I genuinely hope VR Monkey continues updating and improving the game, as the core mechanic of driving the kart is really good, but the rest kinda holds it down
Before I even started playing Galaxy Kart VR, I was a bit apprehensive that I wouldn't be able to play the game for more than a few minutes at a time. You see, I haven't had much success while driving vehicles in VR. Lawn Mowing Simulator VR made me feel horrible while driving the lawnmower, Thief Simulator VR's driving is absolutely awful, and there was another game on App Lab which absolutely wrecked me. However, I am delighted to say that I didn't have any problem whatsoever with Galaxy Kart VR; driving the karts around the tracks at high speeds never even triggered any sort of motion sickness.
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The developers, VR Monkey, have done an incredible job ensuring that driving feels as smooth as possible on a standalone VR headset like the Quest 3, where I played the game. Galaxy Kart VR maintains a smooth and steady frame rate while you drive around the crazy tracks, with the occasional drop when there are too many alpha particle effects. The kart sits very close to the ground, so the horizon line is nearly parallel with your line of sight, and I believe that helps significantly in mitigating motion sickness, but I cannot confirm that definitively.
Anyway, the driving itself feels quite good. Although there are like 9 different karts ranging from a hot dog cart and pirate boat to a UFO saucer, they operate and feel essentially the same on track. Once you grab the steering wheel, the trigger buttons serve as your accelerator and brake pedals. In the easier difficulties, I never had to use the brakes or even the powersliding button, but that changes in the harder difficulties. Do not get me wrong, though, this is not a challenging racing kart game. It's very arcade-like, and that makes it a lot of fun.
The tracks are really enjoyable too. As is typical with kart games, all of the tracks are themed, so you have ones like a circus-themed track or another set in a futuristic world. All tracks have shortcuts and unique obstacles that you must avoid, and these help keep you focused throughout the races, as hitting one of them results in you stopping for a couple of seconds. There are also random pickups you can get by breaking boxes that will grant you bombs, shields, guns, etc., that you can throw or shoot at the other racers. Apart from the different karts, you also have 9 characters you can play as. Each character has unique hands and an ultimate ability, like a grappling hook for the pirate or a ketchup bottle you can squeeze on the road to glue other racers, etc.
The pickups and the ultimate ability float on either the left or right side, depending on your chosen settings, so you have to let go of the steering wheel to use them. Now, when you do that and try to steer with one hand, you lose a significant amount of control over the kart, and if you are in a corner, you'll go straight into the wall. I did not like that. Yes, it makes sense that two hands give you more control than one hand in real life, but here I am playing as a hot dog man driving a hot dog kart on a track where a volcano throws massive fire rocks right in front of my kart... so let's skip the "realistic" driving mechanic, shall we? I would love for the devs to consider improving the one-handed steering.
Another aspect I would like them to improve is the whole "progression" system in the game, which is basically how you unlock the other riders and karts. Now, to unlock them, you need to complete the tracks on the hard difficulty. Great, but to unlock the hard difficulty in the first place, you need to complete each track three times, with each time increasing in difficulty. That's not really engaging, as repeating the same track over and over again is not that fun. I mean, they already have tournaments as a mode in the game, so why not tie the unlocks to completing the tournaments? Tournaments have different tracks, and you move automatically across them, eliminating the need to press many buttons across menus every time just to start the next race. So there's my advice for the devs: use tournaments for unlocks and allow players to create custom single races as they want, toggling pickups, track obstacles, and whatnot on or off.
Apart from the singleplayer modes, there's also multiplayer, but once again, as is usual with many VR games, the lobbies are unfortunately completely empty, and that's sad because this game is so much fun. Hopefully, when the game moves out of App Lab to the Meta Quest Store, more players will join in.
I truly enjoyed Galaxy Kart VR on my Quest 3. The driving mechanic is extremely well executed, and I experienced no motion sickness whatsoever during my time playing it. The tracks are all enjoyable, and unlocking all of the riders and karts, even though that process is tedious, will keep you occupied for some time. I genuinely hope VR Monkey continues updating and improving the game, as the core mechanic of driving the kart is really good. More tracks, riders, and pickups, alongside an overall improvement to the progression system, might hopefully attract new players, as I can only imagine how much fun the trash-talking could be while hitting the nitrous close to the finish line. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a promo code provided by the developer. Galaxy Kart VR is available on Meta Quest, PSVR2 and PCVR.
