17 July, 2016

Keepalive: Journey, Tales From The Borderlands

written by Blain Newport on Sunday, 17 July 2016


I don't really know why I dropped Yakuza 4.  I suppose when a game has multiple acts the places between are natural stopping points.  And the last act of Yakuza 4 features Kazuma Kiryu, the most known quantity since he's the protagonist of the first three games.  Plus the Yakuza games all sort of drown in their own melodrama near the end.  I'll get back to it when I want to wander the Kamurocho again, but there's no rush.

Earth Defense Force 4.1 should be out tomorrow.  They're still not taking orders and the Steam page is so bare bones it doesn't even name the four classes...  please don't suck.


Journey (4 of 5)


Journey is an game for PS3 by thatgamecompany.  You are randomly paired with other people online as you explore ancient, somewhat alien ruins.  It's pretty and atmospheric.  There's not a huge amount to it, but it's a good experience.


Tales From The Borderlands (3 of 5)


TFTB is an adventure game from Telltale set in the world of Borderlands, a series of first person shooters from Gearbox.

It sucks being smarter than the characters in an adventure game.  Watching them keep secret or blurt out information you know they shouldn't (and knowing almost precisely what the consequences will be) is bad enough in other media, but games ostensibly give you control, so it's particularly galling.  That happened in Life Is Strange.  But it was worse in TFTB.  At some level it's not about being smarter as much as knowing story-telling tropes.  But it undercuts the experience regardless.

That aside, TFTB is about what I expect from a Telltale game: pretty good writing and characters, player decisions that I want to engage with but are mostly cosmetic, and mediocre QTEs.  I knew all that going in and got what I expected.

No comments: