River Ecosystem Conservation

Although it generally doesn't look like it, rivers and most bodies of water are full of life, both animals and plants. Unfortunately, it’s quite easy to pollute such ecosystems, especially since many processing plants around the world prefer to dump their sewage into rivers. Hence, it might be more eye-opening if you could see the process from up close.

River Ecosystem Conservation is a short simulator that allows you to witness the effects of pollution and be as close to the process as possible, thanks to virtual reality technology and semi-realistic graphics. Granted, there’s not much of an interactive element, except for the fact that you can move a bit and change between scenarios.

Speaking of which, there are three different scenarios to choose from, and you can switch between them with a few key presses. Hence, you can visit a tomato farm, a driveway and a construction site, and each one of them features different levels of pollution. On top of that, you can see the effects of pollution as soon as they happen, which should help you form an opinion.

Although you can walk for a bit until you reach the water, once you start swimming you kind of lose control of the character. The journey is still pretty interesting, but it would be even more so if you could actually control the direction you are swimming to. On the other hand, you can see exactly what the designers intended by following a precise path through the levels.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the overall quality is not very high, but that just means that you can enjoy the game on slower computers as well. It may be a bit annoying for those who are used to the finer things, but the whole point in this case is to raise awareness about water pollution. Everything else is just there to make the experience feel more comfortable and familiar.

In the end, there are certainly much better-looking VR experiences out there than River Ecosystem Conservation, but you are missing the point entirely if you concentrate on the graphics. Hence, if you want to see just how easy it is to pollute a river and everything that lives in it, this is a great way to experience it as close to the action as possible.