The Grand Canyon VR Experience Reviews

Horrible controlls for the paddle board, on rails and the paddling just takes forever. Lots of the visuals are not great for VR (thin lines on grass and foileage). Might be a lot more fun if you could actually move around freely instead of on rails.

It is decently well made, but I can't say it was immersive or enjoyable. If I was to introduce somebody to the rift, this isn't one of the selections I'd pick to show. Mostly you are a floating body on a kayak ride in a loop. Not much to do, the scenery is OK.. but that is about it. A lot gets lost as the try to use high details which don't translate well and make the experience feel dated in graphics. Suspect this is just an early prototype before they make it a kayak fishing game. Then I could see it being pretty good with the HTC. (holding paddles, fishing rod, etc.) But as now.. it is a 5/10 sorta meh. Pick it up if you want to support the developers and throw some money early on at the VR world.

Grand Canyon is a fun and inexpensive VR experience that will allow you to really showcase your VR set up to all your friends, relatives and whoever else happens to drop by and can spare 10 minutes trying out VR for the first time. This is not a game, it is an experience and, therefore, has no replay value except after updates as more "Experiences" are built into the simulation. With an HTC Vive, the immersion is quite good. You can almost feel the sun beating down on you as you make your way down river. With 3rd gen VR rigs including the Valve Index, HTC Vive Pro 2 or Meta Pro, the realism goes up several notches. I have found Grand Canyon to be the perfect introduction VR title to use with those who can be, let's say, a bit put off by the experience VR offers, which can be disorienting to some. Not so with Grand Canyon, even my most VR skitish female friend loved Grand Canyon and has broadened her horizons with Google Earth, which when she first tried it, caused her to sceam in terror and tear off the headset! roflmao Final word: Face it, we all love showing off our stuff and for a measly $2.99, you can own the ultimate initiate experience to gently ease neophytes into the brave new world of VR. Buy it! (No - I don't work for the Devs - lol)

Not a bad VR experience. It may be on the shorter side, but the environments are highly detailed and very animated. My only real issue is that it should have just been called "Canyon VR" as it seems very small in scale in comparison to the real Grand Canyon.

At $2.99 this would be a semi-reasonable purchase. For $9.99 I expect a measure of artistry, and that artistry just isnt here. this basically feels less like the great outdoors than it does one of those rides at a cheap amusement park. ohhhh look, theres some sort of styrofoam cactus. huh, theres an animatronic lizard. oh there is a bird projected on the ceiling (which i cant move my head to look at or the game jitters). pros: if i put the game on absolute highest quality and dont ever move my head, there is a measure of immersion. i appreciate the effort to put wild animals in the game the ambient sounds are lovely cons: guys seriously $9.99? its one scene and it lasts less time than it took for me to download it. gtx 1060 card, when i move my head in the game the jitter is very, very bad. moving my head in TheBlu however has no jitter. perhaps a better card might not have this problem but its not like this has a lot of moving pieces to render. the trout are a nice touch but the decision to layer a second 'shimmering' image over them only made me honestly think 'oh ok, so the trout are all paired up with mates or something..?' until i realized this was an attempt to emulate water refraction. it doesnt land, that effect. why are there massive iguanas here? no such animal in the grand canyon. if you want gila monsters, open up blender and alter your iguana assets to make gila monsters. or go ba77s deep and throw in some dinosaurs and krakens. but commit, either way. you shouldnt be phoning it in with vanilla Unity store assets in a $9.99 game. 'artificial intelligence' in the animals? stop. just knock it off. frogs jumping off lily pads when youre X feet away doth not AI make. the quality of the visuals on the absolute highest level is only slightly better than what i 'experience' in a vintage Road Runner vs Wil-e Coyote cartoon. and again im sorry if this feels nit picky but a) its really not and b) when youre charging $9.99 for an experience game, you need to come correct.

So I've used this thing for a while. It's not a game, it's an "experience" because that's something you can do in VR... experience things. I really want to give these guys a thumbs up but I can't... Why not? I've never been to the Grand Canyon so I can't say for sure whether or not it's authentic... What I [b]CAN[/b] say isn't authentic is that the resolution is crap and it detracts from the experience when you look at the scenery and see this jagged pixellated crap. Apparently there's a tweak you can do that might wind up adding some much needed smoothing to those pixellated edges, but it requires a really beefy card to leave it turned on for everything. So the aliasing is a big problem for stuff in the distance, but it's also got some problems with walls being way too "flat" with sharp corners up close. Am I going through the Grand Canyon or is this the lego recreation of the Grand Canyon? Things I liked: [list] [*] You get to experience what it might be like to paddle down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. [*] You get a flashlight, paddles, and a way to teleport yourself in cases where moving would take you out of the room scale play area [*] paddling the little canoe thing doesn't make you sick but still gives that sensation you're moving [*] if you lean left and right over the seated area you will see the sides of the "canoe" thing dip into the water as it reacts to the shifting weight. [/list] Things I didn't like: [list] [*] Crappy resolution [*] Crappy water textures (They're working on it I guess?) [*] I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do other than paddle around [*] There's no map or anything so you're not even sure how far you can go [*] Nightfall comes pretty quickly so without the flashlight it gets pretty hard to see, and what there is to see isn't that interesting. [*] You can use two paddles (each controller being a paddle) but there really isn't a good way to make it feel like you're actually rowing. I wound up most of the time using one controller as a paddle and the other as a flashlight/teleport thing most of the time. [/list] Really though most of what irked me about this game wasn't the graphics. I wanted to like it. It's a cool idea...I just feel like they need more direction. Which way should I paddle? How far can I go? Is there supposed to be something to see at night? Maybe they could add some narration from someone famous (or not famous) about the local wildlife or rock formations, or history of the area or something. Instead I feel like it's just "paddle around, maybe see some stuff....maybe see something to make you feel like it was worth the trip but probably not". Like maybe if they had an Indian Village to visit, or showed some especially iconic and beautiful scenery... the way I felt, it could have just been "generic river through generic canyon with generic plants". Google "grand canyon river" and look at the pictures and compare that to what you see in game... it's not even close. The most interesting thing I saw was an empty Canoe going by on its own... I decided I'd paddle up to it and try to get into it and maybe see if there were some clues to the owner, but nope...there was no way to stop it from going off on its own (was it motorized?) and I couldn't get into it... It was a nicer "canoe" than the one I started with since the one I started with looked more like a surfboard than a boat... Maybe there was something there... like the beginning of a mystery that I had to figure out, but the problem is, they didn't give me any tools to stop the boat, examine it closer or anything.... I feel like the whole thing was wasted opportunity. EDIT: So I figured out what I was missing... When you first start out and walk to the pier, there's a picture of a canoe with "360°" and an arrow around it, and under that is a yellow cube. Touch the yellow cube with your controller and you're teleported to that canoe on it's pre-programmed circuit of the area. The problem is, if you try to do ANYTHING with your controllers, you're zapped back to the pier again. If you wait long enough the canoe will go right past the pier and you can follow on the other "surfboard" boat, and maybe get in front of it and let the canoe push you along. It would have been nice if you could speed the boat up, but nothing I did seemed to affect it without zapping me back to the pier again. Buy it cheap if you must, but don't expect to be amazed by the experience. Any time you come close to feeling in awe of something, the jagged graphics will remind you that you're in VR. It's a shame really.

I was looking forward to trying this out especially after the devs revamped the paddle system, so I picked it up during the Steam Sales. Unfortunately, it's rife with bugs and just feels unpolished. It needs a huge dose of anti-aliasing or just any graphics options. The paddle physics, while cool in concept, don't feel right. They're very slow, even paddling with 2 hands. There is some graphical bug which makes the water almost black at certain angles (like looking down), but it changes, which really takes you out of the immersion. I thought the kayak might fare better, but it is entirely on-rails. Why not give the same freedom as with the paddle board? That would be great. But I tried it and needed to re-center, only to find myself now underneath the boat! I really wanted to like this, but it's so buggy and almost unplayable as is. I would refund it, but it was so cheap I'll keep it so hopefully the devs will fix this up. It has potential.

I have played this "Game/App" through multiple revisions and am extremely impressed with how it has evolved and improved. Both the Day and Night experiences in the Kayak are excellent and each quite different. The range of living creatures now experienced is quite large. I have seen a Deer, a Hare (Jackrabbit), two large Lizards (Gila Monsters?), many different Birds, many Bats in the tunnel to the Waterfall, many Fish and many Frogs. Also there are Fireflies, Butterflies and other assortd Insects. I hear Coyotes at night; wish I could see them! The Fish can be fed with pellets from the Can on the floor. In addition, the Rendering of the Rocks is superb, especially close up with Flashlight illumination, and the clear Water with ripples is impressive. Little touches such as noise and vibration when the Kayak rides over rocks or branches in the water adds greatly to the realism. Flowers, plants, trees are all impressive, especially when they sway realistically in the wind. This work is exactly why I enjoy VR and it is impressive how the product has evolved. I would like to draw attention to a few, albiet minor, flaws or possible improvements that are noted to help the Developers: 1. At night the Moon changes from a half Disc to a quarter Crescent to a very thin Crescent, all in a single run. This cannot be in the real world; this evolution follows a 28 day cycle and should be fixed during the experience. It would be clever if it were to be Full or different Crescents on successive trips but this might be a hardship for the rendering of the illumination of the rocks. 2. I fed a Fish and it then swam right through the Kayak as if it were full of water and not an obstruction. 3. I wish the Frogs would swim a bit longer and not just blink out of existance. 4. I can find the Gila Monsters at night but wish that there were Eyes reflecting the Light, not necessarily with a visible Animal. 5. The Flashlight is very good but there is a somewhat unrealistic distance cut-off of the illumination. This conflicts with the real life experience. Also it would be nice if, when selected ON, it were to stay ON without holding the Trigger, perhaps toggle ON/OFF with successive Trigger pulls. Also I found a mode where it is a Head-Mounted light but this (I think) requires the PC Keyboard Control Key to be pressed. The Motor's Speed Control does not require to be held; if released it stays at the chosen setting; the Flashlight should do the same. 6. I have commented before that the Waterfall, although very good, does not interact with the Lake water, which would in real life be very turbulent. This is one of the two Apps (The Blu is the other) that I use to introduce new Viewers to VR and I am hoping that further evolution can be anticipated. Very good work everyone!

Really good experience with oculus rift. Ran smooth as butter on epic settings with my i7 4790k and gtx 980ti and looked really nice to boot! The water oh man so serene and relaxing. I really wanted to put my hand in the water and at one point i extended my hands outward in an attempt to do so lol. Totally recommend to anyone who enjoys a vr experience that has to do with nature. Only gripe was that it's too short! But Im hoping they will add more seeing how it's early access. Worth 10 dollars as is imo.

Having been to the bottom of the canyon (Bright Angel Campground / Phantom Ranch area)..... this doesn't look anything like the grand canyon to me. Maybe there's a side creek/canyon somewhere that looks kind of like this? The rocks, the vegetation, the sense of scale & awe are nothing at all like the GC. Maybe some sandstone canyon elsewhere in the southwest. What you can see pales compared to even the inner gorge of the real GC. I'd have been more positive if this weren't marketed as a grand canyon experience, but that would only upgrade it from "annoyed I spent $5 on it" to "meh". I realize it's an interactive experience, not a game, but I was hoping for something that transported me to another place and made me feel immersed in it. Some other, better done VR experiences have done that.... this really didn't.