing it with your own eyes and experiencing it on your own.

This game offers an interesting visual experience as well and a soothing soundtrack to go along it. as a longtime bjork fan i would of expected a lengthier playtime but alas i'm fine with the little project.

I love Björk and her music! I've been looking forward to this for several years. Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about it. The price is the main issue. The VR market is fairly new and thus people are uncomfortable spending more than $10 on an experience like this, despite it likely costing much more to create than it will ever earn back. However, it does contain the full album (in video form), which is currently ~$13, so the price isn't outlandish when viewed through that lens. Another issue is that since it was conceived several years ago, it already feels a a little dated given how quickly VR tech is developing. I think "Stonemilker" is the only stereoscopic/3D video and unfortunately it's only ~30 FPS. (Other videos are 60 FPS but they're not stereoscopic.) That said, the innovative 3D graphical experience in "Notget" is simply outstanding, and arguably worth ten bucks just on its own! If only motion-capture tech was better and we could walk around in one of these videos! I didn't experience any of the reported audio-positioning issues. I did wish there was a way to "recenter" and/or rotate the view at times without having to move. Also, I found the side-scrolling "song chart" view a little disorienting, and my VR "legs" are quite strong. Ultimately, what I really wanted from this experience was to feel "closer" to Björk during her performances, and while I applaud this initial effort, I still find myself longing to stand near as she brings heaven to Earth. I wish there was more content to digest here, but am happy to contribute toward encouraging more development and merging of music and VR in the future!

This is a Maybe Rating. 30 bucks feels steep for the package. Navigating between songs is not well polished. You have a laser pointer, without the laser, just a dot, and you have to aim it at these objects in the world to move to the next song, so you kind of just guess aim until you hit it. First 2 experiences are underwhelming. As of this time I only have experience 3 songs out of the collection. The third one that I skipped to was more what I expected to find and was neat. The "scores" of each song aren't that interesting, floating notes, less cool than it sounds. I support the concept of VR music albums, and of course Bjork would be one of the first. If you are a fan of Bjork, and like the idea of a VR album, and 30 bucks is not a big deal to you. Then yes check it out. Otherwise wait for a sell, or the next VR album attempt.

Neat idea, unfortunately not a very polished experience. This is a combination of live-action video (some 360, some flat) and real-time rendered stuff. You move from node to node, with each node representing an immersive experience based on a song. The simple task of navigating between nodes is handled poorly, as you use a laser-pointer which projects a dot but no line (making it harder than it should be to aim at your target on the first try). Spatial audio implementation is iffy -- in some of the experiences the audio source was clearly rotated incorrectly by about 20 degrees, meaning the audio sounded like it was coming from your right or left when the video would imply it should be right in front of you. In some of the other experiences, some of the spatial audio seems to be coming from random directions (like behind you, when there's nothing in the video to imply why it would be coming from that direction). One of the experiences is a monoscopic 360 video inside of a human mouth; on top of that confusing scenery, the video pulsates and twirls erratically around you, moving your entire field of vision with no static frame of reference. After about 15 seconds of this it was clear it would make me nauseous if I continued to watch. One of the real-time experiences has some stereo-disparity issues where slightly mismatched scenery is shown to each eye (not comfortable). In another one of the real-time experiences you have 'hands', but it feels like the virtual wrist starts at the end of your controller (where the hand should be), while the virtual hand extents out from there. It's as if you're holding a virtual wrist and hand in your own hand, instead of them feeling like part of your body. Two or so of the nodes disappeared when I reached them (I'm not sure if this is a bug, or simply because those nodes did not have immersive experiences associated with them). When you come out of each experience and back to the node world, it isn't immediately clear which direction is forward and which direction is backward. Each node also includes a 'Score' bubble which you can click to see an audio-visual animation of the notes of the song. This is presented as a 360 video with the notes moving circularly around you against a pure white background. With the moving notes being your only frame of reference, it instead feels like you are rotating. This is a veritable case study in vection, and again a recipe for nausea. Difficult to get lost in the music or appreciate the artistry with these distractions.

And now for something completely different! This is exactly the kind of experimental artistic head-trip I want to see more of in VR. Bjork fans will find a few very interesting and enjoyable experiences here, but at $30.00 this is hard to recommend for the general VR audience. The idea is this: Bjork's excellent 2015 album "Vulnicura" is presented as a series of VR "videos." Each one is a different sort of presentation, so don't be fooled by the first one. Or two. Track one, "Stonemilker," was misleading to me. I found it physically uncomfortable, which may be due to the fact that it is just a 360-degree video. I was afraid that this would be the case with the other songs as well, but that was happily NOT the case. I'll just know to skip it in the future and go straight for the best bits. This physical discomfort also extends to the "Score" mode that accompanies each song, which is a simple visualization of the musical score for the selected song. The next couple of tracks expand on the traditional music video concept a little bit further, but things start to get interesting with track 5, "Family," and they don't really let up from there. These vignettes are difficult to describe, and are probably best experienced without knowing what to expect. "Notget" is incredible, and is worth the price of admission in my book. Interactivity is present in some cases, but minimal. This is meant to be absorbed, not "played" like a game. The obvious highlights of this whole project are Notget, Family, Quicksand, and Mouth Mantra. Probably in that order. A few criticisms: 1. The price is quite high, and may discourage some fans who understand that they probably won't be returning to replay this regularly. I didn't mind paying it, but I don't blame anyone who can't or won't spend $30.00 on this. 2. The Score mode is a neat concept, but gave me a headache every time I tried to enjoy it. Something about Stonemilker also made me physically uncomfortable, and I do not usually have any problems with VR sickness. 3. It could use a pause button, and maybe some basic transport controls. As it stands, you can back out of a video at any time, but have to start it from the beginning if you do.