Summer Funland is a game that has many different mini games inside of it. Inside of Summer Funland you will be at an amusement park. Many people might mistake this for a theme park, but that isn’t the case here. Theme parks usually have a theme, and summer funland missed the dunk on that specific measurement.
There are plenty of different games for you to play in this game. From a classic fun game of ski ball to immerse unicorn jousting, you won’t be getting bored inside of this game anytime soon. sadly, you won’t last long enough in this game to get bored as the motion sickness will likely be tossing you out of the game fairly quickly. With that being said, there’s plenty to love about this game. Let’s jump right into our in-depth review and see what Summer Funland is all about!
Getting Up and Running
This game comes in at a price of $19.99. The price is going to stay the same across all platforms as well, so buying it on Steam or Oculus won’t make much of a difference if you are buying it for your PC VR headset. The game is available on the Oculus Rift store, the Oculus Quest Store, the PSVR Store, and of course, the Steam Store. This game is 5 GB in size to download.
If you are connected to a slower internet connection, you could see this game take over an hour to download. If you are connected to some internet that is lightyears ahead of others, the download could take a simple few minutes before you are jumping into Summer Funland. This game will install just as any other VR title, and won’t be requiring any extra setup before you jump in and see what this game is all about.
Type of Game
This game is a fun one, and that is because there are so many types of games inside of this one title. You could classify this game as a first-person shooter if you are just looking at the shooting gallery, but that wouldn’t be fair to the other mini-games. You could consider it an arcade game, and that s what is likely going to be said about this game on other reviewing platforms, and that is what we were going to go with here as well.
Each part of this game is a new type of game. The devs did a fantastic job of covering all of the bases when it comes to types of games and experiences you are going to see inside of any amusement park. An arcade game is supposed to give you plenty of different ways to play many different games, and that is what Summer Funland does perfectly.
Player Perspective
This game is mostly in the first-person perspective, but not all the time you even have that inside of the game. On some rollercoasters and other experiences that don’t require your interaction, you are going to notice that your hands are gone. On the games that do require some of your input to run the game, you will only have views of your hands. It s not typical to go this minimal in these types of games, and they barely got away with it this time.
Theme and Story – Score: 6/10
The developers had an open-court steal and nobody between them and the basket, and they just missed the dunk. There was nothing more disappointing than to open this game that was supposed to be a theme park and see that they simply didn’t want to include that in their game. This game could have very easily included a fun theme between the experiences, but it never went in the game. Even just seeing a theme on the rollercoasters would have made it pretty fun, but it never seemed to be that way. With that being said, they could’ve done worse. They at least got the rebound off of the missed dunk and made the lay-up.
Controls – Score: 7/10
In smaller games like this one, you are going to see some minimal controls. Summer Funland is no exception and you are going to experience simple or no controls inside of each minigame. Although you may want some more controls than you get in this game, you will be glad to know they didn’t abuse the many different options for input on each of the popular virtual controllers. Teleporting was easy, controls were simple, and you won’t be overwhelmed.
Music and Sound – Score: 5/10
In any theme or amusement park in the world, you are going to notice how loud it is at all times. Whether it be the booth next door trying to convince you to come by and try out some of their next-level carnival games, or the young kids screaming in excitement, there are going to be sounds surrounding you at all times. It won’t be easy to hear your own thoughts at most times in real life, and this wasn’t even close to being represented inside of the virtual reality world. The sound is lacking all around. Some experiences made up for it, but for the most part, we were highly disappointed with the noises in this game.
Player Movement – Score: 7/10
To move in this game, you are going to teleport the same way you do inside of the popular first-person shooter Robo Recall. You can point your joystick in any direction and turn it to choose which direction you are going to land in. This is our favorite way to move in VR, and had it not been for the terrible player movement inside of the experiences, this section would be seeing a much higher score.
Kinetosis – Score: 1/10
To be fair, the game itself doesn’t make you sick. Looking at the title inside of Steam gets no reaction from your stomach. Staring at the menu keeps your insides in place. Taking the headset off after this game doesn’t impact your motion sickness. Other than that, every part of this game is going to make you sick. Every minigame has its own problem with making you feel like you want to vomit, and the rollercoaster that your lunch makes a second coming. If you are sensitive to motion sickness in VR stay away. If you aren’t, this game is still going to get you pretty good.
Environment and Immersion – Score: 6/10
The environment could’ve been done so much better than it was, but of course, it fell dramatically short. With some better audio and more realistic mini games, this game could’ve been looking at a score that is 8 or higher. Because the developers didn’t want to make a theme to their park either, it was hard to see this game being any better than a 6.
Overall – Score: 5.3/10
Although the overall score is simply an average of all of the other scores, and sometimes doesn’t reflect how we felt about the game as a whole, this game deserved every bit of a 5.3. it felt far finished from a real title, and could’ve bee improved by so many little things. It seemed like there corners cut, and even the most basic fan is going to notice that inside of this game. An overhauling update could save it, but chances are looking slim.
