Unless you're one of those sorts who still insists that Radiohead is naught but depressing music for depressing people, then this is a pretty low-effort way to check out a freshly creative spin on their work. Yes, it does feature the band's music prominently, but even at its most self-indulgent does it rarely demand that you sit still, to be quiet and listen. That is what the record exists for. So rather than just a recording, think of this more as an immersive art gallery; an impossibly-proportioned, brutalist museum, full of complex and abstract installations, all dynamically scored by odd bits of spatially disparate and deconstructed music. If you're familiar with the albums and excited about the prospect, then yes, you can probe various signs and go hunting for your favourites, but this is as much about the myriad ways it presents the mountains of art, writing, and designs that were orbiting around the band in this era as it is the music. I've heard that this was originally planned as a physical exhibition, and while global circumstances might be chiefly responsible for robbing us of this, there are also elements here that leverage the medium in a way that simply wouldn't have ever worked in a physical space - least of all the challenge of generating such an experience for more than one person at a time. Let's also not downplay the advantage of being able to do this away from the kind of insufferable tossers - like me - who would be gawping around it for hours on end if this were a real destination.
So... are you saying it is a game? The definition of games, and the general broadening of this to embrace more passive, less interactive experiences is a whole other - quite tiresome - topic for another day entirely, but it's in these fringes that I'd argue it establishes itself neatly. There are some moments that are loosely interactive, but what's harder to lose sight of is the way that everything within comes to life around you. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to soak up however much of this you want to - to think about and listen to these songs in a new way, and to tune in to a band taking stock and revisiting one of their creative peaks. At some point in time before it was released I'm certain I saw reference to this being a VR title, and although this may well be a mistake on my part - as it is certainly not the case at present - it's certainly no huge leap to imagine how well suited this would be on account of its scale, and how it could provide a wonderful mould for how similar experiences would benefit from this most immersive of technical frontiers.
My biggest concern with it all is that because it's free, there's this risk it'll be seen as some transient buzz-generating snippet that we're meant to forget about, like an interactive band website from the 90s that's coldly iterated and plunged further and further into obscurity as time surges on. I can see the arguments roaring already when it's inevitably ushered off the storefronts - we didn't pay for anything, so what right do we have to complain? The presence of QR codes that link you out of the experience and into the predatory jaws of a storefront selling branded badges, tea sets, greetings cards and dressing gowns on top of the the usual CDs and vinyl make it very clear that there's no qualms with merchandising this moment in time, so why can't we capture this? 20 years from now, this is what I'm expecting to want to revisit the most, rather than ensuring my brew is enjoyed in a branded tea cup and associated lounge wear. It's arguably as crucial and relevant as a secondary artifact can be to the music itself, so let's hope we're all able to give it its dues: both as a game, and as something worth preserving.
