12th April
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, Bertie takes the plunge in The Last of Us Part 2 and enjoys a mobile game that isn’t Slice & Dice, and Tom Orry is outsmarted by his son.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, PC
Look, don’t judge me but I’d never played The Last of Us Part 2. But I’m one of these people who loved the TV series and so, in preparation for the second series, and in celebration of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered arriving on PC, I decided to give it a go. And my word! The style of this game is breathtaking. It’s actually quite a lot like a TV show; the way it takes its time to set a scene, the way it allows you space to soak an atmosphere up.
But there’s something about playing the game that you can’t get from watching it. It’s a point that Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin made during an interview with me recently that really stuck in my head. They were talking about how some people overlook the importance that game mechanics have on an experience, saying things like “oh they should just be a TV show or a visual novel”, or words to that effect. But what those people miss are how much more is going on when you play a game.
In The Last of Us Part 2 early on, it’s those nervy walks through the snow as Ellie or Abby, when you know that the infected are near, and the frantic fights you have when they spring from the snow to get to you. Some people might label this as just necessary gameplay, but it’s also threat, and tension, and kind of invisible hand that pulls you closer into the world and the bleak reality of it. By playing the game you can say you’ve been there, to their world – can you say the same after watching the show?
-Bertie
Split Fiction, PS5 Pro
It’s the Easter school holiday in the UK so I told my son he can stay up late a few days each week and play through Split Fiction with me. It is, as everyone has already said many times, very entertaining. I am finding some of the more generic platforming bits a little dull, but these are regularly broken up by some smartly designed co-op areas or thrilling set-pieces. I absolutely loved the wingsuits section, and the zone where you have to lob a bomb between the two of you is superb.
I thought it best I pointed out one moment that my son found hilarious, though (other than the dancing monkey). While traveling to a boss encounter in an ice world we came to an area that only small creatures could access. My son, who could turn into a fairy, flew straight in, but I was a large gorilla at the time so thought there must be another way through. 10 minutes later and with no obvious way to join my son, I scratched my head.
Had the game glitched? Nothing to this point had been overly challenging or obtuse, but perhaps I’d missed something? No, I had just forgotten that my character’s other form, a dragon/lizard thing, is small, and could easily fit through the narrow entrance. A master at work. I’m not sure I’ll live this down.
-Tom O
Thronglets, Android
Throng-what? This is the new Black Mirror game. It’s Season 7’s Bandersnatch moment, except it’s not interactive TV in the way Bandersnatch is/was but an accompanying mobile game. And it’s actually quite good.
Thronglets is made by Oxenfree studio Night School, and it’s integral to one of the episodes of the new Black Mirror series – an episode called Plaything, starring Peter Capaldi. The set-up is that Capaldi’s character was asked, as a young video game journalist, to report on a game made by celebrated developer Colin Ritman, but the game ended up derailing his life. Or it gave purpose to his life – it depends on how you look at it.
What’s neat is that the Thronglets mobile game you play is the game being played in the Black Mirror episode, and it compliments it by taking you a layer deeper, to experience the compulsion of Thronglets for yourself. For reasons that will become clear once you’ve watched the show, the experience isn’t exactly as it is in Black Mirror, but it’s close enough to evoke a similar feeling, and it’s laced with Black Mirror atmosphere and meta commentary.
I wrote a longer piece about it that’s being published this afternoon, but for now, I urge you to watch the episode and give it a try.
-Bertie
