Will add more as they are posted
GamesRadar
UploadVR
IGN Benelux
Telegraph
PushSquare
Eurogamer
Junkee
GamesRadar
But the guns. Oh dear lord, the guns. Precise, and with minute vibrations when you reload and holster them, they feel fantastic to shoot. Although dual-wielding is chaotic, manic fun, if you bring one of the move controllers under the hand holding a pistol, for example, you can steady your aim and look down the sights. Pick up a SMG, and hold one of the move controllers to your shoulder to steady the gun against your body, making your aim more precise. Or you can dual-wield combat shotguns and just obliterate anything standing in front of you. Simple, but effective.
https://www.gamesradar.com/blood-and-truth-preview/Those details give Blood and Truth a completely new sensation I've rarely felt while playing FPSs, one that makes me feel like I've earned every headshot. Plus if you've been on the internet you might have seen those videos of Keanu Reeves demolishing cut-outs at a shooting range at devastating speed. Well, if you didn't feel quite like John Wick in Blood and Truth's story, you can practise your aim and speed by completing challenges in the game's training area and compete with your friends in the challenge leaderboard. After having seen it in action the challenges already feel dangerously addictive, as you need to be on high alert to spot friendlies and get those sweet, sweet headshots.
UploadVR
More importantly, though, Blood & Truth seems to have genuine consideration for its platform in every strand of its DNA. It adheres to some of the core thrills of the first-person shooters (FPS) we've been playing for decades, whilst also deviating from others in meaningful ways. Ammo clips, for example, are generous in count to mimic the seemingly unending number of rounds Hollywood heroes can fire before needing to reload. Lockpicking is simplified to a few twists of a Move controller and stylish slow-motion sequences paint giant white targets on things that will explode when shot.
I spot a few more of these choices in my latest demo, taking me through the game's opening mission. I love the way Blood & Truth highlights points of interest in the game world with a chalky overlay. I love how it doesn't shy away from bringing you up close to its cast of characters. And I love Sony London's genuine desire to get your heartbeat pumping, be it in an all-out synchronized assault across some rooftops, or getting you to hang from the edge of a shipping container dangled in mid-air.
https://uploadvr.com/blood-and-truth-studio-tour/And yet I still can't escape my fear that all of this glamor and glitz won't go beyond the surface level. We've seen a lot of Blood & Truth over the past two and a half years but often in five minute slices that showcase a sufficient amount of bangs and bullets. Each demo has been fun in its own right but they don't give much sense of the cohesion that ties it all together. This week I've seen the individual threads that suggest there's more to the story than a simple shooting gallery. Now it's time to prove it.
Whyte's words give me hope.
"There's what we call intensity fatigue," he says. "It's just like, when you're in the middle of a fire fight, it just gets so crazy and tense that you actually need to break up the game. Pacing within VR and certainly within Blood & Truth is something that we've found super critical. It's not just one long gun fight. You've got to break it up it…the interactions, the drama, the exploring the environment. There's a lot of subtlety to getting that right."
IGN Benelux
https://nl.ign.com/blood-truth/114379/preview/blood-truth-hands-on-previewWhere I initially started the day with the feeling that Blood & Truth would be a small step ahead of what London Heist was, this feels like a fully-fledged game. The play sessions and the subsequent hands-off images left me with the feeling that I wanted to play more. In any case, we don't have to wait long, because Blood and Truth will be exclusively available for PlayStation VR on 28 May.
Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/...d-scenes-british-gangster-thriller-new-level/Set-pieces, meanwhile, are carefully choreographed and laden with slow-motion and visual FX that bombard the headset-wearing player. In one instance, I am sprinting through a collapsing building before being launched into the London sky, stomach lurching as I panickedly stretch out to grab onto a suspended shipping container. Nearly toppling off my (real-world) chair as I do so.
London, meanwhile, has been painstakingly recreated in some scenes for a sense of authenticity. While the soundtrack is a smart and fiery mix of modern grime music and sweeping orchestral score. The music director tells me that the soundtrack will swell and expand if you are pulling off particularly spectacular 'gun-fu' style.
Of course, as impressive as they are, snatches of over-the-top action and stellar production values can only tell so much of the story. And time will tell if Blood & Truth will hold together across the course of its running time. But one thing that seems obvious from its bombast is that VR game development has moved to the next level, at least at Sony, where it continues to toast the success of its 4million selling headset.
PushSquare
This makes up for the fact that the traversal is somewhat on rails. While there are veterans of PSVR who may balk at the node-based navigation, the reality is that the developer wants to put the emphasis on your hands. And so the fun in combat gauntlets comes more from your firearm skills than your body's positioning. For example, holding the triangle button enables you to spin weapons on your finger, allowing you to follow-up quick draws with some showboating before picking off the enemies in front of you.
It goes further than that, though. You can toss ammunition up in the air and then catch it in the butt of your gun, or you can feather revolvers like you're in the Wild West to increase your shooting speed. Everything feels intuitive, natural, and, most importantly of all, fun – heck, you can even flip some foes the bird before you put a bullet in their bonce. It really doesn't take itself too seriously, which means there's one moment in a nightclub where you can assume the role as DJ and start mixing some tracks to an empty club. Again, everything is completely interactive using the PS Move wands.
http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/05/hands_on_blood_and_truth_elevates_psvr_to_the_next_levelWhile the story's unlikely to last longer than six hours, London Studio is packing it with extra content. There's a whole bonus location which serves as a museum for you to horde your collectibles – and yes, you can collect and smoke vapes in a variety of different flavours. There's a shooting gallery for you to test out your weapons, each of which can be customised with different attachments that you unlock, and there's even a spray paint tool that you can use to physically paint your firearms different colours. Everything is completely interactive – even balls of paper which you can toss in the bin.
And then there's the arcade shooting galleries, which test your accuracy and speed across a variety of locations taken from the game. It sounds like the developer has plans to update the title post-release, and there may yet be a skill mode which will not only challenge you to take out targets, but to also showcase your weapon wielding abilities. Leaderboards will make their way into the title post-release, so you'll be able to compare your personal bests against others. And the studio may not be done there, although it's currently keeping a lid on any other future plans.
Eurogamer
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...t-a-getaway-game-now-its-a-psvr-system-sellerWith Blood & Truth effectively an on-rails shooter, it might make you think it's a restrictive experience. From the small slice I've played, though, it's anything but, and while you are funnelled along a fairly narrow path you're still afforded a lot to do in that small space. Blood & Truth gets that VR is a performative medium, at its best when it has you truly embody the space, and as such it has plenty of tricks that help usher you into another world.
Press a button and you can balance your gun on your trigger finger, then duly spin it on the spot (other tricks are also available as you progress in the game). Have one hand that's free and you can cycle through gestures - and yes, you can flip the bird - while reloading is a pleasingly tactile gesture that you can embellish with your own flourishes. It's gun-fu, essentially, as recently popularised by the John Wick films, and in Blood & Truth it feels every bit as good as it looks on the big screen. It's a simple game, yes, but it's those small things that could make it very special indeed.
Junkee
Physically aiming the Move controller and squeezing its trigger made me feel like an absolute badarse even when my shots went wide, which happened often. Aiming in Blood and Truth is rougher than PC gamers would be used to. Though looking down your floaty gun's sights for the green crosshairs significantly improves accuracy, one-shotting enemies isn't the norm.
Still, I wasn't terribly bothered. It felt truer than if I was making pretty headshots all the time, and made me pay closer attention to my aim. Pressing both Move buttons at the same time also slowed time for a moment, allowing me to go full action hero and get off some quick, precise shots.
I found unexpected pleasure in reloading my gun as well, which gave me a great feeling of hypercompetence. To reload, you grab an ammo pack from your chest and manually insert it into the handle of your weapon. It's swift and forgiving, so you aren't jigsawing objects together in the middle of a gunfight, and I quickly found myself reloading during firefights almost seamlessly.
https://junkee.com/blood-truth-first-impressions/206146Yet all of this is easily overlooked due to how incredibly cool Blood and Truthmakes you feel. Whether you use both hands to carefully line up shots with your pistol, or nonsensically duel-wield an assault rifle and silenced handgun, the game transforms you into a big screen action hero ready and able to perforate some bad guys.
Blood and Truth is essentially a badarse simulator. Who can say no to that?
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