Journey (2012)

For economical backlog-reducing purposes, it makes absolutely no sense to buy new items for full price, consume them immediately, and end up with the exact same backlog, down a few dollars and out a few hours. Yet that's exactly what I did last night with Journey, a $15 PlayStation Network game that's all the rage right now. My reasoning had to do with the current popularity of the game and its semi-dependence on online multiplayer (to be explained later on); great games remain great years after their prices go way down, and I've waited a while to get games on sale before, but Journey seemed like a game that should be experienced as soon as possible, and at $15 I knew the price wasn't ever really going to plummet. So just what is Journey? It's a beautifully minimalistic game in which you control a vague robed figure on a... wait for it... journey. There's no text, not even as a background story of sorts, and there are no spoken words or facial expressions. The game consists of traversing seven different levels on your way to a mysterious glowing mountain summit. There's some very light puzzle solving involved, and there are a few collectibles that have little impact on the gameplay and probably exist solely to earn you a PS3 trophy. There are no enemies to attack and defeat, there is no health bar, and there are no time limits; Journey very much consists solely of walking (sometimes swimming or flying or gliding) toward a far off goal. If you aren't sold yet, I don't blame you. Release an 8-bit emulation of this game, and it'd be panned beyond belief. "No story, no enemies, and no challenge? What the hell is the point?" Luckily, we live in 2012, where games can be considered "art," and where elegant world design and emotion-stirring music can be considered just as impressive as a challenging boss fight or a powerful new weapon. We also live in an era wherein we can share our gaming experiences with total strangers online. This isn't usually a good thing. Internet anonymity, after all, enables the very worst of human behavior, where racist and sexist threats can be shouted and where trolling, hacking, and friendly fire are only slightly discouraged or punished. But where a game like Halo makes you hate race-baiting shit-spewing teammate-killing preteens unconditionally, Journey has found a way to embrace the concept of Internet anonymity. Along your titular journey, you're accompanied occasionally by one other player. His (or her) goal is the same ambiguous one as yours; make it to the top of the mountain. Communication is impossible, beyond a series of chirping noises you can make by pressing a certain button. You know nothing about these occasional companions, as even "gamertag" info is withheld. You're never accompanied by more than one person at any given time, so there are never any giant coalitions. You can't intentionally play with a friend. You can't attack or otherwise get in the way of any companions, nor is any competition possible since there's no metric such as "score" to gauge performance. The only technical difference between having a companion and not having one is that whenever these two robe figures come within a very close physical distance of each other, they can each jump higher and run faster. It's never mandatory to use a teammate to beat the game, and to the best of my knowledge even every collectible is obtainable while flying solo. The thing is, in a vast and mostly empty world, it's human nature not to want to be alone. I gained no real benefit from sticking with another player, but this very primal urge existed inside me not to leave his (or her) side when possible. And I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the same urge existed in whatever physical person existed on the other side of the game. Whether he was a little kid, a grown man, or a series of people hanging out passing the controller back and forth, whether he was a total asshole or an awesome guy, and whether or not we even spoke the same language or lived in the same country, this companion presumably enjoyed and appreciated my companionship as much as I did his. (Or hers. No way to know.) Of course, that's just an assumption, and it wasn't even the case for every companion I met along my journey. Several people, perhaps playing the game for a second time, just didn't feel like sticking by my side when I went off to take a little exploration detour, or didn't wait up for me to take their own little detour. At least once, I legitimately felt abandoned. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of all the praise the game had received when, after six of seven levels, I just hadn't been "wowed" by the overall experience. But then that seventh and final level took place on the snowy slopes of the mountain itself, and I had to face howling winds and vast unscalable cliffs, and as my little robed figure grew colder and colder (visually, his robe became more and more snow-covered and his gait became slower and slower) I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to brave these horrifying virtual conditions. I got my wish, and in the most memorable part of my personal journey, my final companion and I trudged up an enormously wide and expansive hill practically on top of one another, almost as if each of us was craving the virtual warmth of another virtual body. I won't spoil the ending - though what can one spoil in a game that takes place absent of any context? - but by the time the credits were rolling, I had been moved and satisfied. The game ultimately felt a bit brief, even for a downloadable title; I'm not exaggerating when I say it took me longer to download and install (three hours) than it did to beat (two-ish?) and at $15 it ran a tad expensive for what it was. But "what it was" was still something very unique and enjoyable, and I'd definitely recommend the experience to anyone with a PS3. I'll certainly be back someday for another playthrough, even though I don't imagine the experience will be all that different.