If you are looking for a more full featured gaming experience then this is it. I never got into the whole Minecraft craze, and I always assumed it was more of a kid’s game, but VR was what finally got me to try it out, and I have got to say that I am impressed. This is a very polished experience, and really it is the first complete open world game that has graced the Gear VR. For those unfamiliar with Minecraft, it is a game completely made of voxels, giant square blocks, which you can build with or destroy kind of like Lego’s. There are two primary modes Survival and Creative. And overall the experience is pretty much the same as the Pocket Edition, except in the VR version you can either play it on a couch with a large virtual TV or you can tap the side of the headset and get sucked into the full first person immersive experience. The couch mode is primarily to help out those who get VR sickness and is a well thought out feature.

I have delved into the Creative mode for a bit, but the majority of my time so far has been playing Survival. I enjoy the challenge that it presents and I like experimenting and discovering knew things. It can be quite thrilling to explore dark caves only to have a spider or zombie sneak up on you from behind. Likewise, you really get a sense of scale when you are balancing on top of a high structure or mountain. I’m currently building an underground bunker, and I have a few mines set up while I work my way up the crafting tiers. Once I’m fully geared up, I’ve been eyeing a nice flat clearing to build a castle on, and I might use that as a base to explore further from. Really the options are endless and this truly is a sandbox game.

Also they give you many settings specifically added for VR and I recommend that you change a few of the defaults immediately after you first launch the game in VR mode. First, stereoscopic rendering is turned off by default and you’ll want that on if you want to have 3D depth, you will lose some rendering distance, but you can then max this out too in the settings. The rendering isn’t perfect, and there will still be plenty of fog even on max, but honestly it is not too bad and I didn’t find it too immersion breaking. Turning options exist, but I like the default setting and primarily use a swivel chair. Anti-aliasing is turned off by default, you can turn it on for some nicer looking textures, and I didn’t notice any drop in performance on my S6.

Speaking of performance, the game runs flawlessly and I haven’t had a single overheating warning yet. This is probably one of the best running Gear VR games, and I have been able to play it for hours at a time without any hiccups, even with my settings adjusted. But there are still a few problems with Minecraft VR.

The social aspect could definitely be improved. There are currently a couple of options for multiplayer including local play, online servers, and Pocket Realms. The Realms update definitely was a nice addition, and it makes it easy to connect with others online. But the biggest thing that this game is still lacking is positional voice chat. This is such a fundamental aspect of good VR, and it really is necessary for multiplayer. Furthermore, the game needs a better in game keyboard, one that doesn’t completely take you out of the game to type.

Another issue I have with the game is that it can be difficult to remember all of the different Minecraft recipes for crafting, and having to lift up your headset to research it online can be quite cumbersome. Some kind of in game recipe book that notes previously crafted items could easily solve this issue. Even with these minor concerns Minecraft VR is still a great app and I think that it will continue to get better with more updates.

Minecraft Gear VR Edition costs the same as the Pocket Version at $6.99. Considering many games currently on the Gear VR charge much more and offer less content, I believe the pricing is perfect. Some may complain that you can’t access it even though you already bought a copy of Minecraft on a different platform but the developers really have added a ton of features to make this game ready for Gear VR and I think it is worth every penny.