Critique#1 Journey&The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim

Journey

Journey is an indie game developed by Thatgamecompany and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation3 and PlayStation4. It is an interactive parable, an anonymous online adventure to experience a person’s life passage and their intersections with other’s.

Entering the world of Journey, the player will find himself walk alone and surrounded by miles of burning, sprawling desert, and soon discover the looming mountaintop which is his goal. Faced with rolling sand dunes, howling winds, age-old relics, castles, the journey will not be an easy one. The goal is to get to the mountaintop, however I think the experience is actually discovering and evoking the player’s internal unawakened emotion.

Reviewers of the game praised the visual and auditory art, calling it a moving and emotional experience and honoring it as “game as art”. In my point of view, Journey should be definitely listed as one of the greatest games of all time.

Mechanics

• Simple micro loop: find item (objective), collect item (challenge), increase ability (reward).

• The fluidity of movement of the main character: To give the player an incredibly natural, accessible motion, the artists have not bound themselves by a typical human form, which would demand certain behaviours. The gliding and floating mechanics work because the cloaked figure, with legs that end in single points, is as fluid as the movement itself.

• Singing: It will help the player collect strips of fabric that are nearby and will harmonize with other cloth players in the world.

• Solving puzzles: Journey is created with a lot of puzzles. The player needs to use the movement of the main character to solve puzzles.

• Level design: Journey has five levels which are designed to be more and more difficult step by step.

• Cooperation between two players: In each level, the player may come across another player temporarily connected to their game. Two players can meet and assist each other, but can only help each other by activating strips of cloth or showing paths. When players approach each other, they charge one another’s scarves. If two players finish a section at the same time they remain together into the next one; otherwise they are connected to new players when they move on.

• The use of signs and feedback: to help the player understand the game systems, Journey uses signs and feedback. The clearest evidence of signs within Journey are landmarks and collectibles.

Dynamics

• Although there's an end goal to Journey, the hidden mysteries of the world encourage multiple playthroughs. The player can choose to complete the main story or to discover other unknowns.

• The game can be both competitive and cooperative. The player can choose to play the game alone or to cooperate with other player. No matter what the player chooses, it doesn’t affect the completion of end goal but definitely the experience will be different.

• There are hostile NPCs on the main road. The player can choose to go small road which doesn’t exist any hostile NPC.

• There are many achievements in game waiting for players to discover, for example, the meditation for 20 seconds.

Aesthetics

• expression

Journey is actually an adventure to experience a person’s life passage which can be described exactly as journey. On the journey, people discover themselves and look for the answers of who they are, where they go and why they go. They are faced with different states of life, for example, happiness, loneliness, fear and so on. Journey has struck a responsive chord in the hearts of its players.

• Discovery

Although it has main story, the player can discover the endless territory and encounter glowing symbols to lengthen the initially vestigial scarf which allows the player to remain airborne longer.

• Sensation

The stunning visuals and a Grammy-nominated musical score create a breathtaking experience, making the player feel like experiencing the world with a sense of identification between himself and the protagonist.

• Fantasy

Journey has created an incredible magnificent and fantastic environment. Surrounded by burning, sprawling desert, howling winds, age-old ruins, castles, flowing snow, starry sky, I was almost lost myself in the game.It made me immerse in this fantastic world.

• Fellowship

In each level, the player may come across another player temporarily connected to their game. When players approach each other they charge one another’s scarves. Even though they cannot communicate with each other beyond patterns of singing, surrounded by this endless environment, they don’t feel lonely anymore and start to trust and help each other heart and soul which creates a magical fellowship between two strangers.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) is the latest installment of the famous The Elder Scrolls series produced by Bethesda Game Studios. Like the other installments of the series, Skyrim is an action RPG with non-linear gameplay, which means, open world. In fact, even after several years, it still might be one of the greatest open world games in the generation.

The main story of Skyrim takes place in the province of Skyrim in Tamriel, which is a fictional continent. The player shall act as a Dragonborn, which is a mortal with soul of a Dragon, and defeat the destructive Dragon-god Alduin to save the world. But to be such a hero is not the only thing that the player can do. Skyrim is more like a sandbox game, consisting of huge and delicately designed systems, but not limiting the player’s possible choices.

Like many other sandbox game, Skyrim has drawbacks of story arrangement. Also its XBOX 360-targeted UI is neither familiar nor friendly to traditional PC players. But anyway I should say that Skyrim is a fabulous game, although it still has space to improve.

Mechanics

• Libraries of items, dialogs and events respectively for random generation.

• No limitation to bind the player to his main task.

• A system to calculate the hero’s attributes and skills with a level-based concept. Though the play has to make a decision about what sort of character he wants eventually, the system let the play experiments with different skills, weapon and armor types.There are no major or minor skills, nor do you have to choose a rigidly-defined class.

• A system simulating the fictional “reality” by computing the attributes of money, loads, stamina, etc.

• Freedom to allocate the skill points. Unlike other RPGs, the play doesn’t gain experience points by turning in quests of defeating enemies. Instead, the play earns experience towards individual skills just using them.

• Support of user-defined MODs.

Dynamics

• The player can choose to complete the main story or not. There’re various branch stories and dungeons to explore.

• Tasks, quests and dialogs are generated randomly. Hostile and friendly NPCs can be seen almost everywhere. The player makes use of them.

• The player is encouraged to practice the hero’s skills frequently to raise the skills levels. He cannot finish the story with a low-level character. In addition, the combat operation itself is hard enough to make the game challenging.

• The player can develop the hero’s skills and combat styles in multiple ways without the need of playing a completely different story.

• MODs are allowed to be used in Skyrim. The player can adjust his visual experience to what more to his liking.

Aesthetics

• Sensation

Skyrim provides the player splendid visual and auditory experience, making him feel like experiencing the world with a sense of identification between himself and the hero.

• Discovery

The player explores the world and experiences the hero’s life with great freedom of making decisions. Switches between classes and collection of items are really fun.

• Expression

The player can find out what kind of person he’d love to be since the “life” he experiences in Skyrim is reasonable enough to be similar to a “real” life on some scale.

• Submission

Skyrim never force the player into rushing to the end. The non-linear gameplay allows the player to relax and enjoy the game whenever he has time and wish to play.