Let ’s be real : It ’s been a fairly stressful class . The tragedy never seem close . Harambe wasshot deadin front of child . David Bowie and Princediedunexpectedly . Oh yeah , and we electeda screaming giant cheeseflower wedgeto be the next president . All of this spoiled news might want to make you just runaway for a while . Now , there ’s an easy way to do it .
Available in theSteam storetoday for free , the new version of Google Earth let anyone bear the HTC Vive headset walk the street of the most iconic cities in the world , dive through canyons like a hawk , and float around in space , staring at the sick blue dot from the abyss .
The launching of Google Earth VR comes with a bunch of guide on tours to make it easy for anyone that does n’t have great geographics skills or simply wants to teach something new about a place they ’ve never been to . Sites like the Amazon River , Grand Canyon , and Manhattan skyline are among the few dozen emplacement that you may choose from .
As someone who wrote theGizmodo HTC Vive revue , I had a lot of familiarity with the games and other VR experience available for the headset , so I decided to sample out Google Earth VR . I downloaded the software package in about a minute , launched the broadcast , and was greeted with myopic video .
The experience starts with a steer go of all of the thing you may do in Google Earth VR . You ’ll see a prevue of unlike urban center , mountainous region , sweet and other nerveless landscape . When the video end after a fiddling more than two moment , you ’re go forth star at the Earth from blank .
A modest annotation on the controller show you how to zoom in , spin the earth , and pick a localisation to go to . The control are really really unproblematic . When you press the trackpad on the leftover controller , you soar in and out . you could whizz along in all the agency to street level , so you could walk around .
When you press the trackpad on the right controller , it tilt the earthly concern , turning it into a matte surface so that you’re able to walk around . You ’re basically transitioning from looking at a world to looking at a flat Earth similar to the agency you would on Google Maps . The transition sequence between a spherical Earth and level one can be a little startling . It also make it difficult to search at meter .
It took me about two second to learn the controls . The software project an image of the Earth in front of you that is likely roughly the size of a pic theatre of operations screen . So if you accidentally zoom in on the wrong area , it can be a pain in the ass to get situated . Just like a lot of other VR experiences , once you get the hang of the controls , it ’s smooth seafaring .
My first destination in Google Earth VR was to visit my hometown of Chicago , and once I calculate out the control condition , I basically just point at the Great Lakes on the ball and kept zooming in until I could seeWillis Towerin all of its aureole . I fly around to some of my favorite locations and whoop it up in the fact that I could essentially tour the city with no sweat .
Then I decided to jump over to Arches National Park in Utah . I had no idea where on the function it was , but I was able to take a cutoff to it using the build - in menu that I launched from the controller . When I get , which take about 20 instant total , I was in awe of the scene . I felt likeDr . Manhattan in Watchmanwhen he flees to Mars to think over the significance of life . I , too , have been in a broody state , and as I stare out into the dessert , I was able-bodied to unplug from the world that I was in reality sitting in a fluorescent fixture - lit situation .
The whole experience was awesome — until it was n’t . After expend about 20 minutes touring the globe , jump around to my favorite cities like New York and Tokyo , and also visiting some nature website like the Amazon , I got a massive headache . My eyes were whole strained by the transition screen between navigating the globular Earth and walking around on a flat map . My nous still smart as I perforate out these words on my keyboard , and to be totally true , I ca n’t wait to stop looking at my screen .
So it grow out Google Earth VR is an awesome experience , but it ’s handicap by some of the same problems that all VR experiences are . In curt , if you play around in the headset for too long , your eyes and and your promontory will start to detest you . So if you ’re looking for an easy elbow room to escape , Google Earth VR is something you should lawfully consider trying — just do n’t wander the ball for too long .
Google EarthHTC ViveVirtual reality
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