Just finished the game and read everything in the game companion. I love Mythology and Lore and this game had so much depth I just wanted to see everything.
Be careful what you wish for... Or you may be bored to death. After an hour playing this one, I couldnt help but expel a massive yawn. It has tons of style, thats for sure, but it's also incredibly annoying, boring, confusing and short. And I cant see why people find it scary.
I guess I'll never be a games critic. It was a well-presented, finely-crafted, unique hour for sure. But now it's finished, deleted, and probably never going to go back on. These one-off arty experiences will never be GOTY contenders for me, because the most important factor - consistent fun - is missing.
I don't think I'm having fun with this, I'm not sure I'm quite "getting it". Atleast 20 minutes in, I'm not exactly thrilled.
I don't see how money comes into it. I think Year Walk was worth the price I paid. But if we're going to compare with movies: My movies of the year/all time = endlessly rewatchable My games of the year/all time = endlessly replayable That doesn't necessarily mean everything's lowest common denominator entertainment - I love games like Sword & Sworcery and Journey - but they're things I can come back to when the mood takes me. Year Walk...nah. It just never hits a memorable and entertaining high-point for me.
Ditto! That is how I felt last night. It's one of those onece and done with games. It's wasn't even that scary. I was expecting like dead space kind of scare. Still, worth $4 just for the presentation!
I just finished this a few minutes ago, and I'm still shaken up by it. Spoiler Wow, the 'true ending' was incredibly disturbing. And sad. I mean, the first ending was awful, too, but... ugh. I don't think I've played a game that's been quite so unrelentingly bleak before. And the added layer to the Companion App was a very nice touch. And the myriad jump scares scared the crap out of me, not even ashamed to say it. But... yeah.
This game is kicking my @$$..I've become the huldra's bitch..Damn her and her cryptic riddles..Im going to Burn her tree damnit!!
Right now, I won't even bother to read other posts for fear of learning some secrets about the game or spoilers. All I can say is this game is a gem. Highly polished and made with heart ! I am very pleased with the look of this game. The best part is, the mystery behind it. I don't really know what I'm looking for but I know I'm on a quest or " year walk" I'll give my full review when I complete the game in the next couple of days. Just an awesome game and companion.
Right now not liking the companion kinda boring but I'm sure that will change when I run into some numbers. Love the drawings though
Just for the sake of argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture These Best Picture winners, and the other nominees, to a lesser extent, are mostly all pretty heady experiences. Not necessarily films I could watch over and over again. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas isn't going to win any Academy Awards for Best Picture, but I could watch it all day long. The Artist, on the other hand, is deserving of all of its praise, but isn't something I can just throw on while hanging out with some friends. For what it's worth, I agree with you. My GOTY so far, and it would take a lot for it to change, is a game that relies heavily on consistent updates and great multiplayer content, giving it a tremendous amount of replayability. That being said, awards and accolades don't always take hours of gameplay into account, which is probably a good thing. Sometimes the experience needs to speak for itself.
To those who did not gain a positive experience from this game, I'd like to share some of my thoughts about it. Yes, the game is short. It is based on a real-life folklore tradition, so there isn't much reason to inflate the game to anything longer than 2-4 hours, because if you look up what an actual Year Walk is, I'd imagine it would be pretty short to do a real-life one. Much more short than in this game. Why artificially inflate a game's length to something unrealistic to its subject matter? The game already pushes it with the supernatural creatures it throws at the player, so what else could the devs do to force it to be longer than it needs to be? Alien invasions happen over days, weeks, months; tons of options for level design are open to games centered around that idea as a result. Managing a train station is another situation that naturally lends itself to repeated puzzle-type gameplay. In contrast, the best a Year Walk can give the player is a one-time, atmospheric experience, which the devs capitalized on. They worked with a flaw and ran with it. Also, the game has no "action game" moments. Thus, the engagement does not come from killing and/or domination. If you're looking for that in a horror game, you're playing the wrong game. You cannot kill these supernatural creatures, nor can you hide from them. They have powers and abilities far beyond yours, which makes them foreign to us. Their needs and desires are alien to ours. This is where the engagement of the game comes: by trying to understand these weird creatures and deciphering what it is they want from you, so they can allow you to move forward with your overall goal. In that respect, it's like an adventure game from the genre's heyday: it's the character interactions that drive you forward to your goal. Your character by themselves has nothing "special" about him that puts him on the level of these monsters, which leaves the character powerless before them. The monsters are above him, and he has no choice but to respect their wishes and acquiesce to their demands, and by extension, we must do the same if we want to see an end to the game, whether it is the "true" ending or not. Thus, the point is not to be "scared"; it is to be humbled IMHO. By debasing ourselves before these creatures, we gain something that we desire: a glimpse of the "future". If that bores your skin off your skull, then sorry dude. You played the wrong kind of game. Sincerely, Mr. Album
