Museum of Other Realities Review (Nikolai_Bukav)
Let me do this as a comparison, because this is unlike any "game" I have seen. It truly is an experience.
If you were to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the admission cost is $20.00 for a two-day ticket.
If you were to go to the Louvre it is about €17, or $20.00.
If you were to go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the admission price is $25.00.
Why am I comparing the price of this product like that? Because essentially the cost shown is the ticket price for a chance to visit what truly is a legitimate museum in this product (but with the added bonus of permanent admission). The art installations featured are incredible to say the least. I have been to museums in Europe and throughout the Eastern Coast of the United States, and honestly, this can easily hold its own as being like one of those museums.
When you first start, you essentially spawn in at an entrance into either a solo or multiplayer experience (normally when you go to a museum, it's a group experience, and you can interpret things differently). From there, you descend into a lobby where you are introduced to an avatar, and an explanation for how the museum works. Looking around, it actually feels as if you are there in a museum. You will notice a map on the floor with an actual layout to a museum (part of the interior reminded me of a hybrid between the Tate Modern in London, and the National Gallery of Art (East Building) in Washington DC).
From there, you are given the opportunity to teleport to exhibits in the museum, or can walk around. And if you choose to walk around, it is an adventure to say the least.
The exhibits are mind boggling. In the course of the experience I had at the time of writing this, I would have continued but for the fact my controllers had run out of battery for the evening. I was able to work my way through around 1/4 of the museum, but in that time, the thing that stood out to me was the interactiveness and the sheer genius of the programming in this place. I saw interactive exhibits featuring the use of sound and voice, and I saw multiple exhibits breaking any sense of what it meant to be 3D. There were doorways, essentially like see-through portals that you can walk into, move around, and see exhibits grow. There were exhibits you can use your controllers to interact with and learn about how they work or were created. In all this time, because of the layout, I honestly forgot where I was, and truly had forgotten what reality meant in the world of art.
This was a truly awesome experience, and I understand that the museum updates and grows. I am looking forward to what it brings, and can definitely say for someone wanting to have a VR experience, this is a must have.