As far as virtual reality chat rooms go, Habbo Hotel is pretty good in that it knows its limitations. Far from making an engrossing 3D world in the style of a First Person Shooter (FPS), Habbo gives you a cute cartoon avatar in a bunch of limited capacity rooms. The big side effect is the place is always full of kids (mostly British pre-teens), so don’t expect an insightful conversation or a high level of maturity. Of course, I never expect that when going into an online chat room.
It’s clever: It’s free to join, free to customize your avatar, free to make a room, and it doesn’t oversell itself to the public. The conversation mechanism is clever too — you can hear fragments of conversations as you walk through a room, since you have to be close to a person to hear what they are saying. Alternately, you can yell to everyone in a room, and all the little avatar heads turn to look at you.
![[habbo.jpg]](http://www.zuckervati.com/archives/images/habbo.jpg)
http://www.habbohotel.com/habbo/en/
Habbo Schmabbo
