No I'm not on an acid trip. Well what I tried was very trippy but I've not consumed anything adverse. I'm talking about a video game sadly for those of you who see video games as pointless and silly. If you're going to play one though and there's a PS3 anywhere near your current vicinity, I'd recommend hopping onboard the Playstation Network and spending £9.99 of your hard earned pounds and pennies on this game.
It was just, wow! Is my response to it. I wish I could have filmed me playing it, because from my housemate's reactions it was a funny sight to behold. It was first brought to my attention by the humorous tweets of Dara O'Briain. Who I'd recommend following if you don't already, a very prolific twitterist. And an avid gamer if the hilarious section of his last tour is anything to go by! I remember annoying the people around me with my hysteric cackle. He communicated the frustrating annoyance of stabbing at your controller and hitting 'toggle maps' or how every game in the world has a different button for 'crouch'.
Anyway, based on this, I trust his gaming judgement. I'm not a huge gamer, I have somehow collected all three main consoles over a number of years but if I play for longer than an hour I get a headache because I'm an old man. So my relationship with video games is - I like them and I'm always impressed with the latest advances in them, but I'm not on them all the time.
This was something a bit special. It's made by ThatGameCompany who have only made a couple of games before, a reportedly equally trippy Snake-like creation called Flow, and something that looked a bit airy-fairy by the picture on Wikipedia called Flowers. Journey took my breath away and my decision to buy it was based on a reply tweet from the big man himself! I asked Dara 'Journey yea or nay?' and he replied 'Journey, definitely yea' So about an hour of download later I was playing.
It's so different to any other game I've ever played. First of all the graphics are stunning. You take your simple cloaky character through a series of locations, I won't ruin it for you but you start in a desert and lets just say when you get to snow your breath gets taken away. I got very into it, apparently making scared noises and getting very sad when a monster attacked my little man who can't attack back! It was very cruel of the monster I thought!
It's so hard to describe, the only real objective is to journey (surprise surprise) towards this mountain, it shines and you want to get there. The vast majority of the game is moving towards shiny things. I'm not selling this very well. It only takes about an hour and a half to complete but it's genius, there are only a few controls, and you're never entirely sure what you're doing but you carry on playing and then you get to the end (SPOILER) and it catapults you straight back to the start and I'd play it all over again. I suppose they're probably trying to make some kind of profound statement about life but I'd play it again just for the mouth-dropping scenery and you never know something else might happen this time! What if there are different journeys and different ways to get to the mountain?! What if I can get my own back against the scary dragon monsters that attack me and eat my shiny jumping cards? (You get the ability to jump by absorbing this floating pieces of magic (probably)).
Or alternatively you can give your online playmates a jump by standing next to them. This is the other amazing thing about Journey. It's all online, everyone who plays is put into the same world and you journey together and sometimes help each other to get past obstacle. You can't talk you just help each other, and you can't hurt each other. I felt I should play the Beatles or the Grateful Dead, throw on some tie-dye and start swaying singing kum-bay-ya.
In short, I climbed the magic mountain, and I'd do it again.
I am this geeky, but I got a reply tweet from Dara O'Briain, worth it.
Oh and I also joined Pottermore, duel me! SeerWatch8159. A blog for another day when I figure out how to defeat Quirrell and Voldemort.
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