Journey (PS3)

Score: 8.5
Ages: 7+
2012/2015

I suppose pretty much everyone has heard about the sensation that is Journey. It’s a short game with very limited gameplay but it’s been received with high praises almost everywhere. And yeah, everyone is right: it is a great game.

Since I played the game on PS3, unfortunately there’s no personal screenshots. The images on this review are captions taken from the game trailer and this playthrough video.

Journey is truly a beautiful game. It was re-released to PS4 in 2015 but the graphics of the PS3 version are certainly super lovely as well. The beauty doesn’t end with the visuals though, the whole overall feel and atmosphere of the game is enchanting.

In Journey the player controls an anonymous hooded figure through a desert, heading towards a mountain. The mysterious figure has to go through various surroundings to reach its goal. The different zones have some puzzles in them, and they tell the story only with symbols that leave a lot for the imagination.

I’d definitely say this is one of those games one should just experience. One should get a feeling of it like from any piece of art. There probably are no real answers. Different people interpret all the things in various ways.

Journey is quite an easy game. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to fail it in any way. The hooded figure jumps, glides and flies short distances, and communicates with a few different objects. The gameplay is simple yet pretty smooth. This makes Journey suitable for children too, though while it’s mainly very cute, it can also be pretty scary, so the age limit of 7 seems about right.

The game is short, probably takes just a couple of hours to play through, even with some extra looking around. There’s definitely a decent replayability factor, as all the differing zones load in random order, and there’s some room for exploration and achievements.

Most of all though, Journey has a rather inventive multiplayer option. The game randomly connects players from all around the world. Those players can help each other and journey together, but they cannot communicate properly or even know who they are.

I didn’t try out the multiplayer mode myself, which might have had impact on the overall score. I’ll get back to it if I do a replay in the future. But even in the singleplayer mode Journey is definitely worth the couple of hours of anyone’s time. The game is available on the PSN store.