In its current state, I cannot recommend Lawn Mowing Simulator VR to anyone and I will go as far as to say that you should completely avoid this game
Usually, simulator games offer an unprecedented level of immersion when they are made from the ground up or even ported to virtual reality. VR has the power to make boring on paper flat screen simulator games like working as a border agent in Border Bots VR or washing things with a pressure washer in PowerWash VR deeply engaging and borderline Zen. Safe to say, I was pretty excited when I learned the news that Lawn Mowing Simulator would get the VR treatment and that I would be able to play it on my Quest 3. That day arrived, I played or tried to play the game, and the result was not what I had anticipated.
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Lawn Mowing Simulator VR is, to me, basically unplayable. Don't get me wrong though. The game delivers on what was advertised. It tasks you with garden management across different locations to keep them pretty. Jobs are carried out through contracts, and as you advance, more mowers gradually unlock. To drive the mower, you can either use your hands to move the wheel to steer or use the analog stick to do that and I really appreciate this hybrid control model.
Apart from cutting grass by either driving a mower or using a handheld grass trimmer, you must also keep your equipment maintained from your own HQ, ensuring blades stay sharp by grinding them, and batteries get recharged in their respective chargers before you go on a job. This whole maintaining tools and preparing for a job stuff works really well in VR, even though there's still an annoying subtle wobble, but more on that later. The main issue that makes the game unplayable is when you do the main thing you are supposed to do, mowing the lawn.
I don't get motion sickness when playing VR games, like ever. Even playing a hardcore VR game like Space Docker VR, where you fly a spaceship with 6 degrees of freedom, I was still able to play it for hours with only a couple of minor bursts of motion sickness here and there. However, the moment I sat down on the mower and started to mow in the tutorial grass field, I wasn't able to play for more than like thirty minutes due to the crazy amount of motion sickness I was experiencing. After that session, I had a headache, and I was completely out for the rest of that day.
Scrolling through the reviews of other players on the Meta Quest store painted the same picture; most of the players seem to be getting motion sickness. I tried playing it a couple of days later, forced myself through the tutorial, but immediately stopped again on the first job. I could push myself and use the handheld trimmer to try to cut the grass, but completing that job using only the trimmer would literally take an hour if not more. Driving the mower was still basically a no-go for me.
Yesterday, on March 28th, the game received a major patch, so I went back in hoping that the devs had improved things and that the motion sickness wasn't really a problem anymore. After forcing and pushing myself to play more of it, I can say that it is better, but only by a tiny amount. Again, I stopped as I quickly reached the limit of what I could handle.
I believe what causes the motion sickness is a combination of things. The first thing, and probably the biggest culprit, is that driving the mower around to actually mow the grass requires you to make a lot of sharp turns, and after just a couple of turns, my mind and body could not handle it. The second thing, and this is present in nearly all Unity-based VR games that I've played so far, is that the game has a constant subtle wobble or camera shake even when you just sit perfectly still, which only gets worse when you start to move through the environment. These two things, when combined with the unstable framerate, constant flickering, and pixel noise on the edges of objects, make Lawn Mowing Simulator VR, and it pains me to say this, unplayable in its current state.
Can all these problems be improved via future patches to a point so that the game is stable, smooth, and dare I say, pleasant to play? Maybe, but I don't know for sure as I am not a VR developer. However, if any of the actual developers of the game are reading this, here's a suggestion from me. Consider adding a drone/bird's eye/god view camera option, like the one VR platformers such as Moss or Max Mustard use, where you can see the entire field and mow the lawn by driving the mower, completely eliminating motion sickness. I understand that this kind of defeats the whole VR simulator shtick, but it's still way better than the game being completely unplayable.
In its current state, I cannot recommend Lawn Mowing Simulator VR to anyone, and I will go as far as to say that you should completely avoid this game. But if you think you have a strong stomach and still want to give it a try, use my referral code to at least get a discount; I am not going to stop you. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a promo code provided by the publisher. Lawn Mowing Simulator VR is available now on Meta Quest.
