Overdue Reviews is an occasional series in which I pretend to be a videogame journalist. This week: Journey on PC.
Journey is an award winning Playstation game with consistently high reviews and a Metacritic score of 92. I've played it for forty five minutes and I already disagree.
It wasn't the accessibility problems, but they didn't help. The menus that provided no indication that options could be changed using the left and right arrows, leaving me cluelessly pressing and clicking until I finally guessed. Or the keyboard hint overlays during the game that I followed to no effect, leaving me convinced I was standing slightly in the wrong place or simply being stupid.
It wasn't the bugs, although they were very annoying. The inability of the game to invert the mouse, even though I tried every possible option. The way the camera would occasionally randomly spin around my character while standing in an open area, or how a direction control would apparently stick, leaving me running unbidden in the wrong direction.
The thing that I really didn't like was one of the main features of Journey.
During play, other players can appear in the game with you. You have no idea who the other player is and no way of communicating with them. You can't hurt each other, but you can choose to co-operate or ignore the other player as you like.
I'm sure this has led to many wonderful moments for many players but my experience of it went something like this. I started playing the game, didn't know exactly what I was doing, then suddenly someone came in and started playing it for me.
I didn't get to do those things or find them out for myself, because that other player already knew what to do and was one step ahead of me. I missed out on the joy of discovery. It was like having the controller snatched from my hands by an elder sibling, leaving me sitting empty handed to watch while they played on. I did not enjoy that.
Whether Journey is worth the accolades bestowed upon it is something I may never know for sure, having been so put off by my initial experience. Will I play it again? It's been nearly a month, and I've had no impulse so far.