Year in Review 2018 Letter Series: A Way Out-Bringing Me Back to Something Familiar
I went to friend’s house sometime in April to escape the the horror that is Boston rush-hour trains at 5:00 PM. Since we needed to kill a bit a time, he asked me if I wanted to play this game his roommate told him about. I quickly google’d A Way Out, and was bombarded with angry articles and forum posts about the game’s price and length of gameplay. Despite what they considered too short, I absolutely loved this game and it was worth every sweet shiny penny.
A Way Out, came out March of this year and it surrounds two men, Leo & Vincent, who work together to escape prison and return to the families they long to see again. The game is packed with beautiful settings that take you into the 1970’s, has feel-good laughs, a sprinkle of emotional turmoil here and there, and the biggest “slap in the face” ending I experienced this year (and to add on that, this game has more than one ending
You go through multiple cooperative stages in split-screen so you and your co-op partner can see what both of you are up to. Each stage contains amusing button-mashing sequences ranging from a chin up contest in the prison yard, arm wrestling, or just trying to pry a door open (and getting mad at each other because either of you are convinced that the other is just not mashing enough for this stupid door).
Maybe you’re more of a stealth kind of gamer; well this is jammed with sweaty, silent, sneaky levels that’ll probably give you the training I got from these anxiety ridden tasks. I swear because of it I can hear the exhaling from somebody a mile from where I’m typing this on my desk.
Leo & Vincent had sort of a “good cop/bad cop” approach when it came to talking to NPC’s, which made it really interesting when you and your partner had opposing choices to how to handle these conversations; I personally liked Vincent’s good cop/kiss ass personality, however Leo’s NO B.S., and “talk with your hands” path did save me a bunch.
As someone who grew up mainly playing two player games, having my younger brother by my side just causing chaos in Godzilla: Unleashed, or trying to figure out puzzles in Little Big Planet, I was immediately excited to see that this game is built on teamwork with ONE other player. Falling back into something familiar and working co-op with someone in the same room as me was such a refresher from years of online MMO’s and FPS’s.
I played about a third of the game with the friend who initially introduced me to it, and finished the rest when I visited my brother and bought it on his PS4 so we could play through together. Little bro and I agreed the feel of this was a lot of minigames, kinda taking us back into the mindset we would wire ourselves into when playing Little Big Planet, despite them being games whose plots could not be more different.
Getting through these minigames, chapter after chapter, the plot gained intensity, and felt more immersive. It had me thinking I was actually Vincent, and could totally relate being a white convict from the 70’s, with such explosive love for his wife. You learned about Leo’s son, Alex, and just how much Leo would risk for his little boy. As the story grew over about 10 hours, A Way Out’s ending felt like it grabbed my neck, lifted my body in the air, and hurled it out the window from my 3-story family home.
A Way Out brought me back a feeling I forgot existed altogether, the intimacy of a rich, original story, and teamwork. As for the angry gamers who were upset at paying $30 for 5-10 hours of gameplay, I can’t relate to that all. We are so used to 40-60 hour games, and endless side missions, that we kinda automatically think long games = good games. This was a breath of fresh air, and for someone who doesn’t have much time to play games, the length felt great, the story left me satisfied, I wouldn’t think to add onto it.
Please get yourself a pal and play A Way Out so you too can make fun of Leo’s sideburns, see Vincent’s dick the first five minutes of the game, cramp your thumbs from mashing, yell like I did when you get to the end, and just play something that won’t shed too much time out of your week.
