Google earth vr

Relaxation and a bit of exploration and adventure, then XING: The Land Beyond is an excellent place to start. Solve puzzles and wield environmental powers as you explore the world of XING. Set in the afterlife, or a purgatory halfway between the living world and whatever comes next, experience the stories of those past gone while visiting lands and cultures across time. Your task is to travel through four portals in order to free trapped spirits, each with its own unique story waiting for you to discover. This meaty adventure game is set on multiple floating islands in the sky, and it is one of the best-looking VR games you’ll encounter. Its gentle puzzles, piano music, and poetic narrator make it a pleasant place to wind down. The difficulty ramps up towards the end, but you’ll get a good three hours out of it before that happens, and there are never any enemies or time limits to deal with. Even when it gets tough, its streams of running water and the breeze swishing through the trees make this one of the most relaxing VR games you can play.20. Google Earth VRGoogle Earth VR (Credit: Google)Google Earth VR puts the whole world within your reach. Explore the world from totally new perspectives as you stroll the streets of Tokyo, soar over the Grand Canyon, or teleport across the globe. Allow yourself to relax as you take in breathtaking scenery, quietly plan your next vacation, or simply experience the quiet beauty of the Earth.Now, at 196.9 million square miles, the world is pretty big, so developers have made it easy to find great places to visit in Google Earth VR. It comes with cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations that send you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps, and many more. Instead of using your cursor or finger to drag your way around a street or through a field as you would with basic Google Earth, the VR mode allows you to actually move around the space. You can duck down in your VR headset to get closer to the ground or lift your controllers up to soar through the air above buildings and hills. The controls for Google Earth VR are straightforward too so you shouldn’t have to spend forever figuring out how everything works.Features include:Global Map Access360-degree views of locations around the globeQuick access to global landmarksView the world from above, flying around some of the most breathtaking locations on EarthUse Google Earth Street View to walk around famous landmarks and interesting citiesGoogle Earth VR is available on the Oculus Store for Rift headsets and on Steam for most PC VR headsets and is totally free to use. There is currently no native support for standalone Quest 2. With great controls, ease of usage, and plenty of unique experiences, this open-world VR game is one you really need to try.21. Minecraft VRMinecraft VR (Credit: Mojang Studios)For having been around as long as it has,

And point where you want to go.)Unfortunately, that means that just like regular Google Earth, there are plenty of places that don't look so hot. Example: London is an architectural 3D marvel in Google Earth, well worth your time, but just 20 miles west, Windsor Castle is just a hill with some rocks painted on top. Enlarge Image This doesn't look much different in Google Earth VR. Screenshot by Sean Hollister/CNETWhile my hometown of San Jose, CA and my alma mater UC Santa Barbara are recognizable (if rough) 3D, like an old The Sims video game, even the capital of the Philippines is a flat 2D image right now. "It's kind of lame," says my wife. Perhaps because of that, Google includes a number of suggested destinations and premade tours filled with highlights. Enlarge Image UC Santa Barbara, as seen in Google Earth VR. Screenshot by Sean Hollister/CNETThere's also no search feature yet -- though I'm almost glad, because one of the most stunning things about zooming through Earth VR is the sheer sense of scale. My wife and I didn't appreciate just how huge Tokyo and Paris are, just how much we must have missed in person, until we struggled to find the places we'd been. When you do find something beautiful outside of a big city, there's a real sense of discovery that comes along with it.Like many of Google's coolest things, Google Earth VR started as a 20 percent project, and it's been slowly moving forward ever since the first Oculus Rift development kit came out in 2013. Kaeser says it's a Vive-exclusive to start, though they're also looking at other platforms (like Google's Daydream) as well.Next, says Product Manager Mike Podwal, is more data, more tie-ins to other Google products, more layers on top. He says Google wants this to be "a really rich geospacial way to learn about the world." We spitball about how awesome it would be if you could see, say, the impact of climate change, population density, or even just changes in your own neighborhood using VR.For now, Google Earth VR is

Starting today, it's a free download for the HTC Vive headset. When his parents denied him a Super NES, he got mad. When they traded a prize Sega Genesis for a 2400 baud modem, he got even. Years of Internet shareware, eBay'd possessions and video game testing jobs after that, he joined Engadget. He helped found The Verge, and later served as Gizmodo's reviews editor. When he's not madly testing laptops, apps, virtual reality experiences, and whatever new gadget will supposedly change the world, he likes to kick back with some games, a good Nerf blaster, and a bottle of Tejava. "I'm like Godzilla!" my wife exclaimed, stomping around the room."Ooh, I'm in Italy!" she told me, as Florence's famous cathedral appeared in front of her."That's where my mom's from, and that's where my dad's from," she pointed with her wand, as she zoomed across a small portion of the Philippines.I'd never seen her quite so interested in virtual reality.Today, Google Earth is coming to VR. It's a free download for the HTC Vive headset, and it's a heck of a lot more than just a topographic globe. You can get close enough to fly through cities like Superman, retrace the steps you took during your last vacation, even get an aerial 3D view of your own neighborhood, then grab the sun right out of the sky, spin it around, to see how things look at different times of day or night.And even though you're flying, you'll probably never feel sick. It's extremely comfortable, which Google engineering lead Dominik Kaeser chalks up to how Google Earth VR makes sure your feet always feel like they're touching the ground. Enlarge Image Google Earth VR. GoogleHow good it looks depends on how much data Google has collected, though. Google Earth VR hasn't created the world from scratch -- it's using the same blend of satellite, aerial and Street View images as the original Google Earth, just now in a far more immersive experience with way better controls. (Just press the clearly labeled buttons -- you can see the labels in VR! --