"A Way Out" review (Part 2/2 - MASSIVE Spoilers)

The Ending 
Here comes the spoiler:

it turns out in the final chapter that one half of your co-op team, Vincent, has actually been an undercover cop all along. While Harvey really did kill Vincent's brother (another undercover cop), Vincent infiltrated the prison with the approval of his superiors, with the intention of gaining Leo's trust in order to track Harvey down.

By this point, we had figured out that something was amiss with Vincent's character. The fact that Leo's backstory had been told in on-screen flashbacks, while Vincent's had all been given through dialogue (except for two brief, ambiguous conversations with his wife), is a typical red flag in cinematic storytelling. It was clear that he was hiding something, but we hadn’t begun to guess what. 

This caused my first and only real issue with the game: playing as Vincent, I actually felt more betrayed at this point than my co-op partner playing as Leo. Having spent the last seven or eight hours inhabiting a character only to have half of his backstory re-written on me in the final chapter was distressing. As someone who gets very involved with her characters, I was left with the feeling that I hadn't properly played mine for much of the game, because my real motivation had been hidden from me - something that broke the immersion because, of course, Vincent has that information while his player doesn't. Leo's player, by contrast, gets a far more consistent experience, knowing everything that Leo does from very early on.

Following this unmasking, the final chapter of the game flips you from co-operation to competition, with Leo and Vincent in a dramatic chase that turns into a gunfight to the death. From a gameplay perspective it's a very cool way to round off the experience: the past few hours getting to know your co-op partner's play style goes from your greatest strength to your biggest problem. I was at a double disadvantage, though: not only is my co-op partner more experienced at cover-shooters than I am, but I was still reeling from the enforced switch to the antagonist of the game. Still attempting to play the character, I could think of no reason why Vincent would want to kill Leo at this point unless forced to in self-defence, so half of my health bar was used up in attempting to get close enough to subdue him non-lethally before I realised that, no really, only one of us was allowed to survive.

Despite my complaints, this did lead to the most affecting video game death scene I've experienced since Season One of The Walking Dead. I got a little teared up when I realised that the weak pulsing buzz I could feel in my controller represented my character's heartbeat gradually slowing, as he died of his injuries in the final cutscene; and both I and my co-op partner were a bit emotional when Vincent's half of the split-screen faded to black.

Still, though, even after that big emotional finale, I felt I would have preferred an ending more in keeping with the character I'd had in my head while I was playing. I respect that the game's creator wanted it to play out as a Donnie Brasco style tragedy, but I still feel there's something unsatisfying about one player losing so much of their investment in the final chapter. Judging from the emerging discussion online, the ending where Vincent dies and Leo survives seems to be more popular, and to have been the one most teams came to on the first play-through: possibly because, like me, there was an issue with demotivation at that point for Vincent players.

Conclusion
For all my (literal and figurative) crying over the ending, within a few hours of finishing the story I'd convinced my co-op partner to replay some chapters, in order to scoop up a few Trophies we'd missed, try out a few alternative decision paths, and take advantage of those sweet mini-games. 

Despite the fact that it's not designed to be hugely replayable, there really is a lot to go back to. For one thing, we'd played with a feeling of time-sensitivity, even though story developments are triggered by completing objectives rather than on a timer. So, for example, we missed much of the interactivity in the farmhouse chapter because we were worried the owners might return at any minute. The game allows you to replay individual chapters once you've passed them in the story, so the first thing we did was revisit this one and then spend a good half hour just messing around, playing with the farm animals, and trying on hats. Not a smart move if you're genuinely a prison escapee, but great fun for gamers who like exploring a surprisingly deep interactive world.

Then, of course, you can replay the whole game as the opposite character, or to try to get a different ending. While there are plenty of sections that allow you to choose with your co-op partner which character to assign to which activity, there are also lots of times where this is chosen for you for narrative reasons, so arguably you've not really experienced this game in full until you've played through as both Vincent and Leo. For this very reason, we’re planning on replaying it in full at least once, even though we have technically completed everything. For a game that’s designed to deliver a strong story and emotional experience while not counting replayability as one of its strong points, A Way Out really does manage to give you both, with the added bonus of a price and time commitment that make it more accessible than many games at the moment. I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know - especially those who have a regular gaming partner, because it really does present a unique spin on co-operative gameplay (or possibly a unique opportunity to ruin your relationship!).

"A Way Out" review (Part 1/2 - Minimal Spoilers)

The Set-Up

If you’ve not seen much of the promotion, A Way Out is a narrative prison escape game that can only be played co-operatively by two players. You can play online (the publishers threw in the surprising sweetener that only one of you needs to buy the game and invite the other to play), but it’s been designed for couch co-op, and that’s how it works best, as constant communication is needed to progress effectively.

My co-op partner for A Way Out was someone I game with several times a week, but other than a few puzzle platformers we’ve never really played co-op (usually, our gaming sessions take the form of one of us “driving” and the other keeping an eye out for shiny things/enemies/puzzle solutions and making the drinks).

We finished the game in four sessions of 2-3 hours at a time. (We were fortunate in having the whole Easter bank holiday weekend more or less free, so were able to play the game to completion without the usual guilt trips and distractions that plague adult gamers.) Getting the Platinum trophy took two additional sessions of about one hour each. Clearly, this is not the biggest title out there in terms of content; but now that we’ve reached an age where we’re more likely to cringe than cheer at the prospect of 100+ hours of gameplay (not that we don’t love the idea, we just don’t have the time), it’s a welcome relief to play a fun and interesting game that you can also have the satisfaction of completing in the equivalent of half a day.

The first thing the game asks you to do once you’re both signed in is to choose your character. Your options are Leo Caruso (a con-man and thief, hot-tempered but surprisingly soft-hearted) and Vincent Moretti (a white-collar money launderer falsely accused of murder, more rational than Leo but less experienced). After a brief discussion we decided that on our first play through we would play to type. My co-op partner is definitely the fiery one of us, while I’m just as definitely the shy one; as an added bonus, my partner’s experience with combat in games is greater than mine, while years of Telltale games and the like have made me better at social stealth. Therefore, assigning me to Vincent and him to Leo didn’t take long.

The Features

The story of A Way Out has drawn comparisons to The Shawshank Redemption, and the overall plot is a familiar one: two criminals in prison discover they have a common enemy on the outside, and vow to break out in order to get revenge. If that summary makes it sound generic, don’t worry: the translation of these movie tropes into a video game setting make this a unique experience, even if you feel like you’ve heard this story before. Similarly, if you’re expecting a Grand Theft Auto clone, think again: while it’s a game with violence at its core, you’re never let loose to commit gratuitous criminal acts, though there are several shooting-and-driving segments. Instead, you’re guided through a story that is centred around its characters, rather than playing as characters who enable the story. The fact that Vincent and Leo are both oddly sweet and ultimately very likeable helps, but it’s mainly that the creators have got the balance right: as a game it would be much harder to play if the story was less familiar, and as a story it would be much harder to follow if you were forever becoming distracted by challenging or repetitive gameplay elements.

It’s unusual for a story so steeped in Americana to cast two Swedish actors as the leads (though less odd once you realise that this game’s budget wasn’t the biggest in the world, and that one of the actors is the creator’s brother). But aside from a few moments where the pronunciation of a word or two went a bit wonky, the acting was fantastic - certainly enough that I ended up getting very attached to both characters.

The graphics are stunning: the game is built in Unreal Engine 4, which basically guarantees a beautiful game world. The makers of A Way Out take full advantage of this, particularly when your characters spend a few days hiding in the forest immediately after their escape. The environments in these chapters were so lovely that it made us wonder whether our characters really needed to avenge themselves against a common enemy; a new, simpler life in the woods sure did look appealing. The only real downside to the game’s visuals was that, despite the creators’ obvious attempts to differentiate them, it was quite easy to confuse Leo and Vincent, and not knowing which character you’re controlling at a key moment can be a bad thing for obvious reasons.

Gameplay is brilliantly interwoven into the story: the creator, Josef Fares, has gone on record saying that he never wanted the gamified elements to get in the way of the plot, and so you get a fantastically varied series of mechanics that serve the moment in the story where they appear, and thus are often unique to a chapter: a car chase when a quick getaway is needed, for example, or a side-scrolling fighting game when Leo comes up solo against a whole squad of cops. This could have led to a situation in which you’re forever out of your depth, struggling to learn a new set of rules every time. Fortunately, this isn’t the case, as the game is designed with subtle but useful anti-frustration features: auto-saves are frequent, for example, so if you mess up near the end of a long action sequence you’ll usually be sent back to a recent checkpoint rather than the very beginning.

The game has also gained a lot of attention for its many mini-games: little competitive tournaments between Leo and Vincent that include everything from basketball and baseball to Connect 4 and even an arcade machine. These provide welcome little breaks from a fast-paced narrative (both for the players and the characters), and they also add a few elements of almost endless replayability to what is otherwise primarily a once-and-done story-based game.

If the mini-games weren’t enough of a clue, A Way Out aims to include light-hearted moments despite its dramatic subject matter. There are a number of Easter Eggs referencing other games (most of which grant Trophies/Achievements, so are definitely worth looking out for), such as a cute shout-out to the developers’ previous game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The aforementioned switch to a side-scrolling fighting game style is clearly meant to evoke memories of Streets of Rage, etc. Despite its very cinematic style and linear narrative to match, A Way Out never forgets that it’s a video game, and delivers these little moments that nod to its place in the gaming canon.

Should You Play "Hellblade"?

If you were following the BAFTA Game Awards on April 12th, you probably noticed that Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was the big winner of the night - taking home 5 of the 16 awards presented, including a new category, “Game Beyond Entertainment”, that seems suspiciously like it was invented for it. Hellblade was an indie risk that has paid off big time for its creators, and it’s won a lot of well-deserved praise for its sensitive and accurate portrayal of mental illness, developed in consultation with many real-life patients, healthcare providers, and researchers. But, while it’s a good game about mental health, is it a good game for people with mental health issues to play?

Why you shouldn’t play Hellblade.
Hellblade is a game that is designed to get inside your head. The audio design features binaural or “3D” sound recording for the voices Senua hears near-constantly in her head, so that the player also experiences her feelings of being surrounded on all sides, for good or ill. Visually, the environments frequently change without warning, leaving you struggling to work out what’s real within the game world. After the first combat section, the game issues you with a dire warning: with every defeat in combat, Senua succombs further to “the darkness”, and too many such defeats will wipe out the player’s progress.

This is all intense stuff if you’ve ever suffered from similar issues yourself. Having had some very mild personal experiences of auditory and visual hallucinations during periods of intense stress, I still found nothing but beauty and interest in the game’s sound and graphic design (with one exception I’ll get to in a minute); but the perma-death thing concerned me. One side-effect of my anxiety is that I’m not always the calmest person during combat sequences - I often need to take a long, long break from a game after getting caught in a combat-anxiety-death loop - so Hellblade started to look potentially unwinnable from my point of view. (Of course, then the rumour started circulating that this warning was in fact a fourth-wall-breaking example of Senua being an unreliable narrator. I refrain from spoilers, though I will say that I have now completed the game.)

Some reviewers have questioned the ethics of making a game that sensitively portrays mental health problems while rendering it potentially unplayable for people who are living with similar issues themselves. No endeavour like Hellblade will ever be above all criticism, because it’s tackling a set of problems that have no single, reliable solution, if any can be found at all. These concerns didn’t make me dislike the game, but all the same, I would be wary of recommending it to people who are going through a particularly difficult time, as it’s far more liable to induce stress than relieve it.

Personally, the only part of the game that I found uncomfortably stressful was the level called “Sea of Corpses”. As the name suggests, it’s not meant to come across as somewhere you’d like to go for a relaxing mini-break. It’s basically what it sounds like: an unrelenting squishy red quagmire made up of the loudly wailing reanimated corpses of the damned, and it also happens to be the arena for probably the biggest hack-and-slash wave-based combat section in the game. I had a panic attack while playing this level; I’m not sure whether this was due to the frustration of barely limping away from the endlessly reappearing bad guys, or just the unrelentingly distressing atmosphere. I mean, it was a stunning piece of level design, but as a veteran horror fan who doesn’t react much to gore I was overwhelmed by the sheer awfulness of it. It’s was amazingly well-done looking back on it, but how can I possibly recommend playing something that left me physically aching from the sheer weight of the psychological symptoms it induced?

Why you should play Hellblade.
Well, I’m going to tell you why I would - with a few caveats. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a game to play when you’re stressed. A recent survey conducted by Dave* showed that over half of gamers like to play in order to relieve their feelings of stress and tension. Please do not play Hellblade for that, unless you are feeling particularly emotionally robust and are a Zorro-level master of animated swordplay.

But Hellblade is an amazing game. I love it, and believe it deserves all the love it received at the BAFTAs. It is beautifully designed, and it teaches and reinforces so many important lessons about mental illness, such as:

• Mental illness is not a modern invention: Senua’s Sacrifice takes place in the 8th century, and yes, the designers really did their research into how people with mental illnesses were historically treated by their communities. Society may have changed beyond all recognition, but the essential humanity that makes it up has remained more constant than you might believe. (As a side-note: a medievalist by education, this is one of the most eye-opening lessons I took away from my Master’s degree, and I have been trying to convince people of it for so long!)
• Mental illness does not have to define your whole personality: Senua’s entire lived experience is seen through the lens of her psychosis, but that experience is more than just a list of symptoms. She has a career: excelling as a warrior thanks to her unusual perceptiveness (which some critics have attributed to an overly “magical” portrayal of psychosis, but I prefer to think of as just another quality she possesses as a whole, well-rounded character). She has been treated badly by her father and others in her village, but she has experienced intense and entirely reciprocated love: first from her mother, and again from her beloved Dillion, whose appreciation, patience, and understanding of her never wavers, and is never reduced to an act of charity. Senua and Dillion’s bond inspires both of them to greater things than they would have been capable of individually; and as Dillion supports Senua in managing her symptoms and continuing with her life, so Senua defends and helps Dillion with her deep reserves of strength, intelligence, and determination.
• If you suffer from a mental illness, you are not alone in your experience: Though my mental illness is not the same as Senua’s (to recap: she has psychosis, I have chronic anxiety), there were so many moments in this game that I recognised, and that moved me because of that. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of assuming that your symptoms would be inexplicable to other people, or else are so common that they’re not worth talking about at all. A running dialogue in your head between the part of yourself that feels confident and positive, and the part that despises you and is embarrassed that you would even try to succeed at something, is an experience I’m familiar with. It’s also not something you see much in fiction, outside of that part in a super-villain’s origin story right before they take the serum and turn into a sixty-foot-tall lizard to resolve their daddy issues (or whatever). Any heroic suffering is usually implied in the character’s actions, rather than explicitly portrayed from their own viewpoint. There still aren’t that many role models in fiction for people with mental health problems, despite the growing evidence that many (perhaps even most) people will suffer to some degree at some point in their lives. So Senua, who is portrayed positively yet with uncompromising honesty, does a great service to a huge number of people; as do her creators, by simply sharing a common type of experience that nevertheless isn’t often acknowledged.

So, to answer my original question, should you play Hellblade? Yes, absolutely. Just be sure to take care of yourself - take a break if you need to, try not to let the stress get on top of you. (I am still talking about playing the game, although if you can follow this advice in everyday life too... good for you.) Oh, and if for whatever reason you don’t make it to the end, do treat yourself anyway to the song “Just Like Sleep” by Passarella Death Squad that plays over the final level, because it is too awesome to miss out on.

* The TV channel, admittedly giving it only slightly more credibility than some random bloke called Dave; but reliable enough to be quoted at the BAFTAs, anyway.