Viveport Review: Bartender VR Simulator

Mix drinks, pull off tricks, and wow customers in this sorta-educational bartending simulator.

By Joshua Hawkins, Greenlit Content

Bartending is both art and science, between the presentation and preparation of cocktails, and the knowledge and use of ingredients. In Bartender VR Simulator you'll concentrate a little more on the art, but don't be surprised if you also learn some science, in this prep-and-serve sim that owes something to many cooking preparation games before it.

Much like those games, you have to juggle different ingredients and remember recipes while dealing with your customer and keeping them happy. Bartender VR Simulator takes this idea and brings it to life quite realistically, allowing you to practice drink-making with authentic physics and destruction,  without the mess. Even if you don’t have any kind of training or bartending experience in real life, you’ll be able to dive in and start making a variety of drinks throughout the four different bars in the game.

Bartender Simulator VR also gives you quite a few ways to play. If you already have an idea of what you’re doing, you can head into Regular Mode, which tasks you with completing the drinks that people order without help. If you run into any issues during this mode, you can also ask for a hint, but it will take away from the amount of cash that you make after you complete the drink. If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you can dive into Practice Mode, which will show you how to make the drinks step by step. It doesn’t completely hold your hand, but it will give you all the information that you need to make the drinks.

The fun part about Bartender VR Simulator comes when you start learning to do different tricks between making drinks. You can earn additional tips by doing things like tossing bottles into the air and catching them as they fall back down, as well as other snazzy moves. You’ll also be rewarded for making drinks more authentically, which challenges you to mix ingredients correctly while switching between various bottles at the same time.

The complex thing about Bartender VR Simulator involves remembering all the recipes for the different drinks that you’ll need to make. After you practice them in each level, you head into the main version of the game to prove yourself. If you can prove that you’re good enough, then you’ll unlock new bars.

When it comes to presence and visuals, Bartender VR Simulator looks and feels great. It’s easy to pick up items, and the way that you can handle them feels natural, despite the fact that you’re doing it all within a virtual environment. Additionally, the audio sounds cool. Everything, from the ice hitting the bottom of the glass to the various liquids pouring adds to the ambience.

Everything about Bartender VR Simulator shines, and it’s easy to get lost trying to make the drinks without messing up. I’ve never done any kind of bartending, so I can’t speak to how accurate the drink mixtures are (or how they taste, being virtual and all) but it’s still a fun experience that showcases virtual reality and room-scale very well.

Bartender VR Simulator is available on Viveport.