Inspired by the likes of Dead Space, Resident Evil and Doctor Who, By Grit Alone – by UK based developers Crooks Peak – certainly promises to be a very exciting prospect for both horror and science fiction fans. Whilst not everyone may be keen on horror in virtual reality due to the inherent scare factor that the medium offers, I’m personally all for the good the extra tension  – especially when the game in question lists some of my favourite franchises as an inspiration.

But, will it be able to live up to those lofty expectations?

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TOUGH AS GRIT
After a horrible nightmare, you find yourself awakened from cryo sleep in what appears to be a pretty disastrous situation. The ship you are on seems to have drifted off into what is referred to as ‘the Bermuda Triangle of space’, which has caused it to become infested by monstrous creatures.

You need to get out of here fast, but it won’t be easy. This whole region is filled with wrecked starships that have fallen foul of these beings, and unfortunately you’ll need to board them in order to be able to progress.

Will you be able to survive this nightmare?

With writers from many big properties (including Doctor Who), it’s clear that the writing is certainly the strongest aspect of the game. With plenty of audio and text logs to help fill out the lore, and each starship having their own mini story, it’s easy to get engrossed in this world. That can come at the cost of gameplay as you’re frequently forced to stand and listen to exposition before being allowed to progress. It can be frustrating at times, even on the first playthrough, as you often find yourself staring at the walls waiting for the latest monologue to finish.

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Speaking of frustrating, By Grit Alone is a shooter that does not hold back with its difficulty. It starts off easy enough with only a handful or spider-like creatures and flies coming for you, but you’ll soon end up getting frequently overwhelmed with everything coming at you. And with your pistol only holding ten shots per clip, you’d better hope that every shot counts.

But this is no Resident Evil: there’s no need for resource management as both your grenades and gun have unlimited ammunition. This will comprise your arsenal during the duration of the game (outside of set moments where you gain access to the likes of a fixed flamethrower or machine gun), which keeps things relatively simple – especially as the grenades also serve as the ammunition for your gun too. This gun has two functions: there’s the one handed pistol that fires at a decent rate but has appalling accuracy, and a two handed sniper that fires accurate and powerful shots, but at a very slow rate. Changing between the two is as simple as adding or removing your second hand, making it a rather efficient tool.

The issue is that the lack of weapon variety underlines the rather lacklustre and oftentimes annoying combat. Unlike the games that inspired it, creatures here typically fall into two categories: there are swarms of small and fast creatures that beeline towards you, and there are monsters that attack by surprise and need to be killed by shooting a specific yellow weakpoint. They feel designed to be frustrating to fight, especially as there are often segments where you’re tasked with waiting in a very tiny space while you wait for an arbitrary timer to finish. Leaving this area causes the timer to stop or – even worse – restart, making you effectively forced to stand still as you shoot enemies that are beelining for you. Having fewer, but perhaps stronger enemies may have been made these bits more tolerable, but having swarms of these irritating and fast pests that get all up in your face make them somewhat of a chore.

Monsters aren’t all bad though, and there are times when you’ll face creatures that are genuinely a lot of fun to take down. My particular favourite are the ones that appear in the spa area. Whilst you may recognise the little tentacle monsters from earlier stages, the difference here is that they’ve attached themselves the friendly robots designed to guide you around the space spa. They’re friendliness though can be deadly, as it’ll cause them to get right up in your face. Pleasingly too, you can destroy the creature attached to it, the robot by shooting its power supply, or simply reach in and press the ‘dismiss helper’ button to make it walk away. It’s really creative, and I wish there were more like that in the game.

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It’s a shame that the combat is such a disappointment as there are some really remarkable environments to explore. It doesn’t seem like it at first since the starting ship is rather generic, but as soon as you reach the next main area, they become rather impressive. Seeing a ship in the form of a massive cathedral is already quite intriguing, but upon exploring its interior and all its mythology designed around a female-centric church with a questionable leader makes you want to see what else the game has in store.

And for the most part, it doesn’t disappoint. There are some ships that may be better than others (such as the aforementioned spa), but they do a good job at creating environments that you want to explore and find out more about. There are so many details, and I like how you can even activate holographs that recreate certain events to help you picture how the ship was before the creatures took over.

Which again makes the combat even more unfortunate. I wanted to explore these environments and gather all the lore, but the constant stream of enemies and surprise attacks that end up causing inevitable deaths makes it rather difficult to do. It would be a little bit more acceptable if the game was designed to be more of a horror experience, but honestly the unlimited ammunition really takes a way from a lot of the experience and ends up making the game more annoying than atmospheric. There is an option to activate God mode, one hit kill bullets, or even unlock all the levels from the start, but these act as a bandage for the problem rather than a way to rectify it.

And unfortunately, that ends up leaving me feeling rather mixed about the whole experience.

VERDICT
By Grit Alone does a lot of things right. There’s some great worldbuilding here, and the different starships are a joy to explore for all those extra bits of lore that explain how these unusual societies operated before things went wrong. However, the frustrating combat combined with the lack of variety made me enjoy the experience less than I’d have hoped for. If you find yourself drawn towards the combat and don’t mind the frustration, then there’s certainly a great game to be had – although others may end up having their overall enjoyment lessened.