Until Dawn: Rush of Blood truly does put you in the front row seat of a rollercoaster of terror!!
Developed by Supermassive Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment, and made especially for the PlayStation VR, this game starts the scares from the moment you roll through the title screen, shooting a multitude of nightmarish creatures in a fight for your life.
I have only had the PSVR for a short amount of time and this game seemed to tick all the boxes for horror; easy to get into and simple to play. I played this both with the standard PS4 controller and also the Playstation Move controllers and boy, it was a treat.
The game itself is very simple and contains seven unique and thrilling rollercoasters to get stuck into. You take the front seat in a rollercoaster of doom, armed and ready to shoot. For a game that does not have free movement it builds the tension and places the scares perfectly, so that even hardened jump scare fans such as myself still get caught out.
This is a single player only game but does feature worldwide and local leaderboards for the best scores on each of the levels, to keep it competitive between random parties, and any friends and family that may wish to partake (providing they are brave enough).
Graphically it is not terrible. When you first place the headset on it does seem a little grainy but minutes into the ride you completely forget you have the headset on, and it feels as real as anything. It’s made even better by the twist, turns and drops that the rollercoaster provides, and I can tell you, some of those tracks feel so realistic you truly feel as though you are in a theme park on an actual ride. (Mind your head on low sitting objects!)
The first level has you setting off into what seems like a nice happy run-of-the-mill theme park ride but that soon takes a turn for the worse and introduces the big bad of the game. There is a loose storyline, but one that’s not too serious: you could pick it up if you had a little time spare. Shoot some bad guys, jump off and still have a blast.
You also get to adapt your armoury throughout the rides with the choice of spud guns, pistols, shotguns, Magnums and submachine guns, that is of course, if you can find the obvious and not so obvious boxes scattered around you, as you blast through the level.
The great thing about the Playstation Move controller is being able to aim in two directions at once, making it easy to shoot the gun upgrade boxes in time to power up your load out, as some boxes are in areas where the cart has some serious speed. Also very useful, is that the gun box you shoot will replace the weapon in the hand you shot it with, allowing for some interesting weapon combos, like my favourite: the submachine gun for the spray and prey, and the shotgun for the whoops-I-missed-all-my-shots-now-I’m-getting-punched-by-a-clown moments.
If you do happen to be a poor shot, or are too terrified to get that aim down and waste all your power weapon ammo, fear not as the starting pistols do have unlimited ammo.
Current score, multiplier and ammo counters are visible if you look down on the left, and on the right you can see the amount of shells/clips you have remaining on the current weapon. That said there is nothing worse than being in the heat of a gunfight and finding the shotgun you thought you had is now a pistol (please see the above mentioned clown punching).
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood boasts a nice amount of forty trophies, so plenty to hunt down if you are a trophy hunter. Some of these do include playing it on the higher difficulties of which there are four: Easy, Normal, Psychotic and Insane. The main difference is the amount of enemies and the damage they do when/if they get to you.
Now after my aforementioned good and enjoyed points, here comes my criticism. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is great for short spurts and to pick up now and again, but for us hardcore players it’s not a massively extensive game. With only seven levels you can blast through it in a few hours (a very fun few hours, mind). It’s great the scores are tracked; at least you can try to improve on your own scores, and the increased difficulties do add a bit of a challenge.
Overall it is a nearly perfectly executed game, very simple and very enjoyable, with some incredible tension, outright creepy moments and some awesome jump scares. Especially fun watching a loved one freak out at bits of the game you remember fondly.
Considering the current price of the game (£15-£20 or if you have a PS plus membership its currently free) it’s a steal and you will 100% get your money’s worth of enjoyment. As for the life of the game, we shall see in time if it strikes the same fear into me as my first play through. If you have a PSVR, what are you waiting for? Pick the game up and experience VR horror and thrill the way it’s meant to be played. Now I’m off to attempt insane mode. If you never hear from me again you know what happened.
