For my final in my English Composition college class, I had to evaluate or review either a Movie, Game or TV show. I choose to review Journey for my class. It has already been submitted so I cannot make anymore corrections, but I would love your opinions on it! Enjoy ;)
NOTE: The formatting didnt copy over very well, sorry about that. Also, the way I wrote the conclusion sounded contradictory :(
A True Journey
The gaming industry is a wonderful entity filled with many unique experiences, but almost all of these experiences have one thing in common - running from Point A to B and completing obstacle C. Because of this, gaming can often seem redundant. This is why games such as Journey have become so respected and revered over the years.
Journey, released on March 14th of 2012, is the latest PlayStation Network title released by ThatGameCompany, creators of previous best selling PSN smash hits flOw and flOwer. (Preistman, 2012)
This time however, ThatGameCompany managed to completely outdo themselves with Journey, creating something that is being considered one of the greatest achievements and experiences in gaming history. (Clements, 2012)
But what if I told you that Journey had absolutely no battles, no puzzles, and no immediately available story? What would you think?
I would imagine you would probably be wondering how a game with no real objective could be considered among the best ever. But that is exactly it; nothing has ever done nothing so spectacularly well in the history of entertainment.
Okay, so maybe I’m over exaggerating a bit when I say you do absolutely nothing, the game does give you one goal, to reach the mountain summit way off in the distance.
Like its predecessors, Journey completely scraps many of gaming’s mainstream staples such as deaths, game overs, and antagonists, for a more emotionally driven experience.
Instead of collecting points for moving forward, you are rewarded with a plethora of intensely detailed environment’s and interactive music that changes depending on your actions within said environment. Such a reward system is unique to the games created by ThatGameCompany, which may make the system a bit hard to understand without actually experiencing it first hand. Perhaps an explanation of how the game actually plays will help that understanding.
Throughout the game, you control a nameless clocked figure sporting a long scarf embedded with glowing symbols that allow the player to fly. Flying in turn causes the symbols to disappear over time, limiting your flight capabilities. Naturally, the game relies on you’re ability to fly great distances.
There are two ways for you to overcome this disadvantage. The first is by collecting several glowing symbols scattered throughout the world to increase the length of your scarf, allowing you to fly longer. Alternatively, if you are playing online, you may occasionally run into a nameless player and choose to complete the journey in a superbly implemented cooperative experience. This is the real draw of the game.
Unlike most games, you have absolutely no way of truly communicating with the other player, in fact you wont even know their name until the final credits roll. You spend hours stumbling across vast golden deserts and beautifully designed ruined cities with someone you will never talk to, all in the hopes that at least one of you will reach the summit of the distant mountain. This inexplicably creates a bond between yourselves that ends just as soon as it began, in what I consider to be one of the most powerful endings in entertainment history.
The game may seem slightly odd at first glance, and due to its complete polar opposing nature to mainstream culture and the lack of extensive gameplay, it is safe to say the game is not for everyone. That being said, I will forever consider Journey to be one of those games that all types of gamers should experience at least once. They would not regret it.
...uhh...ill just put my favorite quote of all time here.
"Welcome to Pain, the second of three...You have dealt the first...now deal with me!!"
