Gadgetory

so I just finished everybody's gone to the rapture for the ps4 and I got to admit I liked it a lot more than I first expected to the thing is is that there's this genre of games that start of getting more and more popular in past couple years that places a heavier emphasis on the arts side of gaming rather than the mechanics and some people like to poke fun at these by calling them walking simulators because you basically spend ninety five percent of the game just walking around looking at stuff and to be honest this kind of game has never really grabbed my attention before there's been a couple that have gotten a lot of huge exposure but they just never really grabbed me I think part of it comes of the fact that growing up I really loved the game Myst which has similar elements but it's like taking that game and removing all the puzzle aspects to it which just feels weird to me personally the thing is though everybody's gone to the rapture has caused me to change my opinion just a little bit on this style of game and it mostly comes down to the fact that it just introduces a greater scope for the genre and represents a step forward to what I think it could really end up developing into so for those of you that have no idea what this game is the basic idea is that you start the game off by showing up in this town and have zero context for what's going on the only obvious thing is that all animal life is dead and there is no sign of any humans anywhere otherwise it's a pretty peaceful albeit very deserted town the whole premise is to explore and experience events in the town in order to piece together what exactly happened the whole thing is done by either following these orbs of light that guides you from important place to important place or activating other orbs of light which end up causing you to view memories of people that once lived in the town the town is divided into basically six major areas each of which focuses on a different person's history I'll get little bits and pieces of other characters but for the most part you're focusing on the storyline of each of these six individuals which you'll learn about by viewing memories by listening to telephone calls between them and other characters or by finding radios that constantly have narration from the character Kate and this is really all you do in the game you just walk around find things to watch interact with and just pay attention to all the little different minut details the game has in order to get the full gist of the story so let's talk about what the game does well which I think the biggest strengths by far is its aesthetics which are near perfect for conveying the kind of tone the game wants to have well there are a few weird graphical glitches here and there overall the design of the town the use of colors lighting and shadows just makes the whole thing look really beautiful I love the fact that even though it takes place in one small town there's clearly different terrain types and environments going on within different parts of it so it doesn't just feel like you're exploring one stagnant area it feels like a real part of the countryside you might see now as far as the music goes most of the games actually dead silent which is a good thing because it really kind of instills that feeling of loneliness and your characters are exploring this deserted town but while you're viewing certain memories or listen to certain very important phone calls the game will occasionally begin to strike up different kinds of music that really kind of drive up the either dramatic or religious or mysterious tones that the game likes to impart oftentimes these will play during these scenes and carry on a little afterwards before slowly subsiding back to the quiet loneliness you'll usually be hearing now the one thing that I think really helps to draw this one apart from a lot of other artistic games like this that focus on narrative and exploration is just the scope the game has to offer the whole town itself is rather sizable and there's a lot for you to look at there's lots of different little details different act available items that you can listen to that all give you different aspects of the story and it's possible to miss a lot of this on your first playthrough you know depending on how you like to approach a game of this style you could just blitz the whole thing and finish it in a few hours maybe a little longer but really the main point is to take your time exploring and find every little nook and cranny to understand the story the best that you can and doing so can actually extend the length of this game quite a bit hitting the low double digits or at least very late single digits the breadth of experiences that the game covers really is its strong suits because you're not just following one storyline you're seeing all these different aspects of different people's lives seeing how they interconnect finding out different side stories to each them and the whole thing just has this really strong emphasis on the ideas of relationships memories and the importance of what kind of legacy you leave behind once you've up and gone and disappeared like everyone in the town there's a whole lot this game has to offer for people willing to take their time to explore which is really great but there are some downsides to it as well first off those orbs of light I talked about that will help guide you around to the most important sections of towns well those don't always work out the way they should I've had a couple times where one of them gets stuck in a wall and just is trapped there or I walk up to it and it does absolutely nothing which it's not necessary to follow them to complete the game but it's one of the better ways to pace out experiencing all the different memories so having them not work is a really weird problem that detracts from the rest of the experience my other and far bigger complaint though is that for how much this game has in it it just feels like it's still incomplete in many ways not that what's here is bad but that it just could have been even more there's a lot of buildings in the town that you just simply can't enter either because the door is locked for some reason the door doesn't have a handle and there's a lot of situations where you can find like outdoor sheds that have windows and if you look inside them it's just a barren empty room not even having a floor just having grass textures inside of it so what it ends up feeling like is the game is just guiding you to all of what it considers the important areas and tries it's best to distract you from all the places you can't go or areas that just clearly look undetailed it's not enough to completely nullify what this game has to offer but it just makes you think about what it really could have been if the entire town was completely detailed as opposed to just the bits and pieces they wanted to have stand out now keeping that in mind I still think that the rest this game has to offer is still well worth exploring and pretty worth the 20 bucks you know I could definitely see someone wanting to wait for a sale but as it stands right now I don't feel bad about how much I spent on it the thing is is that pretty obviously though this game is not meant for everyone if you're looking for something with action or puzzles or really anything that most people would consider to be a traditional semblance of game play mechanics you're not gonna find that here but if you're willing to put those feelings aside and instead of focus on the three things this game does care about exploration aesthetic and narrative then there's a lot that everybody's gone to the rapture has to deliver on I do think that the formula for the style of genre is still very unrefined but at the same time everybody's gone to the rapture is a great sign of growth and the kind of game we can eventually get where we're seeing large open areas with a much greater degree of detail within them like I said it's not for everyone but if you want a game that delivers on a beautiful aesthetic and an interesting form of narrative this is definitely one of the new titles to keep your eye on and pick up when you get the chance well those were my thoughts on everybody's gone to the rapture as always if you enjoyed this video hit that thumbs up button to let me know as well subscribe and follow me on Twitter I'll be seeing guys soon with more great content but until then I'm Kevin Kenson and I'll see you guys later