You’ll spend more time building the Nintento Labo VR Complete Kit than playing on it
In a time when every major game company is trying to make glitzier, fancier, more immersive forms of VR, Nintendo is just out there making cardboard sleeves for its handheld console for you to make your own VR.
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In a time when every major game company is trying to make glitzier, fancier, more immersive forms of VR, Nintendo is just out there making cardboard sleeves for its handheld console for you to make your own VR.
There are two options of Labo VR: The Complete Kit, and the Starter Set and Blaster.
The starter set just comes with the cardboard and goggles you need to fold yourself a VR holder for the Switch, along with a blaster that will hold the Joy Cons and make the experience a little more immersive.
The Complete Kit also gives you a bird extension with wind pedal, the camera and an elephant. Both kits include the same software.
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Like the last few Labo kits, most of the time spent with these games, except for the few dedicated souls who fall in love with the software, will be building the contraptions.
All up, you can expect to spend around eight hours folding cardboard, give or take a few hours depending on age and skill.
Though, a lot of that building time is taken up by the glacial pace of the instruction video, and waiting to fast forward to the next part, which makes it feel like more of a chore than it has to.
Once you’ve built your VR headset, you suddenly understand why actual VR headsets are so expensive: they really need the fancy technology if you’re going to use them for more than ten minutes at a time (and for $120, you want to use it for more than ten minutes).
There are four things important for making a VR experience pleasant for the user: frame rates, resolution, latency and tracking.
An expensive VR headset will aim for a frame rate of at least 90fps (preferably 120fps), a resolution of at least 4K, super low latency, and will track you using several cameras.
Putting the 720p Nintendo Switch, maxing out at 60fps, in a cardboard sleeve doesn’t give you any of those things.
And, while the other VR headsets feature a strap to attach to your head, this has no such luxury, forcing you to hold it up constantly.
That’s fine, because none of the included VR experiences are all that long, and you’ll need breaks to survive the motion sickness.
Where Labo VR finds its stride is in the creation; Kids can make their own games and 3D art, encouraging their imagination and teaching valuable skills.
Unfortunately, they can never share their creations, due to the lack of online functionality, which is a missed opportunity.
Bottom line: This is an amazing way to introduce your child (with reasonable intestinal fortitude) to VR and making their own games, even if it’s not great VR and they can’t share their games.
Adults would be better served saving up for a real VR headset.
Nintendo Labo VR Complete Kit
Overall: 3.5/5
Available now on: Nintendo Switch
Price: $119.95
Out now.
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