Journey

(Everything written in this review is my personal opinion, I'm trying to give you an idea of what the game is like. If you find it interesting, play it yourself and create your own opinion... But holy shit this game is unbelievable)

As a person who's not written a review of anything in over two years, and is for the most part against it, every once in a while something comes around that makes me feel something. That has such a powerfull impact on me that I just simply need to write down my feelings. Journey is simply one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

I've been a fan of Thatgamecompany for some time, I absolutely loved Flower and it's beautiful ways, the artistic direction and how it really said something about the world and what we're doing to it. When I first heard about Journey a year or so ago, I was intruiged. But as soon as I saw the first screenshot I was sold, and have been patiently waiting for it's release since. I can honestly say I was more hyped for this game than I was for Mass effect 3, and that's saying alot. I build these sky high expectations in my head (knowing how stupid that is and that I probably shouldn't). I was expecting it to be amazing, and a game that will take video games to a new level. Where my expectations met? They were surpassed. Journey turned out to be one of the best games I've ever played, probably THE best game I've ever played

In the game you play as a character made out of cloth. You wake up in the middle of a huge desert. And at this point you really don't know what you're doing there or why you're there. As you slowly make your way up a hill, a huge mountain appears in the horizon, and you immediatly know "that's where I'm going". You don't know why, but you need to get to that mountain. And there starts Journey. On the way to the mountain you'll find ruins of a ancient civilization, and there's a neat story in there that I'm not going to talk about since you need to experience it yourselves. It's not clear what the story is, or what lies beyond that mountain, but that's what's so wonderfull about it. It's open for interpretation, meaning you really decide for yourself what the game is about. Also giant stone-snake things, sand waterfalls/or sand-falls (there's creative writing for you), and occationaly another player. You can't interact with them in any traditional way, so how you communicate is totaly up to you. This really makes for very interesting moments where you can really understand eachother without saying anything, it's beautiful.

The game looks absolutely amazing, the visuals are breathtaking and together with the music it completely draws you into the game, I wasn't able to put the controller down for a second. It took be about 2 hours to complete, but those two hours were worth it. Occasionaly I would just stop and look at the amazing artistic work they did on the game. The sound and music, as mentioned, works really well and takes it to emotional highs I never thought possible in a video game. What I find so goddamn amazing about this game is how strongly it affected me emotionally. I actually teared up in multiple parts of the game, sometimes just by how beautiful it was, and other times because it was just such powerful experience. I'm an artsy-fartsy guy but I'm pretty damn proud of it. I will never forget those last fews minutes of the game, I'm just sayin... holy shit.

I keep calling it a game but it feels kinda wrong, this is simply something that hasn't been done before. It's more powerfull than any other game, movie, book or piece of music I've experienced. It is just that, an experience, an amazing piece of art, it really really is. I'm trying my best not to sound too cheesy here. Like Alex said in his review, it shows the potential of what can really be done with the medium of Video Games. and maybe in a few years we'll have more games like Journey, games that don't try to be movies or simulate a war experince, but games that have the guts to do something different and use the medium to it's full potential. THIS is interacitve entertainment.