review
What's it all about?Tweet, tweet, tweet...Contact!Australian release dates
                 
                 
     

POSTED 23/7/15


JOURNEY

Sony



Oh San-dee, bay-bee...

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the minutes of our Journey...

You, a stretchy, pointy Jawa creature, awake in a desert. In the distant distance looms a mountainy mountain. With no other geographical markers, you may as well trundle towards it, yeah?

Sound vague? Well, that’s because Journey offers players about as much direction as a smasheroonied compass. Yet there’s a design cleverness that allows whoever’s clutching the DualShock to quickly synch to its vibe, somehow knowing what to do – or, more to the point, where to go. Through wastelands, ancient ruins, howling winds, gritty ski-slopes...

There are scant controlleristic options. Traipse in various directions, turn using motion sensing or right stick, fly once accumulating scarf segments (your neck adornment grows longer the more you nab) and emit cryptic QR code-like bleats that double as mega-jump and landscapular triggers here and there.

Assuming you’re internet enabled, as you journey upon your journey in Journey you’ll encounter similarly pointy Jawalikes. Not console-generated companions as you may assume, they’re actually other hapless souls out there somewhere in PSNland. You can buddy-up for a shared journey, or plough on regardless. We churned through seven peeps on our first playthrough. Flibbertigibbets? Us?!

As you schlep onwards, you encounter pallid scalped skittle god thingies, and just as you’re thinking it’s a bit cruisetastic something nasty might frighten the living fuck out of you. Not that this happened to us, oh no – WAAAAAAURRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!

Despite occasional startlements, overall Journey offers more serenity than Bonnie Doon. If you whine about paying a movie ticket price for entertainment of the same length that you can play again and again and again then we’d like to pat your head condescendingly.

Now on PS4, Journey remains a fine argument for games as art if you can be arsed going there. We just enjoyed re-experiencing something different that overtook us for two hours.

take me back to the start...

 



CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!



 

 

     
                 
                 
     
ALL WRITTEN CONTENT COPYRIGHT © AMY FLOWER 2008-2018. GAME IMAGES COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE GAMES COMPANIES.