Welcome to the Oasis, my names Mike and today
I'm going to be checking out the Nintendo
Labo VR kit for the Nintendo Switch.
I can hear some of my dedicated audience now,
Mike why you messing around with cardboard
VR when the Oculus Quest and Valve Index are
around the corner, well don't get me wrong
I'm excited for both of those headsets, but
don't under estimate what this product is
capable of.
Nintendo has sold over 32 million Nintendo
Switch consoles up to January this year.
They've also sold over 1.4 million Labo kits
to date and won a Game Innovation award for
the Labo range.
So that's a pretty big market giving Nintendo
an opportunity to make fun VR experiences
accessible to everyone.
Also this is the first VR product on the market
aimed at kids 7 years old and up.
And although I find super high end VR awesome,
I want VR to succeed in the long term and
products like this make virtual reality very
accessible to the masses and we need to win
their hearts and minds to push VR forward.
So in todays video, I'll be trying out all
the different Labo VR kits and their associated
games and experiences and finally at the end
of the video, I'll give you my conclusion
on whether the Nintendo Labo VR kit is a good
VR experience worth your time and money.
I've put timestamps in the description below
if you want to jump to a certain kit or ultimately
my conclusion at the end.
I hope you guys and girls enjoy this one and
without further ado, lets dive in..
So, Nintendo Labo are cardboard kits which
you assemble yourself into various designs
which utilise the switch and joy con controllers
to make fun and unique experiences.
And this is the first time Nintendo have dipped
their toes back into VR since the Virtual
Boy so this is a pretty big deal.
With this new range you can buy the VR Starter
kit which comes with the VR goggles and the
blaster.
This will be the base kit that will cost you
around $40 / £35 and will be required to
use the two optional expansion kits.
The first expansion kit includes a camera
and an elephant with associated experiences
and the second includes a Bird and a wind
pedal.
Both expansion kits cost around $20 / £17
each.
Or you can buy a complete mega bundle which
I bought that includes everything for $80
/ £70.
The whole ethos of Nintendo Labo is Make / Play
/ Discover.
Make the kits, play the games and discover
new and exciting learning opportunities.
There is just so much content to enjoy in
these kits.
All the sets come pre cut and flat packed
so you simply follow the step by step instructions
which are included on the Switch game cartridge.
The instructions are excellent and very easy
to follow, even for young kids.
The kits will have you folding cardboard into
their final forms.
You don't need any glue or tape and everything
you need is included in the box.
All the VR game experiences are best enjoyed
seated, ideally with a 360 swivel chair or
bar stool.
If you don't have one, then sitting on the
floor is recommended to prevent users from
getting dizzy and falling over.
You'll notice there is no headstrap for the
VR goggles as holding the headset is definitely
a design choice, as NIntendo want you to take
regular breaks and you'll see messages after
each experience encouraging you to do so.
In terms of VR performance you can see pixels
creating an obvious screen door effect and
you'll see a fair amount of motion blurring
when turning your head but to be honest, the
colourful artstyle of the games and experiences
do a excellent job to mask the cracks.
So now lets get into the different kits and
the games you can play with them...
First up are the VR Goggles themselves, these
will take you around half an hour to an hour
to assemble.
Once you've made the VR goggles there's a
wealth of content to play around with, without
even starting on the other Labo kits.
There is VR Plaza which consists of 64 various
mini games.
You also have 33 VR 180 videos to check out
which include adorable animals such as deer,
sealions and puppies or you can go all retro
and see what it would have been like to use
the Virtual Boy back in the day.
And the most impressive of all is the Toy
Con Garage.
This mode is very cool and will allow budding
game designers to piece together their own
VR game experiences using pre made assets.
All you need to do is simply tie an input
to and output and you've got a basic action
in game for example when I press a button
on the Joycon I could tie that to a vibrate
output to make the controller vibrate each
time I push the button.
The combinations here are limitless.
Now lets get into the kits themselves and
first up is the blaster.
This kit took the longest to build and can
take up to three hours.
The two main games for this kit are Blaster
and Kablaster.
Blaster is a slow on rails shooter where you
have to dispatch cute pink aliens.
You move through the environment and can turn
360 to take the aliens out.
The pump action of the blaster is really satisfying
and pulling the trigger activates a clacker
inside the blaster which not only makes noise
but sends vibrations of each shot directly
to your face which makes this one of the best
experiences of the Labo VR lineup.
This game uses scale really well, on the streets
you have tall buildings all around you and
later you ride a slow track above the buildings
high up in the air which gives you a great
sense of height.
The game has six stages with three levels
each.
Each level takes less than a minute to finish
and this game mode has three epic boss fights.
You can slow down time but rotating the blue
joy con on the left side of the blaster to
give you the edge on the aliens and rack up
those points.
It actually reminds me of the old Super Nintendo
Super Scope as a kid.
The second blaster game Kablaster is a two
player game where you take turns and pass
the blaster to the other player after each
turn.
It's a take on the classic game hungry hippos
where you have to feed hippos fruit to bring
them to your area.
The player with the most hippos at the end
wins.
I didn't really enjoy this one although I
had no one else to play with which could have
been why.
Next up is the camera, this kit forms part
of the first expansion kit and comes bundled
with the elephant.
The camera will take around half an hour to
build and was fairly straight forward.
The camera has a nice clicking noise when
focusing the lens which is a really nice touch.
The two games you can play using the camera
are Ocean camera and house camera.
Ocean Camera This is quite a relaxing experience.
You take pictures of different fish and underwater
creatures.
You have 44 missions where you have objectives
to captures images of specific fish.
You can dive deeper or raise closer to the
surface by looking up or down and you can
throw out food to attract fish to come closer.
House Camera works in a very similar way to
the ocean camera experience but you have a
cute pet called Fluffball to photograph.
You can feed Fluffball jellybeans and move
to different areas of the house to take pictures.
Again you have 44 mission objectives to obtain
certain shots for your collection.
Overall I thought both experiences were pretty
boring.
It's a shame they didn't incorporate something
like Pokemon snap as that would have been
the ideal game for this setup.
Trying to capture a picture of each Pokemon
would have been awesome.
Next is the elephant kit, this will take an
hour to 2 hours to build and I would say this
one out of all the kits was the trickiest
to build and comes with two experiences, Doodle
and Marble Run.
Doodle is exactly how you would image paint
would be in VR, you can essentially paint
3D objects and pick them up to inspect them
at different angles.
Budding creatives out there will enjoy the
freedom to create anything they want in 3D.
It's essentially like Tilt Brush on PCVR headsets.
What's amazing about the elephant kit is that
Nintendo have used some clever tricks to add
6 degrees of freedom to the trunks movement,
meaning you can move forwards and backwards
in 3D space with the Joycons.
Marble Run
The elephant also comes with Marble Run and
out of all the Nintendo Labo VR experiences
this was my favourite!
I love puzzle games in VR so this was right
up my street.
This is a series of physics based puzzle games
where you have to guide a marble to a goal
or a series of goals to complete the stage.
There is something so satisfying about manipulating
objects in 3D space to get that marble home.
There are a few different difficulty modes
each with 25 puzzles which adds up to 100
puzzles in total and a level editor if you
want to get creative and play some more.
If you like the look of this game but want
to play on PCVR headsets check out a game
called Gravity Lab.
Out of all the kits when I looked at them
the elephant was the one I was least excited
about and turned out to be my absolute favourite.
The next kit is the bird, this forms part
of expansion kit 2 which also includes the
wind pedal.
This is the one which people find looks the
funniest as essentially you're putting a birds
butt on your face.
This one will take around an hour and a half
to two and a half hours to build and comes
with two games, Bird and Bird Dash.
Both experiences have you pulling down on
the cardboard legs of the bird to flap it's
wings to move fast in game.
Bird is a nice relaxing experience where you
get to fly around an island freely as a bird.
You have to find the eggs which hatch into
adorable little chicks, you feed them the
food they want so they grow into a bigger
bird and join your flock and fly around the
island with you.
It's really sweet.
This experience gives you nice experience
of soaring high above an island and I really
enjoyed this one.
The game will remind you every 5 minutes to
take a break.
If bird was too chill for you then you can
play Bird Dash which takes place on the same
island but has you flying through hoops in
a timed race.
This experience works with combination of
the Bird Kit and the Windpedal.
Pushing your foot down on the Windpedal gives
you a boost.
To take part in the Bird Dash races you must
unlock the various areas of the map by unlocking
them in Bird mode.
Again, this experience was a lot of fun and
reminded me a little of pilot wings of old.
And finally we have the Windpedal.
This will take you around an hour an half
to 2 and half hours to build and can be used
in Bird Dash and Hop Dodge.
Hop Dodge has you playing as a frog where
you have to jump over obstacles being thrown
at you by bears.
The cool thing about this experience is the
gust of wind from the pedal does a good job
of making you feel each jump which works well
with the graphics in game.
Jumping in VR can be quite intense so they
did a good job in making it comfortable.
But for me this was the experience that just
didn't hit the mark.
It got kinda boring and I was able to finish
it on my first try.
Ok so there we have it guys and girls, that's
a brief overview of each one of the new Nintendo
Labo VR kits and games.
I have to admit when Nintendo revealed their
VR line up of Labo kits a few weeks back I
was excited and sceptical.
I was excited as this opens up more opportunities
for people to try VR for the first time and
feel what its like to be immersed in game
world or experience.
But I was pretty sceptical about how well
the Nintendo Switch could handle Virtual Reality
due to its screen resolution of 1280x720 which
is essentially being split in half for each
eye at a refresh rate of 60hz.
Overall I was actually left impressed.
Building the Labo kit themselves was a huge
part of the experience.
It reminded me of the feeling of playing with
Lego, building something piece by piece which
at the end you could play with was awesome.
I was also surprised with how robust the cardboard
is.
The only way you'd probably damage it is if
you got it wet or your dog ate it or something.
Out of all the kits I would rank Elephant
as number one, Blaster number two and Bird
number three.
So, I would say It's not worth going out and
buying a Nintendo Switch just for this Labo
VR kit however if you've never tried VR and
own a Switch or have kids that interested
in VR and learning more about it then the
starter pack is the perfect introduction.
For the price, these kits are packed with
so much content.
It's not really going to appeal to the VR
enthusiasts but that's ok.
This is a product designed for kids and new
comers to get them excited for VR.
It's also worth noting you'll be able to use
the VR goggles with Zelda Breath Of The Wild
and Mario Odyssey as they both will receive
free updates on 26th April enabling VR game
modes.
I really hope this marks Nintendo looking
at VR more in the future.
I'd be so down for a Virtual Boy 2.0.
But let me know what you think in the comments
below, are you interested in Labo VR?
Are you interested in it for your kids?
I'd love to know in the comments.
Leave a like if you liked the video, make
sure you're subscribed for all my future content
and as always.
I'll see you on the next one.
Cheers.
