top of page
Search

VRChat Game Review

VRChat is a free-to-play multiplayer online virtual reality social game. VRChat was created by Graham Gaylor and Jess Joudrey. It was released February 1st, 2017. Anyone can play the game whether the user has virtual reality equipment or not.


Is VRChat Fun?


VRChat is an amazing game for finding friends and meeting new people. You can go on all sorts of adventures to different worlds. You can do Karaoke with your friends, watch movies listen to music, dance with your friends, play mini-games, and you can simply just hang out and relax while socializing. The main problem that can arise from a game like this is that it is run by how active other people are. If no one is online, there is no one to socialize and have fun with. This can cause the game to be very fun on some days, and less fun on others.


I would also like to bring up desktop mode vs. virtual reality mode. I started playing VRChat on desktop. I enjoyed meeting people and always had a good time. I eventually decided to make the purchase and get a Vive headset and controllers so that I could fully immerse myself into VRChat. Existing in VRChat with virtual reality is a whole different gameplay experience. You feel like you are caught between reality and a fantasy world. You are taking steps in an in-between world that exists only in our minds.


I remember the first time I played in virtual reality I started to get confused between reality and virtual reality. I would look in the mirror in real life and feel like it was not me. I was so used to staring at myself as an anime model that looking at real people seemed fake. It was almost like reality and virtual reality had swapped places. Morals between reality and VR became blurry and it almost acts as if you are living two entirely separate lives.


This was fun but also scary. I would be sitting on the train on my way to school and I would look at my hands. My hands would feel disconnected or fake like they were not apart of my body. My mind couldn't decide if my hands were real or virtual. It was a mind-blowing out of body experience. It was interesting but also confusing. The side effects of the combo of VRChat and VR can be very disturbing at first. Over time your mind finally begins to differentiate the realities and things go back to normal.


I personally have had a blast meeting people and hearing about stories in their life and having different perspectives on the world. Imagine being able to go to a party with the click of a button. That is basically what VRChat does if you don't want to leave the comfort of your home.


The Game Learning Curve


VRChat is not a difficult game to learn. You are thrown into a world surrounded by people. The only thing that becomes difficult to learn is how to navigate through the menu system while in VR. While the menu system is difficult, it is not as confusing as other VR games. I certainly think there are a lot of improvements to be made overall for user interface/user experience design for all VR games. There are no real objectives in VRChat so nothing is challenging besides learning some of the basic controls. Over time, you will get used to everything and be able to play the game with ease.


Game Graphics


The game graphics for VRChat are good for what technology is available to VR right now. Players in VRChat can make custom maps and avatars to upload to the VRChat database. This is my favorite feature about VRChat. This gives players a chance to show off their design skills. Each world can be interactive with objects in them such as food, coffee cups, guns, swords, gloves, and more. If you can create 3D maps and models you can upload them to VRChat. This means the game graphics are largely controlled by the players.


This can be both bad and good. It's nice to be able to see all different kinds of models, however, this means the game graphics sometimes lack consistency. Despite the free range of what can be uploaded the game still works well together. It's cool to see a realistic alien-like creature, and then all of a sudden a cute anime girl. This is a part of the fun that makes VRChat.


Game Audio


The audio in VRChat can be improved. There are not a whole lot of custom songs per map. Again, this game is very player based. This is a smart way of making a game though because the players will continue to make an endless amount of content for the developers.


Some map makers upload music playlists to play in their map. This makes every world you visit unique. There is also 3D binary sound. When people are talking around you they can be heard out of your left or right ear depending on where you are located in the room. This makes the sound realistic to where other players are. When games include sound like this it adds to the realism of the game. Like I had mentioned before anything that adds believability to the game makes it better. Overall, improvements could be made by the devs to add more interesting music to some of the main maps.


Game Controls


In VRChat most models have hand gestures and face emotes. The hand gestures are tied to the emotes. For example if you make a peace sign, your characters face might look happy and have blush marks on the cheeks. These are tied together. Sliding your fingers on the finger pads create these different gestures and emotes. This can be challenging to learn at first. It comes down to a lot of staring in the mirror at your avatar and creating muscle memory connections. Each avatar you choose has a different set of emotes and hand gestures which would cause you to re-learn the controls. This can become annoying.


Movement in the game is nice. You can move by walking in your play space or clicking forward on the remote if you don't have enough space around you. The movement can be nauseating at times which again becomes frustrating. I don't think this is an issue with VRChat alone, I think that movement on VR needs to be improved in general which will happen as technology improves.


Story


In VRChat there is no story. Players have made their own stories/roleplays in the game. I have also seen people playing Dungeons & Dragons. Most stories are made with-in VRChat through the experiences made with other players. The memories you make become stories to tell friends and family. Creating your own content within a game is a really good way to exercise creativity and celebrate human existence.


Characters


There are no set characters in VRChat. Everyone contributes to the kinds of characters you run into. The characters are however the human playing the avatar wishes to portray themselves. You can run into anime characters, aliens, characters from shows, and even objects. Characters are anything you can set your mind to and then act out. This creates a unique and different experience every time you play the game. Going back to the avatar creation, you can add colliders in your character's hair and fingers. This makes it so you can interact with your own hair. This adds even more realism to the characters in the game. I hope VRChat continues to add ways for players to interact on a more realistic level.


Game Graphics and Design


The game has all different kinds of graphics. Some people go with a realistic-looking world when they build them and others might do a play off of other games with simpler textures and graphics. Everything in VRChat really varies the world to world. That's why it always makes for an interesting game-play experience. The main worlds like The Great Pug are wonderfully designed. I Enjoy the maps the main devs made and I wish that they made more maps.


Changes


Changes to the game would be mostly bug related. There is this bug I run into often where the colliders between hands and an object in a world can't move past each other. It is frustrating and has been around for a while. When you try to give someone a high-five over a booth table your hands will get stuck mid-air. I also wish that VRChat ran smoother when mirrors are turned on. Mirrors can lag a player out bad, and mirrors are one of the best features of the game. If there is a better way to optimize them, that would be great. I would also change what people can upload into the game. Some people upload inappropriate content for younger children into the game. Lot's of kids play VRChat to so I think it is important that it is monitored.


Recommendations


I would recommend this game to everyone. It should be tried at least once in life. One of the best parts about gaming is getting to socialize with people from around the world. I think that a lot of companies have lost sight of the fact that enjoying a game and creating memories with other people is one of the best parts of gaming. I wish the social aspect of games was focused on more. VRChat is solely focused on meeting people and even includes mini-games to play as well. Every time I have played VRChat I have never regretted it. This game should be played at least one by everyone.






Comments


Please Note that the video below may contain explicit language and be sensitive to some viewers.

bottom of page