Recent reviews by Ciaran54

This is a game about exploration, and its fantastic. The kind of game you put down, only to have an epiphany about what you want to try next when you're in the shower 2 days later. The feeling of discovery and exploration is incredibly done, with jaw dropping reveals when you piece things together.

I'm not usually a fan of this genre, but this game was fantastic (also the less you know going in, the better!)

Great couch coop experience. Really good platformer with great variety. Looks fantastic too! I think this is lightyears better than its predecessor 'a way out'. Definitely recommend!

Great little puzzle game with some fun platforming to go alongside it. The game is relatively short at 5ish hours (haven't played any of the bonus levels yet) but that's good because it doesn't get stale. Relaxing to play on the sofa with a friend/partner - and the ability to 'piggyback' on a challenging platforming section is very welcome if there are different platforming skill levels.

The game is very pretty, and the different environments are well varied. I think the controls are good, and the swinging is satisfying. The fire enemy things could be a bit annoying at times, but the checkpoints are so frequent that it isn't a big deal.

Overall, we enjoyed it - worth a buy!

There was a weird issue with in-home-streaming that caused the audio to not work... had to start a new game so the in game cutscene ran, then save, quit, restart host pc... and then it worked.

I got enjoyment out of this game in the same way as I get enjoyment out of watching a bad film with friends. After seeing good reviews everywhere I really thought it would be a good one to play with my partner, but 5 hours later we're both left pretty disappointed. The gameplay was bland, the story cliché, and the 'teamwork' was questionable.

The coop was supposed to be the interesting core of the game, but there were only 1 or 2 interesting coop 'minigames' in the entire playthrough. For a game that was designed for 2-players, it still feels like the "coop" is just bolted on. The vast majority of the "puzzles" were "we need both of us to knock down this door" or "give me a leg up so I can reach", or "help me lift this log that we could totally climb over individually" - basically amounting to "come stand next to me and press a button at the same time as I do". This isn't teamwork that requires 2 person communication, it just means two people have to be present. The interesting ones that actually required a minor degree of skill and cooperation were very early in the game (one person looking out for guard while another is chiselling a wall, for instance). No puzzle required any thinking past "interact with everything that the yellow dots float over". The amount of 'gameplay' here was very minimal, so it played more like a slightly-interactive movie.

That would have been fine if it were a good movie, but the story is just "OK". It's somewhat interesting to watch the development of the relationship between the main characters, but it doesn't really seem to go much further than the first half of the game. Transitions to new scenes are done with such little care that the plot just feels like its just bolted together with no real overarching story that makes any sense. Individual scenes can be engaging, and interesting (like the basketball scene), but I didn't feel like it fit together well into a larger story. No player choice actually felt like it made any difference, especially in the long run, and all plot development gets thrown out of the window in what was a thoroughly disappointing, and un-immersive ending. Towards the end of the game we were laughing at scenes that would have been emotional if they had been properly developed.

Onto the more technical aspects: the main character voice acting is decent enough, but some of the side characters are bad, lacking emotion. Graphically, the game is pretty good, and the animations are smooth and cinematic for the most part. Some of the set-pieces are quite impressive, if totally ludicrous and unbelievable, like the hospital scene. There are some other cool cinematic scenes that (although forced), are fun. There are a decent number of different locations (for the relatively short playtime of 5-6 hours) that add a nice visual variety. And it was as short as 2/3 films, so I don't feel like I was massively cheated out of my time - we finished the playthrough and it was mediocre, we went through it together, and got that 'multiplayer' sociality that is always a positive. I just can't recommend it.

Loved it. The story was brilliant and the gameplay was satisfying. Stealthing around is hugely rewarding and fun, and the environments are so thorough and immersive.