Nerdful Things – We Need More Games Like ‘A Way Out’

Remember and get discounted wallet top ups and PS+/XBox Live Gold subscriptions for your PlayStation/XBox, FIFA Coins and so much more over at Electronic First

 

EA is a company that most either love to hate or, perhaps, downright hate.  But you can’t fault them (usually, anyway) when it comes to original ideas.  Mirror’s Edge  was truly groundbreaking and a pleasing change for first-person games.  Fe, as confusing as it is beautiful again showcases how originality can change the face of gaming.  And then, there’s Unravel which I am yet to play but it and its sequel look great.  For a company that churns out sequel after sequel, if you can call them that in regards to the various licensed sports games they publish, and clearly have a passion for loot boxes and micro-transactions, it seems bizarre to love a company that screams capitalism in your face while violating your bank balance.

A Way Out is a game that has stunned me.  It has allowed me some thoughts I otherwise would never have conjured.  Firstly, it is a brilliant story.  With twists and turns that evoke emotions and depict scenes reminiscent of the likes of Scarface, Heat and The Shawshank Redemption among countless others.  The movie references and influences ooze out the game like the blood from a gut-shot.  The game is not your AAA type of title; the graphics won’t blow you away in the way Hideo Kojima‘s project do but they do the job and that’s perfectly fine because the focus is the gameplay.  You have to play with someone else.  No seriously, the focus is on working together with a friend (either locally or online) to complete the game.  If there’s only one of you, unless you try to work two controllers at once, you cannot play the game.

Seren, my eldest daughter, and I played the game through.  This isn’t her type of game; she loves Apex Legends, Fortnite, The Sims 4, Paladins, Minecraft, Hello Neighbour and whatever other games I’ve installed across two hard drives for her and her sisters to play.  She absolutely loved it.  It’s rare we play videogames together; we occasionally team up on Paladins or Fortnite(I prefer Paladins as I often get ‘Top Play’ and generally play better anyway) and, very rarely, we tackle some quests on The Elder Scrolls Online.  This game brought us together in a way unlike any other game.  She was engrossed with the story and kept asking me for the motivations behind Vincent or Leo’s actions.  We would discuss what we thought would happen next and we worked well together as a team.  The game isn’t overly taxing but does require elements of problem solving so we were running about finding things to fix a truck to make our getaway or covering each other with suppressing fire as we advance on our enemies.

Whether you’re playing locally or over the web, the gameplay is splitscreen and it added to the fun as I could direct her.  There are set pieces where you have to act as one such as shoulder charging a door during a thunder storm but timing it so the guards don’t hear the noise; counting us in and observing to see who went early and having a little go at the other is fun as well and reminded me of the bickering in Tango & Cash (a guilty pleasure movie of mine).  We didn’t complete the game in one sitting; we played the first couple of chapters and it was a few days before we eventually went back to it but she kept asking me when we were going to carry on.  It was a nice feeling; my independent little girl asking me when we could carry on with our gaming session.  I say “little girl” ironically as, despite her being ten (soon to be eleven in November) she is growing up rapidly.  She’s gone from wanting toys for birthdays and Christmases to wanting clothes (for some reason exclusively from River Island).

I was quite gutted when the game was over, although we did go back and get the alternative ending.  Unusual for me as, usually as soon as I have acquired the platinum trophy, the game gets deleted to free up crucial HDD space.  Infuriatingly, this is still an issue despite having a 2TB HDD internally and an external 5TB HDD.  Bizarrely, the game has no story related trophies – everything is an extra optional action or event so it is entirely possible to complete the game without ever achieving a trophy,.  This is a different approach and, to begin with, we didn’t bother with them and just enjoyed the teamwork and story.  there is a chapter select so we revisited the the relevant areas to pick the trophies up afterwards.

Co-operative games are not new but I feel like the way in which this has been done adds a new layer to it.  Having to have a co-op partner, although odd at first, grew on me.  I’m not much of a social gamer; usually opting to play single player and, if I do venture into multiplayer I go off and do my own thing.  I probably wouldn’t have bought this game due to this very reason.  Thanks to EA Access, EA’s online vault akin to PS Now or XBox Game Pass, I was able to experience this game and enhance my gaming enjoyment.  We just need more like this – but not to the point of over saturation, lest it become as tedious as an annual iteration of [insert sporting series here].

Remember and get discounted wallet top ups and PS+/XBox Live Gold subscriptions for your PlayStation/XBox, FIFA Coins and so much more over at Electronic First

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