Blood & Truth is a VR game that is exclusively for PSVR on the PS4. It is one of those rare AAA VR titles and is an expansion of the London Heist level from PlayStation VR Worlds, one of the highlights of the game. It’s a new standalone story though that can be enjoyed by anyone. The game is deliberately filled with over the top gangster moments and this is what makes it so fun.
The game at its core is a first person shooter with on-rail elements. There is no free travel as it utilizes predetermined points that you can move towards. Look at the target, press a button and you character will walk or crawl or jump there. If even this causes you nausea and discomfort, then there are several settings to make it better. The game has a dedicated Comfort setting that will try and minimize motion sickness. As a result, when moving, it will darken the edges. This won’t fully mitigate it, unfortunately there’s no teleport travel either so you will just have to put up with the walking (or close your eyes).
If you are using the Move controllers, then the control scheme is really simple. Each controller represents each hand. This means you can hold the gun and shoot from either hand, while the remaining hand is used to pull the ammo from the pouch on your chest and into the gun to reload it. The gun can be placed in a holster at your waist or if it is one of the larger guns, on your back. This is intuitive and works well, although the reloading is finnicky during the more intense moments.
The aiming is intuitive and works well. The story features three difficulty settings. Normal and Hard are self-explanatory, while Cinematics will give you infinite health and unlimited ammo, significantly making the game easier. This mode is perfect for players who are not too good with first-person shooters or aren’t perfectly accustomed to VR. The aiming with the Move controllers is intuitive and works really well. Playing in Cinematics mode will provide a laser sight so you can easily see where you are aiming at, while the harder difficulties will have the laser sight as a late unlockable.
There are plenty of on-rail sections where the character will automatically move and you need to shoot. These are short enough that if you are prone to motion sickness, you can stomach through and then rest afterwards. These are also some of the best sections of the game since that’s where a lot of the action takes place, including when you’re inside a vehicle. It’s quite a rush when you’re running through a building, desperately shooting down the bad guys that just keeps on coming. The normal shooting sections where you physically duck behind cover is fun as well, although you’re fixed in place a lot of the times even with the options to strafe and jump to another cover from time to time. When things get too difficult, there an ability you can use to slow down time so you can easily pick off the enemies.
The level designs aren’t anything to write home about. The good thing is that the game provides enough variety through its story in where it takes place so the environments don’t get boring. As expected though, each level progresses in a linear way. There may be alternate paths but the destination will always be the same. That’s not a bad thing as you can enjoy the game for what it is as a result.
There are a variety of weapons to use and it even includes dual-wielding weapons which is awesome. However, when dual-wielding, reloading isn’t as easy since it feels more awkward. The control scheme further simulates reality such as holding a weapon with both hands to steady your aim. The other thing the game does well are the interaction gimmicks. You will climb by moving your hands to grab the next bar and physically pull your self up. This makes those usually bland sequences feel novel and engaging. Although as per usual, this can induce nausea if you’re not good with VR movement.
The story ultimately feels flat. It is initially told in a flashback where we learn the character, Ryan Marks, was in the army who returns to London due to his father passing away. However, his family is pretty big in the underworld and another gang is hoping to “merge” with his and effectively take over. There are surprisingly a lot of cutscenes but since it is VR, they are done with you as a part of it so it’s not very cinematic when you’re just sitting there listening to dialogue.
The story is like an action movie with many set-pieces and tropes of the genre. You’ll have car chases, massive shoot-outs, reconnaissance, sneaking around and interrogation scenes. Yet for all those sections, there are surprisingly a lot of moments where there’s not much happening. You’ll spend a lot of time standing around or moving around looking at stuff, which makes the pacing slow down to a crawl. Once the novelty of VR wears off, these sections are extremely bland and boring.
The game has a strong ending sequence where the levels are an enjoyable rush to the finish. They are some of the very best and most action packed in the game. This builds up your excitement until you’ve finally reached the person whom you had been chasing all this time… only for it to be a bit of an underwhelming confrontation. There was also a character that was introduced who seemed important but ended up being more of a sequel hook instead as they did not appear in the game too often.
All in all, the story takes around six to eight hours to complete. Of course, this depends on whether you like to play around, slowly taking in the sights. While it may have been called short, it’s actually a pretty good length for a VR game and it is just the right sort of length as it doesn’t outstay its welcome and isn’t so short that it feels like a tech demo. There are a few things to extend the game such as collectibles that will unlock customization options for your weapons.
A series of patches also introduced several minigames and different modes. These include expected stuff like shooting levels within a time limit to gain a high score. However, there are some inventive modes like a rhythm game (which is more difficult than it would initially seem) and puzzles.
In terms of graphics, they’re okay. It’s hard to make a VR game with amazing graphics given the low res of the PSVR but it is pretty good for what it is. As per usual, close up models look great while the backgrounds are blurry. In the slowly scenes, you will notice how flat the backgrounds are, while in the faster paced ones, since you’re focused more on the shooting, it’s not a bad. Although it is funny sometimes to have enemies that are a bit further away with just a head with no facial features.
Overall, Blood & Truth is a stellar VR game. The emphasis on that is the VR as you cannot ignore that it is only because it is a fully fledged VR game that you can overlook that its mechanics are very standard and generic. The story is decent and although it’s not the best writing out there, it is enough for you to grin at several moments, being the star of your own action movie. This is one of the best PSVR games available on the system and one that highlights and showcases the potential of VR.
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