Sunday, 10 January 2016

The best game I've never played

Way back in blog one I mentioned the wife... She doesn't really play games and anytime she has it's been for short bursts that see her freak out at how many buttons she has to use or get really wound up when I Red Shell her derriere in Mario Kart.

This hobby of mine needs shared however (or forced upon people, depending who you ask) and one day a game got announced that instantly made me say "I'm going to watch the wife play that."

Until Dawn isn't the type of game I’d normally play. A great big portion of it is watching stuff and if I’m going to watch stuff then it really should be Mad Men or one of the highbrow productions on Cartoon Network. The wife likes watching stuff and she also likes horror movies.

The story of this game sees a bunch of teenagers spending their weekend in some cabin in the woods. How original, eh? We've seen it before and every time we do the wife has said things like "Run you stupid b@%$h," or "Stab him in face!"

Yes I fear for my safety too.

So the wife’s now in control of her horror movie stereotypes and the choices are all hers. Those choices are weirdly nearly all the complete opposite of what I’d pick myself.. You're being chased towards a door, you drop a key and your girlfriend trips. I'm thinking pick up your girlfriend, keep them all alive because that has to be the aim of the game and that’s what any heroic protagonist would do. The wife gets the key, opens the door and mutters something like "to hell with her." The game decides she made the right choice and both survive. Round 1 to the wife.

You meet a vicious looking wolf/big dog and you've got a weapon in your hand. A button prompt flashes on screen and you've got seconds to hit it or that dogs going to eat you alive. "Press the button you idiot!" I screech. Now if you're judging me then you probably cry more at films when a dog dies than a person. You probably also don't play games because you'd be all too aware that animals in games are blooming annoying. There was a badger in Far Cry that was harder to kill than a group of twenty mercenaries. The little shit. Anyway, back to the dog... Well you've guessed already. She didn't hit it because the wife would never hurt a dog, not even in games. It didn't attack her either, no instead it just wanted a petting and even helped us out later in the game. Round 2 to the wife.

I make it sound like all my choices were wrong when in reality I don't know. The game gives you choices and the story takes its course based on whatever decisions you've made. I still haven't played it but whilst watching it I was already contemplating how my play through would be different, how I’d keep them all alive. It's genius and it's a big part of why the wife was kept engaged for about six or seven hours over a week. She couldn't really fail, just get a different result. She could fail in Mario Bros. And Wii Sports. And countless other games but if I mention them all she'll probably stab me in the face.

The other glorious part of the game is of course the scares. It is a horror game. Stuff jumps out at you, things makes noise in the distance and characters run away from scary things whilst the player has to press the right button at the right moment or they'll trip over that log and be a bit closer to dead. The wife got scared a lot. She jumped out of her skin, cowered behind the protection of a PlayStation controller and said "no no no no no nono NONO NOOOOO," till she ran out of breath. I laughed at her each and every time.

Round 3 to me.


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