Of all the things you can build in the Labo VR Kit, the Wind Pedal is the largest in size.  It’s also the most gimmicky.  It’s a modified version of the gas pedal from the Labo Vehicle Kit, and fans wind in your face when you press down on the pedal with your foot.  So, yeah.

Here’s a bigger picture of it all built.  My brother Jeff, who helps me build these things, noted that he liked how sturdy it was.  It’s a good thing it doesn’t break easily, because if it did, you’d be ‘breaking wind.’  Har har!  In the educational videos, they show you how you can fold the wind pedal up to store it better since it’s so big.  Make sure you only use the pedal without shoes, though.  At least the pedal is a pretty shade of blue.

Aside from some VR Plaza mini-games (which aren’t very good), the only main game you can play with the pedal is Hop Dodge.  In the game you are a frog.  Robot bears that make me think of Five Nights at Freddy’s (but not that scary), surround you and shoot balls at you and you must press the wind pedal down to jump over them.  Tap the pedal repeatedly while in the air to slow your descent.   I think the balls stack below you because your goal is to jump to certain heights, like 100m, 500m, etc.  Sometimes a bear will shoot a soccer ball out of his head and you must look up and jump to headbutt it.

There are three levels of difficulty but they’re all pretty easy.  I beat all but the last one on my first try, and I think I was only 10m off from beating the last one.  After that you unlock a super hard mode where you only get one hit.  In the other modes, you can get hit three times before it’s Game Over.  You’ll lose a heart, but the frog has a mohawk that’ll change from green to yellow to red as you take hits, too.

One thing I noticed was that this game loses calibration very easily, and kept wanted to veer to the right for me.  I think the ideal way to play this game is in a swivel seat like an office chair, so you can twist around easier to see all the bears.  If you can use headphones, the sound cues may help as well.  Overall the wind in your face didn’t really make the games more immersive for me.

The only other thing you can do with the wind pedal is use it along with the bird games to make you go faster.  And that’s all for the Wind Pedal.  Next time we’ll look at the last thing you can build: the VR Blaster!  And then I’ll have one more bonus Labo article and the wrap-up, so stay tuned!  –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews