About the author

The VR Critic is Australian writer Dr Luke Buckmaster. Running this website in his spare time, Buckmaster is a professional film and TV critic, employed as The Guardian Australia’s film critic and the chief critic of Flicks.com.au. He wrote his first review in 1997 and published his first book in 2017 – a biography of Mad Max director George Miller. Buckmaster’s fascination with virtual and augmented realities began around 2016. In 2022 he completed a doctoral thesis on VR as an emerging art form, arguing that virtual and mixed reality are unique mediums requiring their own language, syntax and critical discourse.

For all Buckmaster’s writing, visit his website. He can be contacted at mrlukebuckmaster[at]gmail[dot]com.

About the website

The VR Critic is a collection of reviews of virtual and mixed reality experiences. The site was developed for more than four years and launched in February 2025 with 100 previously unpublished full-length reviews, marking one of the most significant contributions to VR criticism in history. While other mediums such as film and television attract robust critical discourse, this remains lacking for VR (virtual reality) and MR (mixed reality) experiences. The VR Critic was launched with the intention of filling this dearth of quality criticism.

This website is usually updated once a week, and at least once a fortnight. Due to limitations in the availability of new content, new reviews are not necessarily of new experiences. No AI has been used—or will ever be used—to create the writing published on this site.

About the technology

For many years virtual reality has remained on the edge of the horizon –  a major new technology always just about to “break through.” More interesting than the question “when will it go mainstream?” are others such as: what are the defining features of spatial art? What makes VR special as a creative medium? What are its strengths and weaknesses? If VR and MR ended tomorrow, what content will be remembered, and why?

In terms of its impact on creative expression, Buckmaster believes the advent of spatial computing marks “the most substantial development in artistic expression since the arrival of motion pictures – and, before then, since the invention of perspective in paintings.”

Review count

There are currently 103 published reviews on The VR Critic.