Review: By Grit Alone
When By Grit Alone was posed as ‘think Dead Space or Aliens in VR’ I certainly peaked my interest, as Dead Space is my favorite sci-fi horror title. This gave me a feeling of hope, that we were going to be getting another solid horror title in VR. I have been travelling through Space and exploring the derelict ships on By Grit Alone but, did it leave me screaming or a little let down?
Release Date: November 21st 2024
Developer: Crooks Peak
Publisher: Crooks Peak
Price: £14.99
Reviewed On: Meta Quest 3
* Access Provided For Review *
A Fantastic Anthology
The story telling in By Grit Alone is by far the games best quality. Its hard to explain as it plays out like an anthology. Every ship you visit will craft a very detailed and eerie backstory for what went down before your visit – with a mix of holo recreations, audio and written logs. This has allowed the team at Crooks Peak to weave a very cohesive story for each location, which have been created by writers on high profile games such as Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space.
All Feels A Bit Flat
The gameplay loop of By Grit Alone is quite simple, investigate the ship and complete your objective on that ship to move onto the next destination. This will see you taking out the enemies that spawn in swarms as you move through you current location and complete tasks like shooting asteroids and navigate objects as you move between the ships through Space. Where this is not a bad loop and one you see done in plenty of other games – it seems nothing is perfectly implemented in By Grit Alone.
When it comes to the enemies there is a lack of enemy types, when these are mixed together it can be more stressful, but this doesn’t really happen enough. Then these enemies will just charge at you with no real attack pattern other than charge at you or shooting goo of some sort, this all becomes a little boring quickly. With the only real variation being arms or mushroom looking things that spawn out of the infestation as you get close, but these are not that hard to take out.
Add this to the game having no real survival elements, you wont get anything new outside of your weapon you get at the start, you have infinite ammo and stomp attack for the enemies that might surround your feet. Your gun has two modes which are, single handed it is like a shotgun and double handed it becomes a more long distance rifle. However, these feel no different which removes the immersion of them being different, there is no sound or haptics difference when firing the weapons – where really you should get more punchy sounds and haptics from the shotgun. To go with this the sights are not great, meaning in the most case you are just shooting from the hip and hoping. The issues with this is, if you are firing at enemies in the distance you have no idea how close you were to hitting them because, if you miss you get no hit damage on the environments.
Where the different mix of enemies can become a little difficult, the main difficulty comes from the fact it feels the game has no spacial audio, every enemy sounds they are all around you. Which leads to unnecessary and annoying deaths that would be more easy to avoid if you had the spacial audio VR games are known for and use perfectly.
This all takes away from the all important immersion in horror and on a combat front which VR needs. Then this is just increased by any actions outside of the shooting being button press. Where it makes sense for things like the doors, holo memos and audio and written logs being button press, things like picking up items like key cards should not be done by a button press. Again this pulls you straight out of the immersion in the game, when you could just pick them up natuarally.
Dead On Arrival
Unfortunately it only drops again when it comes to the visuals, as someone who believes visual choice can make or break game. This does not mean in a graphical prowess way, but if it can take away from the immersion and what the game is aiming to do, I feel it is super important in a horror setting that your immersion isn’t broken. By Grit Alone falls into the latter for me the visual side breaks the immersion, as everything is so low poly looking, mixing this with the lack of enemy types and some of the decisions on the holo projections, and its easy to be taken out of the immersion of the game. It all feels a little samey never mind what ship you visit, and it just doesn’t visual stimulate you enough to feel any dread or nerves, which is what you want the game to give you. Outside of the infestation goop throughout the ship everything is all a little bland, including the very flat lighting used in the game.
Where a game can also be made by the use audio, something I feel is also important when creating a horror game. Again By Grit Alone doesn’t really use audio to the full effect, overall it seems there is a lack of sound. Where having a lack of sound can make you feel alone, it is more of a hindrance in this, as it does nothing to give that feeling. Where something as simple as little sounds, hearing enemies in the distance or even musical queues can do this – but they are just not there. This stands out even more because, when enemies do spawn, action music cuts in and is joined by the sound effects from the enemies – meaning you get all these sounds suddenly cut in and then cut out just as quick. Which then just cuts back to not much noise at all, which becomes quite jarring at times.
The only real stand out part for the audio is the voice acting, this is done well in the most case. Luckily all the voice memos are done really well, as this lets the story of each ship be woven so well. But, then some of the voice acting on the holo recreations leaves a little to be desired, but some are done really well at the same time.
Comfort
The Verdict
As a fan of games that tell a great story, for me By Grit Alone was saved a little by the anthology of stories being so well written and woven through the use of holo recreations and, audio and written logs – with each ships terror being well explained. But, what is a shame with By Grit Alone is the rest of the choices really take away from the experience and the story alone cannot save it. Most elements pull you away from the immersion that is one of the most important elements in VR, especially in the horror genre. What really saved the game for me was the game options allowing you to turn on invincibility – meaning you can work your way through it a lot quicker and remove the frustrations from some of the choices. Which I was happy to see as I would have likely struggled to get through the whole story without this option.