VersaillesVR | the Palace is yours
- September 24, 2019
- Google Arts and Culture
Get on Steam"Versailles: The Palace is yours" offers you a unique visit to the palace built by Louis XIV. Paintings, sculptures, furniture, the Hall of Mirrors – everything is within your reach as you have unlimited access to the treasures of Versailles. Happy exploring! Realized in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The experience offers a rich and detailed virtual tour of the Palace of Versailles, showcasing high-quality photogrammetry and a wealth of historical information about the artwork and rooms.
- It's a free experience that allows users to explore a significant cultural landmark from the comfort of their home, making it accessible to those who may not be able to visit in person.
- The interface is user-friendly, and the ability to zoom in on paintings and artifacts adds an educational dimension to the experience.
- The application suffers from significant technical issues, including bugs, poor controller compatibility, and a lack of smooth locomotion options, which can detract from the overall experience.
- Many textures and models appear low-resolution or poorly rendered, leading to a less immersive experience, especially when viewed up close.
- The tutorial and control scheme are confusing and can interrupt the flow of the experience, making it difficult for users to fully engage with the content.
- graphics18 mentions
- 17 % positive mentions
- 67 % neutral mentions
- 17 % negative mentions
The graphics in the game are a mixed bag, featuring stunning high-resolution artwork and impressive photogrammetry visuals that can be explored in detail, but they also suffer from inconsistent quality and performance issues, such as texture reloading and a poorly implemented control scheme. While the visual fidelity can enhance the educational experience, it requires significant hardware resources, and some users noted that the graphics settings need to be adjusted for optimal performance. Overall, the visuals provide a rich experience, but they are not without their flaws.
“There is an immense amount of data with all the photogrammetry scans and artwork scans, each with a description.”
“Rich experience with a stunning amount of high-resolution artwork to explore and study up close in great detail, each with its own description.”
“Additionally, the experience contains highly detailed recreations of famous artwork of the palace, which you can manipulate and twist and zoom in if needed, along with educational notes on each of them and on the rooms.”
“Hogs a ton of memory and graphic card performance but no display.”
“Photogrammetry visuals that look absolutely horrible at times.”
“Graphics are a bit odd at times given that the game is reloading textures outside of frame, which I don't recommend for future titles.”
- music13 mentions
- 23 % positive mentions
- 54 % neutral mentions
- 23 % negative mentions
The music in the game is generally well-received, featuring a pleasing soundtrack and period piece compositions that enhance the atmosphere. However, users have noted issues with music cutting out when interacting with art pieces, which disrupts the experience. Overall, while the music adds to the immersive quality, there are suggestions for improvements, such as allowing continuous play during exploration.
“There is a lot of well-executed photogrammetry here, and a pleasing soundtrack.”
“There is nice music, and good narration, with info about many pieces of art and furniture.”
“I do wish there was an option to switch on and listen to music (Lully would have been an excellent choice in my opinion to put one in the mood) while touring, but this is an excellent experience as it stands and there are only a handful like it.”
“It shows a black screen and eventually plays some music, but I never get any further.”
“Why interrupt the music when I look at a painting?”
“Music and sound cut out when you look at an art piece; the music and narration stop.”
- story6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The reviews indicate significant frustration with the story experience due to technical issues, particularly compatibility problems with the Oculus Quest 2 and Quest 3, leading to black screens and flickering logos. Users have expressed disappointment in their attempts to engage with the story, which has been hindered by these persistent glitches.
“I was not amused by the many times I tried with Quest 2 and now Quest 3 (with RTX 4090) only to experience a black screen.”
“This has serious compatibility issues with the Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Link.”
“When I tried it with my Oculus Quest 2, the logo shows up, then begins to flicker.”
- optimization3 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
The game suffers from poor optimization, particularly at high quality settings, where players experience noticeable transitions between low and high definition textures. It demands significant memory and graphics card resources without delivering a corresponding visual payoff, and loading times are also reported to be slow.
“At high quality, it's not well optimized, and every time you turn your head, you can see transitions between low and high definition textures.”
“Hogs a ton of memory and graphics card performance but no display.”
“Slow to load and needs optimization.”
- gameplay2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The gameplay aspect of the software is criticized for lacking any meaningful interactions or gameplay loops, resulting in a non-engaging experience.
“There are no gameplay loops in this software, no 'gameplay', no meaningful game-like interaction.”
- stability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The stability of the experience has been criticized for being highly buggy, with users reporting frequent issues that disrupt gameplay, such as the app mistakenly detecting exits from the inspection. This has led to frustration and a premature end to the experience for some players.
“I would have loved to try and see everything here, but the experience was so buggy (on Rift) that I had to stop after just 10 minutes.”
“This is buggy; however, the app often thinks we are exiting the inspection.”
