Category: Video Game journal

After a break, I realized that I was wrong. The puzzles are indeed both creative and a bit complex. The ability to take control of someone else, who then takes control of someone else makes for a very satisfying reaction when you overcome the obstacle.

This game makes me more anxious than the previous one I played since I constantly must keep running away from things and avoid being spotted. However, there are some portions that make me feel at peace. One of these instances is when I take the submarine and plunge deep into the water for the first time. The music here is key. It reminded me of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy and how the music plays an important role in the nostalgia for replaying those games. More specifically, the music during this part of the game reminded me of the aquatic ambiance music from DKC. 

I swear this game is catching me off guard sometimes since my deaths are mostly because it tends to hurl obstacles at you and my reactions are a bit late. 

As I progressed through the game, I found that I needed to take control of the figures more and more. It seems like it is quite the opposite of Limbo, where you are the one being controlled for some areas of the game.

I continued, but there are two parts that stuck out to me. The first was the seismic wave which blew me apart a few times, and then the mermaid. The mermaid was very interesting because I felt like I was being trained to avoid her since she was aggressively chasing me, however, once she inevitably got ahold of me, I felt that the game was over. I would not have been surprised since I feel like the developers tend to make ambiguous endings like that. Surprisingly though, I was still alive and continued my journey.

 I found that once I entered the factory again, the puzzles got a bit harder. Many of them now required me to avoid and time things closely at the same time. It reminded me of the Limbo factory obstacles, although these were on another level. I had more trouble here and I got stuck on certain parts, like the section where I had to stack boxes that would propel me upwards. 

I have noticed that the game is both unsettling and calming. It is unsettling since there are a ton of dead or zombie-like people but is also calming since the scenery feels like it would be something straight out of a dream. 

I felt like throughout the game everything was working against me, from nature to the people chasing me. I worked through situations where I was against the current, but here it was different. Once I began to break into the facility, everything was different. There were many people there, but I was not faced with any resistance. It was odd to the point that I did not know what to do or where to go. Eventually, I consulted a guide where I found that I had to move things around to get inside the water tank in front of me. 

Nothing could prepare me for what I saw once I got in… I did not even know what I was looking at or how to feel about it. I approached it and took off the mind control caps and then I was consumed. I had a feeling that I knew where this was going, and I began to control the thing. It was a mess of bodies stuck together. I felt like I was controlling a wild animal, and then I burst out going on a rampage! 

This portion of the game is the most unnerving, the sounds of the groans emanating from the player, the screams from the other people, and the change in movement really took me by surprise. It was the first time in this game that I felt like I had power, specifically, the power to destroy, kill, and make my own fate. Another surprising aspect is that the other normal people, who I thought were against me, began to help me escape which made me a little better.

This leads me to the ending. The ending results in our escape but inevitable death. I see this as a fitting end since our character was clearly in pain and confused. The good nature of the ending is also symbolized by the beam of light shining down on the dead corpses. Of the two endings, I feel like this is the more solidified since we are now dead. Unlike Limbo, we do not have any other reasons to hypothesize what will happen next. The overall story here became clearer since I concluded that I became a part of the experiment and was trying to escape from what were most likely government forces. 

Overall, I feel like while this was more stressful than Limbo, it was a great game nonetheless, the scenery and the gameplay made it very interesting to play and hard to put down the controller. 

Since I finished the game, I wanted to go back and finish collecting the last few trophies that I missed. They were a couple of achievements that required me to go looking for something, but after some research I found exactly where I needed to go. I saw that there was a free roam option but before that I wanted to test something. I was curious if the choices that I made had any effect on the intro narrative. So I made a new game and chose all the options that I didn’t pick in my first playthrough, but it didn’t really change the final outcome and it only altered a few minor details. After that, I loaded into the free roam and made it to the area I needed to go! I got some pretty cool side story for each of the achievements which was pretty nice! That makes me which there some other side stories like that since the park is so huge. After that I just wandered. I wandered around trying to look at all of the places that I didn’t get a chance to look at before. During my exploring I realized that the combination of the music and scenery reminded me of Minecraft. It brought back nostalgia from when I would be on Minecraft for hours just exploring and walking through different biomes in hopes of discovering giant caves or ravines. I felt like it was a good time to relax since I was having a stressful day with all of the assignments that I had to do. I wonder if they will make a sequel with different characters, or if they would make a prequel exploring the stories of the other rangers who came before me. After wandering for a while, I realized that I have been roaming for almost an hour. While I enjoyed seeing the beautiful sights in the game, I had to go to sleep since it was almost 2pm. I hope that I can come back to this game again soon, especially since fall break is coming up!

I finished the game… I honestly did not think that it would be this short, but here we are! I have mixed feelings about the ending, since some things did not happen the way I would have wanted them to, and I wonder if that is due to my choices or not. The ambiguity of the ending is not what left me empty, it is the abrupt ending to the friendship between me and Delilah. In the end we talk about how we might see each other agin but it does not feel very impactful, I feel like if we would have known a little more about her, then us leaving without her would have had more meaning. I also saw the twist from a mile away, ever since we talked about Ned and how he was a bit sketchy, I knew that he was probably an antagonist in some sort of way. What I did not expect was for Brian to be dead in the cave. But at the same time I did not feel too impactful since we did not talk about them that much. I just feel like there should be some cutscene or more dialogue to create give us a better idea of who these characters are. I read online that most people were upset that there was not some grand conspiracy, but I am ok with the absence of one. The game already dealt with themes of letting go and moving on, which are both ever present, especially in the dialogue. After I finished the game I went to go look at the Playstation trophies and I saw that I am missing a few, not including the main storyline ones. These are mainly some extra things I have to discover so I will go back in the weekend to see if I can find them. The completionist in me cannot let that go! Overall, it is a very thought provoking game, although I feel like it needs a little more backstory to make the certain events and characters feel more meaningful. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my playthrough and would recommend it to anyone who wants to play a relaxing, yet powerful game

9/19

Brandon Rojas

I continued off from my last entry, and I played for about 1 hour. I started the day off by fixing the window which was shattered the last time I played. Surprisingly, after that and some quick dialogue with Delilah, I skipped a few days, and ended up in the night. Then I witnessed quite a sight, a forest fire at night. I have not seen one of these in person, but even in the video game it was a horrid yet intruiging sight. It is a very sad sight since it displaces animals and destroys nature, but it something that must be rare to witness, not that I would want to!! After that there was an even bigger leap in days, I honestly was not expecting such a leap but at the same time we need to get through the summer, and I do not think that the game would be THAT long.

There was a sequence that caught me off guard, when I talked to Julia. I can’t tell if that was a dream or not, but I was definitely not expecting to talk to her. I didn’t really like any of the choices of dialogue that I had, and even I did not know what to say. I wasn’t sure whether I should be serious or let my guard down, andI felt like it was such an awkward conversation. I low-key think that they might pull a Joker and say that either Julia or Delilah doesn’t exist, I would not be surprised if something like ether were to happen since this game seems to have some darker aspects at play. After that there was a long and kind of uninteresting hike where I was supposed to get supplies, and was pretty uneventful.

The next instance that caught me off guard was at the lake. I was told to look for prints around the shore, but after 6 minutes of looking and scouring the internet for an answer, it turned out that I did not even need to look for tracks, and insteadI I needed to inspect a clipboard that I blatantly ignored in top of a rock. That is when things started to speed up, since the paper had transcripts of our conversation, and soon after I found a walkie talkie that looks like mine but red. Immediately right after that I got hit over the head by someone, and fell unconscious. I got startled because I was sitting in the dark alone, I was thinking that I made a wrong decision but I woke up and started telling my boss what happened.

Based on what I told her she informed me to go to a new area called Wapiti meadow, which was where the gate I found last time. I assumed that I wasn’t going to get it open, and therefore radioed in anticipation. After some talk about how I’m not RIPPED, she told me to go down to a firefighter camp down in the bottom right corner in the map. There was another long hike, where I took my time to see if I can find any secrets, which I sadly did not. There was a bridge leading to the campsite but it was broken, and after looking at the time I realized I had to leave real soon.

I decided to torture myself and stopped playing right there, I will probably play more this upcoming week since I did not have much time this weekend. I am really anxious to see what will happen next!!

-Brandon Rojad

9/12/21

This is my first entry for my journal, I got home today and played Firewatch for a little more than 1 hour and got the first 2 days done. First impressions of this game are that it is very relaxing. Usually for the games that I play, I am sitting up because they are very fast paced. I did not expect the first section to contain choices, and I assumes there will be implications that are yet to be seen. I found it funny how my choice of the drawing appeared later on, which was a nude drawing:(). Just like the trailer, the game is very beautiful, an eerie aspect of it is that there is little to no music! Most of the only sounds are just nature!!! After the choices and exposition in the beginning, we are introduced to the two main characters, Henry (me) and Delilah (my supervisor), based on the trailer our relationship looks like it’s become complex and perhaps romantic in the future.The storyline so far is interesting, and it seems like a very relatable story, since sometimes you need a break in life and people may find themselves in this situation, where they need an escape. While things may seem innocent, I still have that feeling deep inside of me that there is gonna be a twist at the end. There are certain things to confirm my suspicions such as the gated fields and cave, and the fact that we cannot go see Delilah. The conversations between my character and Delilah’s is is pretty much small talk with a little bit of information sprinkled here and there. I’m not gonna lie, I went exploring for a bit, and I felt a little but like a kid because I wanted to explore all of the park at once. I stopped right when I started Day 3 since I did not want to get too ahead of myself, and I want to take things slow. I can see why people call this the “walking simulator”, but it is still playable, due to the chill atmosphere and intriguing storyline! I hope to play more soon!!

Brandon Rojas

9/5/21