WeView: Journey

There was an awful lot of love for Journey here at TSA Towers when it was released, and with good reason. thatgamecompany were trying something that felt fairly new and unique, and pulled it off remarkably well; it’s basically what they do as a studio. Even by their own ridiculously high standards Journey was a bit special though. I mean a game where you’re navigating a creature that looks surprisingly like a Jawa from Star Wars across a mystical desert with flying cloth? That was either going to be amazing or very, very weird.

Fortunately we thought it was the former, a game that had managed to build a fantastic experience out of quite possibly the weirdest concept since, well, Flower. Even without their experimentation with multiplayer thatgamecompany were onto something special, but the emotional connections that people have managed to build with each other even when almost no in-game communication exists is really something astonishing and quite touching.

In our review of the game Alex managed to find not a single thing he could list as a ‘con’ when playing, and could only praise the title. He gave the game a 10/10, something the text of his review more than justified. In fact here’s a short extract from that very text for you to mull over:

Allegory and metaphors in games of this ilk are mostly, intentionally or not, subjective, but Journey for me is simple and defined without any ambiguity: we all have a simple beginning and a simpler end and are – as the nondescript, universal cloak the character wears throughout demonstrate – all created equal. It’s who we meet and what we do along the way with those people that matters above anything else.

And standing alone, in silence, can be heartbreaking.

Despite the praise that Alex heaped on the game, I’m more than willing to accept that there may be some of you out there who just couldn’t click with the sand based exploration. Perhaps there was just something about the game’s overall style that you couldn’t get on with, or you found the lack of meaningful communication frustrating rather than enchanting. Maybe you felt that you just couldn’t connect with the other players that seem so key to the experience.

Whether you loved, hated or couldn’t care less about Journey, we’d like to hear what you thought after playing it. No matter where you fall on the scale, you can share your opinion by dropping a comment below before Sunday afternoon. Once you’ve formed your comment, you’ll need to attach a rating to the game. With WeView we use the Buy It, Bargain Bin It, Rent It or Avoid It system, rather than a numeric scale. Simply pick whichever of those categories best reflects your views on the game and add it to your comment; voilà, you’re done.