Whenever someone says “karts” and “video game” in the same sentence, we are immediately hooked. Especially if racing karts can take place in virtual reality. It sounds a lot more fun than it really is, though, especially where VR Karts is concerned. For the price of US$35, one would expect a whole lot more. The game is available on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Daydream.
VR Karts Is Neither Bad nor Good
It doesn’t all that often we come across a game where the final verdict is literally determinable by the toss of a coin. When we first saw VR Karts, we were pretty excited about the game itself. Players can customize their kart and driver. Sadly, this is limited to just the color schemes, though, but we’ll let that one slip. With no difficult controls to get used to, players are off to the races pretty quickly. Tilt controls are available as well, but they seemingly didn’t work for us in VR, for an unknown reason.
Players have a total of 16 different races to beat, after which they will learn all four Cups. Courses are varied in a way, but not enough to make all of them that memorable either. Additionally, the wide range of weapons one can use will certainly amuse a lot of players. After a few hours, the fun starts to wear off a bit, which is a bit shameful. Then again, your mileage may vary in this department, as it is a matter of personal preference.
Despite having both a single player and multiplayer option, VR Karts just lacks that “soul” one would hope to find in such a game. Race games are designed to make you come back and beat lap times or challenge friends. VR Karts does not provide that feeling at any point along the way, which is very regretful. Thankfully, the audio is on point, which helps with the immersion. After all, we want to hear those engines rev up!
Until the multiplayer community of this game grows a bit more, the single player campaign is all it has to offer. While 16 tracks sounds like a lot, you can clear them in first place with minimal practice. No new content is unlocked by beating these tracks either and there are no further kart upgrades or customization options either. The rewards for finishing the single-player aspect leave to be desired and unless you have friends, multiplayer is not a real option either.
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