DownStream: VR Whitewater Kayaking

Great to play something completely different in vr and this feels very immersive and realistic as they have nailed the movement of the water and overall physics and you get a great upper body workout leading to a great white water experience where you only get wet with sweat. Plays way better than it looks on the trailers. I have a chair that reclines and this just adds to the immersion I have a ton of vr games & apps and am always looking for that next wow moment in vr which is sadly not often enough with so many other titles but this one hit that mark for sure. I have had this gem of a vr game for a while and it gets more replay than any other vr title in my library by far. Truly gobsmacked that this has not seen much wider adoption from vr gamers as I have over 200 vr games and this is within my top 5 of best and most immersive games. I also have a Quest 2 and this works perfectly with the link cable. Extremely challenging fast water on difficult setting and I love the kite that you can use to give your arms a rest whilst achieving some incredible speeds especially over the waterfalls. I would love to see even more courses as a DLC. Once you have your VR legs this is a must have title for any virtual adrenalin junkie. To be clear the small hrs of play is because I recently changed headset

[b]Downstream VR provides one of the few kayaking VR experiences available, but the amount of content for your dollar is pretty low.[/b] I'll admit, I've never gone kayaking. It's not really my thing, but I figured it might be a nice change of pace like VR Regatta. Oh boy, was I wrong. Downstream's whitewater courses are fairly frantic, and paddling with the game's split paddles is daunting for a beginner. But even after bouncing off the walls and spending a few courses backwards, I found there really wasn't much left to see in the game. [b]DownStream can't seem to decide whether it's going to be an arcade game or a hardcore simulator[/b]. There are some nifty little power-ups, like armor, grappling hooks, and a parasail. All of these clash with the seriously difficult (and realistic, I assume) kayaking control scheme. Why isn't there a separate leaderboard for 'serious players'? Why does the 'push off the wall' mechanic propel the kayak extremely far? What's the point of a leaderboard when the power-ups are randomized, and some of them greatly increase your speed? I don't get it. [b]Load times are unacceptably long[/b]. I have all my games loaded on an SSD, so it really shouldn't be taking 30-60 seconds each time to load into a course, especially when they're as simple as they are. The conclusion I came to is that Downstream is taking a long time to download 'ghost players' from the Steam Leaderboards, but it doesn't make much sense why this couldn't be done in the background and cached prior to playing a course. Downstream VR isn't necessarily a [i]bad game[/i], but it's price point feels a little high for the 12, fairly lifeless courses you end up getting. I can only recommend picking this game up if you can snag a 75% off sale, or you are a serious kayaking fan. [b]For more VR reviews like this one, follow the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38513044-%25E0%25B2%25A0_%25E0%25B2%25A0-Reviews/list/64807]ಠ_ಠ Reviews Curator page.[/url][/b]

Great game overall. Does give motion sickness to new to VR players but that's not surprising. Lots of cool water features to paddle through and the ability to set the speed of the water makes this game accessable to all. There's also a bunch of maps that you can unlock as you level up, though levels dont seem to have a purpose once you've unlocked them. Having two paddles takes a bit to get used to but it's easy to rig something for your controllers to make it more realistic. Great game. Prepare to make your arms tired.

(Vive) Не сильно отличается от Rush, но та мне показалась отличной, а эта нет. Серьезных недостатков в игре нет, но до моего интереса недотянули несколько параметров. Пейзаж, пусть будет даже схематичный, недостаточно красив. Держать контролы Vive во время гребли совсем неудобно. За полным отсутствием реальной воды вокруг тебя в квартире, нет обратной связи от гребков (тут претензия уже не к игре, понятно). Вообще физика гребков показалась сбитой, могу ошибаться. В общем, телу не понравилась эта активность.

отличный представитель своего жанра, но блин меня такие игры укачивают(как и Battlewake и т.п.), наверное чтобы не укачивало надо брать реальные вёсла и садится в имитацию плаванья на лодке, и включать вентилятор

(Vive) Anyone use a device or tape their controllers to a stick to make this feel more realistic? Was difficult for me to tape the controllers while not pressing buttons and also having control of the menus...but the gameplay was about a hundred times better so was worth the struggle. The biggest issue was the direction the controllers had to face for it to work. Which is the opposite for something like the double sword in beat saber, for example...so a product for that wouldn't work.... Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions for accomplishing this more successfuly, I'd appreciate it. ...there's gotta be some people in to 3D printing out there right? ...please.... ...I need this.... Lol Anyway, this game is awesome obviously. Get it :P

Although enjoyable enough to get my recommendation, DownStream really missed the golden ring because of its poor paddle controls! For an outstanding example of proper kayak paddling, try Journey for Elysium, which had a two-handed grip on the single, two-ended paddle (just like a REAL one). Update: The latest kayak simulator is now Phantom: Covert Ops on Oculus Rift, but playable with Valve and HTC headsets on Steam using Revive. The regular two-handed paddle works perfectly in this stealth combat game, as well. But in DownStream, you get two SEPARATE paddles, which is just not right, and breaks the reality for paddling a real kayak. If this were to be fixed, DownStream would be a five-star game.

Really brilliant; one of VRs finest games, and I've played many AAAs and other Indies for comparison. It gets more fun the more you play, because you learn the physics of the kayak handling, and get to crazy speeds around corners without crashing. Great for fitness too as it can be a workout. 10/10 package with the music, gameplay, graphics and leaderboards. I just wish there was a sequel or DLC.

This one of those gems that slips through the net & no one notices. I’ve done kayaking in the past and this certainly brought back some good memories, it’s very realistic and a great workout, the graphics wouldn’t be AAA standard but they’re more than adequate for the job. Believe me, this baby behaves just how a real kayak would minus the getting wet part. The paddles are separated though unlike a canoe/kayak but once you’ve had a bit of practice you’ll see how intuitive they are. There’s even a graded rumble in the controllers as the paddles enter the water, this really helps and saves you looking down at them. I highly recommend this game, grab it in a sale.

worth it