Solitaire Zen allows players to play the classic card game in a virtual space that resembles a quiet European village. The actual card gameplay is as solid as other non-VR card game apps, and the environment’s sound and visuals are genuinely relaxing. The only real downside of Solitaire Zen is its requirement to create a new account with the developers, Naquatic, before participating in online leaderboards and earning achievements. However, the offline solo Solitaire experience is immediately available to play as soon as you open the app. Download For: You can watch VR videos on YouTube by simply moving your iPhone around to view different parts of the 360-degree virtual space, not dissimilar to how you play Pokemon Go. Tapping the screen will also provide you with an option to view the video with a Google Cardboard VR headset by making two mini versions of the video play next to each other on the same screen. Download For: While the lack of 360-degree videos is somewhat disappointing, Google Street View makes up for this with its unbelievably massive library of locations ranging from famous tourist attractions to rural backroads. This level of location coverage is primarily due to Google’s comprehensive mapping of the planet with its Street View cars. Still, a surprising amount of the photography in the app is uploaded by everyday users who have taken their own 360 photos using their iPhone or a specially designed 360-degree camera. Download For: The app is one of the best-looking virtual reality titles on the iPhone, with its modern visual design and clean menu system, making navigation and finding content a breeze. You can view every video with or without a headset, and, impressively, all of the content is entirely free, with zero banner or video ads disrupting the experience. Download For: The concept works rather well. For example, instead of just being shown a shot of a restaurant via a regular 2D video, Italia VR lets users look around the restaurant and take in what the staff and other patrons are doing. Unfortunately, many of the videos are edited relatively short, with less than a minute dedicated to each location. The camera movement can also feel a bit sluggish at times, often taking two complete rotations to turn 360 degrees in-app. Italia VR will hopefully fix this in a future update. Download For: An AR (augmented reality) option is also available in 3DBrush, which lets you draw within your actual environment without any fancy backgrounds. One downside is that the app locks many backgrounds and brushes behind a weekly subscription, which is expensive at $5 per week. You can temporarily unlock many for free by watching a video ad, though. Download For: VR videos on VeeR range from surreal artistic creations to travel videos and documentaries. Several VR films have a strong narrative, while others work as more promotional tools, such as the Prada series of VR experiences. The latter is unique in placing the viewer directly within the middle of a fashion show runway where they come, quite literally, face-to-face with Prada models showing off their looks. Download VeeR VR For: Impressively, Rec Room is also available on Oculus, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and supports full cross-play between all versions. It makes it much easier to find friends who already have access to the free-to-play title. Surprisingly, the iPhone version doesn’t support VR headsets and requires the camera to be controlled by the on-screen buttons, so it isn’t as immersive as it could be. Hopefully, with Rec Room already being on Oculus, they will add such support in a future update. Something else to watch out for is the lack of voice chat moderation in the virtual spaces. You’ll likely hear drug and sexual references, swearing, and insults within minutes of visiting a gathering, so parents may want to disable this feature when setting it up for their children. Download For: Each ride is viewable in both non-VR phone mode and proper VR with Google Cardboard. While only three of the 21 rides are free, it only costs $1.99 to unlock additional ones or $4.99 to unlock everything. The list of three free rides also randomly rotates daily. Download For:
