Thank you Vibrant Visuals for sending us a review code!

Thanks to virtual reality we’re able to virtually walk in places that we haven’t or most likely won’t be able to step foot on. With Google Earth, I was able to scale tall structures effortlessly and travel to many exotic locales. Space was still a mystery though. Until now. Spacetours VR lets you visit eight planets in our solar system. You can also make a pit stop on the moon and see the U.S. flag flying proudly. Thanks to photographs provided by NASA and ESA/O you can get a birds-eye view of God’s creation in the stars.

Navigating in space is pretty easy as you just grab onto any planet you see and it will come to the palm of your hand. Once you place the planet (which isn’t labeled) into your traveling device you’ll be transported there after grabbing onto the handle bars in your pod. Unfortunately, the game didn’t always register my grabbing onto the handle bars and it took multiple tries at times.

Once your destination is reached, you can lower the walls and gaze upon the planet. The sound and visual effects for the walls disappearing is pretty cool I might add. Unlike Google Earth, you cannot manipulate or zoom into and walk on the planet. You can, however, read and learn some cool facts about it. If there is a nearby moon or satellite, you can read about those too. I love how the satellites and International Space Station will fly by with incredible detail. The Unreal Engine is well-utilized in creating this title.

Spacetours VR is a good title to show people who are new to VR. The controls are fairly easy (when they register properly), and the movement is light and won’t cause motion sickness. The visuals are good and there is a lot of learning potential here. What I don’t see however is much staying power. After exploring space for about ten or fifteen minutes, I see little reason to come back.

If someone loves space they may want to do multiple tours, but I imagine that many people will be content with just one. For that reason alone, I’m not sure if the $9.99 price tag is justified. If someone needs to do research on the solar system, this is an awesome way to do it. It would also be a pretty cool “show and tell” in science class.

Since this title is labeled as episode one, I’m curious what future installments will offer. I just hope they’re a bit more in-depth and will keep people’s attention longer. I look forward to more eye candy from Vibrant Visuals in the near future.