City Illusion in the test

For 90 minutes, we travel through time and space and experience a city tour that is enhanced with virtual reality (VR) and acoustic effects. A top recommendation.

Oh you rainy one. The year is 2022, it's Christmas and it's raining cats and dogs again. What could be better than a city tour in Zurich?

Armed with umbrellas, we make our way to the meeting point at the Lindenhof. I wonder if anyone else is braving the nasty rain? At the fountain, we spot two figures with rucksacks. On one of them, the letters City Illusion alternate with an icon of VR glasses on a digital display. We have to go there!

We are greeted cheerfully and receive our first apology for today's hilly weather. The two guides set about unpacking the VR goggles while the other four guests arrive. After we've all hung Occulus glasses around our necks and received headphones, we're served mulled wine from the thermos flask.

The two guides immediately explain how the whole thing works. The principle is very simple: put on the headphones and follow the instructions of the voices. The VR glasses are always hung comfortably around your neck and as soon as it's time for the next scene, you simply tilt them up and hold them in front of your eyes. It goes without saying that you can rotate 360° and view the scenery from all sides.

Then put on your headphones and off you go: A pleasantly deep narrative voice tells us more about the city of Zurich. Whenever we are asked to move in a new direction, Siri, a female voice, switches on to explain the route. In addition, the two guides use sweeping hand signals to show us where to go and how best to position ourselves. The guide in front also shines a torch on important points in the surroundings.

We walk from place to place at a leisurely pace. On the one hand, the tour includes real buildings, monuments and other scenic sights and, on the other, shows the virtual scenery at a total of five points, all of which are set in the past. The virtual scenes were recorded with real actors using a green screen and placed in the respective setting. This gives you the opportunity to see famous personalities life-size in front of you: Albert Einstein, CG Jung, Huldrych Zwingli and Katharina von Zimmern, you experience them as if they were still here. As a special surprise, some virtual scenes mix with reality. So it's not just great impressions that you take home with you.

The quality of the recordings is very good. In general, the technology ran pretty smoothly. As the guide controls all the audio, it occasionally happened that the narration was started twice. But that didn't really bother us.

Personally, I found it exciting to see Zurich from a different perspective and to walk through alleyways that I had never been to before. I was surprised by Thermengasse, for example. I also liked the mix of historical facts and philosophical thoughts on the subject of time. Because that's what it's all about: a journey through space and time.

The City Illusion is definitely worth a visit - whatever the weather. So start planning your City Illusion tour now for an exciting next year. The German version should be ready in a month.

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With this in mind, we wish you a happy new VR year!