A Journey to be savoured

I can't hep but liken Journey to a story of a life. From the tentative ambling hops of your beginning, to the confident, swooping strides of adult life, to meeting a stranger to spend your time with, to your slow shambling loss of this physical freedom as you reach the end of your tale.  A little deep for a game that involves flying around a desert and making beeping noises but the best metaphor for this wordless masterpiece.

As I'm sure anyone who is reading this is already aware you begin in a nondescript desert with a shining mountain top in the distance.  The hand-holding so apparent in many modern games doesn't exist here and you're more or less left to decide where to go from there.  A few button presses and you're taking your first small hops and glides around the landscape and sliding down the odd dune.  Like a newborn fawn, you're beginning to find your feet and begin your journey in the only direction that seems to have a point (literally and figuratively).

Before long you've collected a few of the glowing symbols the dot the landscape and your flights and glides have increased.  It's enjoyable to soar around the landscape and all would be lovely as a single player experience.

What sets Journey apart however is the subtle yet affecting multiplayer.  The first fellow wanderer I came across filled me with a feeling of desire to share this desolate, lonely world with someone.  And whilst I adventured through Journey I met around 10 or so other souls to share my journey with.  Whilst I was with them the world became a slightly better place and after the brief but effective story sections, I found myself seeking out my nameless fellow wanderer in the new section of the game.  I was also reluctant to turn off the game whilst I was with someone and at times had to drag myself away from a playthrough so as not to just plough through the game in one sitting.

Multiplayer gaming is in quite a state if you ask me. I'll write in more detail about why I think this some time soon but the Journey  gets multiplayer, amongst many other things, right.

Some won't get it, will miss the point entirely and I can only imagine in years to come people will be amazed as this nears the top of best game ever lists.  The premise is simple.  The input minimal.  But the Journey is an experience not to be missed. 

No need to cry.

Quanitc Dream's David Cage said this week that we didn't need a new generation of consoles yet and set an ambitious 2017 date on the requirement of 'the next gen'.  Anyone who saw Kara, the remarkable video from the studio, will certainly agree that Cage is doing something that many don't.  However, is he correct that the current generation of consoles is too tilted towards violence and RPGs and that we don't need a new generation of consoles for another five years?

Firstly, are we oversupplied with violence?  To get an idea of this I took a look at the top selling games on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.  Thirteen of the top fifteen 360 games could be construed as violent or RPGs and eleven of the top fifteen PS3 games fit in to to the same category.  This certainly does seem to back-up the idea that we are perhaps oversupplied with these games but is Cage taking too simplistic a view on things.  Perhaps the games being made are there because they sell.  Hardcore gamers complain about the likes of Call of Duty and its identikit clones but perhaps that is because we, the gamer, continue to buy them.  Quantic Dream's own Heavy Rain sold well at around 2 million copies (as of GDC 2011) but this doesn't begin to touch COD MW3's 6.5 million day one sales in the UK and US or MW2's 18 to 20 million total sales.  Perhaps game designers aren't lacking imagination as Cage said, perhaps they are simply caught by the unavoidable fact that our hobby is many people's business.

On the second suggestion of no new consoles until 2017, I'm torn.  The most interesting games I have played in the last few months have not needed more polygons or better hardware.  To The Moon, Journey or Lone Survivor have all been interesting, quirky, different and thrilling in their own ways.  The industry is full of people and teams pushing boundaries and finding new and exciting way to use the hardware they are given.  I believe that David Cage and his team are capable of doing remarkable things with the current generation of hardware and I can't say I'm too ready for more.  After seeing the Wii U and it's difficult to comprehend tablet controller, I worry that one day we will pine after this generation of controller based gaming.  Without some brave souls I worry the ever increasing expense of console manufacture and game design will drive developers to need to appeal to the chattering masses.

What do you think?  Do you want more David Cage and something from Kara or are you happy to see more COD and it's itterative sequels?  Do we need a new console generation or are those wanting it setting us up for an incremental decline to casual gaming?

And here is that video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pF56-ZYkY

The Walking Dead - The adventure game I always wanted.

I write this first post whilst keenly awaiting the second episode of Telltale Games 'The Walking Dead'.  I have wanted to love adventure games all my life, having attempted to play a huge number over the years.  The only one I can remember completing from start to finish is Grim Fandango and, despite starting Sam and Max, several Monkey Islands, Full Throttle, Leisure Suit Larry (to my shame, but I was of an age) and the more recent Back To The Future and Puzzle Agent, they were never the game I wanted.

Where The Walking Dead gets it right and so many others failed is character.  From the stark opening dialogue with a cynical US cop through to the shocking finalé of this opening chapter I was living Lee Everett's life.  I didn't have to labour through obscure puzzles, linking up strange objects and jumping through far-fetched logical links.  I didn't have to spend a long time in the same three room setting.  I did get to make genuinely troubling moral decisions.  I did connect with an array of well written and scripted characters in a mature and well-paced storyline.

Of course, this is a zombie game and there is the chance to smash undead skull but I'm not coming back for the action.  I'm coming back to find out what happens to Lee, Clementine, Carley and company and to find out if Lenny is going to get his just desserts.

Sadly I've only been able to play through the short few hours once because I want my snap decisions and reactions to be the ones that I must live with without being tempted by other (possibly more attractive) outcomes.  I'm looking forward to coming back though when all five episodes are released and playing through the whole story with some different outcomes. 

Hopefully Telltale can manage to keep the pace, variety, tough choices and great cast entertaining me throughout the remaining four episodes.  I trust that they will.