Sometimes I get very drunk. Most of the time this is on purpose. Like most people I have the ability to make purchases entirely too easily and the other night this resulted in me upgrading my PS-Plus account to the "extra" stage. This resulted in me having access to around 100 games that I didn't have access to before and seeing as how I only have a few months left on my account and I am not sure if I am going to renew I figured I needed to get cracking on checking out these new games.
For my experiment I am ignoring any games that I have heard about before such as Assassins' Creed or other AAA studio releases because we already know so much about those kind of titles. Instead I am focusing on minor, mostly indie studios and the games that they have in the list. I do not look at the previews or reviews of them, I just download at will and dedicate an hour or so to each game in the attempt to find some hidden gems. Thus far I have found 1 and a half such games in Spirtfarer (full point) and Unfolded (half point.) The rest failed to capture my attention immediately and that is all I am looking for in this search. I'm not interested in playing a game to completion unless it captures and maintains my interest throughout. This is a tough thing to accomplish with me because I am an older gamer and games that are too difficult or too dialogue or cutscene filled are going to chase me away.
So there aren't going to be very many games that suit me and I am aware of this. I just think back to the days on my NES when a game had to immediately get your attention and keep you there, not that we had a choice though since we couldn't just jump online (internet didn't exist) and get another game if we didn't like the one we already had.
Today we jump into the rhythm pace game called Entwined
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I've played a few games like this in the past and my reaction to this one was very similar to the way I felt about all the others that I have played like it: It is fun for a while, very easy to pick up, and is visually appealing. Maybe I am not stoned enough to truly appreciate this sort of game but while I was entertained for about 30 minutes I quickly lost interest and can't really relate to how anyone would be interesting in this, or any other rhythm pace game, for a long period of time. 1 hour was enough and I liked it, but I would be disappointed if I had spent money on it.
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In this game you control two spirits of sorts, one is a bird and one is a fish, and they fly down a tube and need to go through various color-coded things that appear in the distance in order to fill up their spirit gage before ending the level. Then the process repeats as the things you have to fly through become more and more complicated.
That's basically the entire game
If you have some nice headphones or a kick-ass soundsystem this would be the time to fire those up just like in other games that are like this one. It focuses on being an immersive otherworldly experience and what makes this fun is that it is really easy to pick it up right away. At least to the point that I made it to in an hour you don't have to use any of the buttons but rather just control one character with the left control stick and the other with the right. It's simple and visually stunning.
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At the end of each of the stages the two spirits merge or entwine i guess after passing through enough of the color-coded checkpoints. This results in you merging the two creatures into I think it is a dragon and free-flying through another area that is more calm to collect glowing pods and just gliding around. It is less stressful than the other portions because you don't really have to quickly react. You could just cruise around for hours in there if you really wanted to as I don't believe there is any sort of time-limit and this is good. If there was a time-limit I would say that the flight controls in this portion of the game are a bit cumbersome and weird - but that could just be my own fault by virtue of not being a very gifted gamer.
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What makes this game good is that anyone with two hands or ever a couple of skilled feet can play it. There is no learning curve and your ability to get through the levels is all but guaranteed. This is one of those games where I guess some people out there on planet Earth chase high scores. I haven't participated in that sort of thing for at least 2 decades so that didn't matter to me at all.
The bad side of this game is that while it would perhaps be a good party game that can easily be enjoyed by all, it starts to become repetitive and dare i say, boring, after just half an hour or so. I easily made it through the first 3 stages and at that point, when I saw that the game wasn't changing very much, I switched it off and decided to move on to the next one.
While visually stunning and has a wonderful musical score, I think I would feel duped if I had actually paid any money for this. I guess I can recommend this game to anyone that has access to it for free but I certainly wouldn't pay any money for it.
On to the next one!
Games played so far in my trip through all the "Extra" games on Playstation Plus
- Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
- Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
- Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
- Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
- Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
- Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
- The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)
- Megadimension Neptunia VII (typical JRPG with some adjustments made to combat for uniqueness. Could be fun and I lukewarmly recommend for someone willing to dedicate 50 hours to a turn-based RPG)
- Monster Jam: Steel Titans 2 (monster truck racing game that will appeal only to people who are already fans of the sport - not recommended for any other people)
- Entwined (Visually appealing rhythm pace game that is very easy to pick up but gets repetitive after 30 minutes or so - recommended for anyone that can get it for free.)