My Four Favourite Moments of Journey

Welcome all! To anyone who's been reading this blog, it's been quite a while since I've written a post. But now I've played Journey.

I know that in my very first post, I specifically said I was going to "steer away from obvious examples of artistry in gaming, like Journey". Now that I've actually played the game, though, I feel obligated to write something about it. After all, Journey offers an experience that truly is a work of art in and of itself.

So, here they are: my four favourite moments of Journey. (Spoilers!)


1. Finding the Other Traveler

Credit: Indie Gamer Chick

I started playing with almost no knowledge of the game, so coming across the second traveler was a shock and delight. I used the circle button to chirp in glee when his gaze met mine, and he chirped back. We ran around each other like children at a playground, twittering all the while. Eventually, he showed me how to turn Journey's iconic cloth into smaller, usable pieces by chirruping near one of the cloth-shredding mechanisms. Then, we had a blast seeing how high we could go by chirping to each other to recharge our scarves. Since my companion had no gamer tag or anything of the sort, I performed several experiments to see if he was simply an AI. For one test, I stood still at the entrance to the next level to see if he would go on ahead. He didn't, but I realize now that it wasn't because he couldn't; he was just being patient. Wow. Thank you, Adrian-APCD (I learned that was your name at the end of the game), for all the power-ups you helped me find and for all your forbearance towards me. It broke my heart when you lost connection near the end, and I had to go on alone.

2. Sand Surfing in the Sunset
Everyone who's played Journey will know the part I'm talking about. Midway through the game, Adrian-APCD and I surfed down a spiraling structure filled with sand, jumping and chirping all the while. The sun was setting behind the mountain, causing the sand to shine golden and the pillars around us to cast long shadows. There was nothing "game-y" about this segment; it was just two travelers on a magical thrill ride. What an experience.

3. Dodging the Giant Rock Serpents

Credit: Charleston Hokama

When I saw the ESRB rating for Journey, I noticed it had the descriptor of "mild fantasy violence." I wasn't sure what that would mean for a game that seemed to have no enemies whatsoever - but I would soon find out. The first rock serpent (or "Guardian", as they are officially known) bursting out of the sand really did scare the shit out of me, since I had encountered nothing dangerous thus far. I crept to the side of the underground hall in an attempt to avoid their red searchlights, but they discovered me anyway, and ripped my scarf to pieces - the same scarf I had been lovingly growing for the entire game. It took Adrian-APCD's courage to get us out of there: he bravely surfed down towards a Guardian and jumped right over it, and I ran the hell after him. It may be called mild violence, but getting tossed about by those giant mechanical monsters was far more gut-wrenching than getting shot to pieces in a "violent" shooter.

4. Those Final Cold Moments
Journey's ending is truly special, but for me, it's the section right before which resonated most. I had come so far to reach the peak with the pillar of light, but the mountain did not welcome my dedication. Instead, it sent freezing winds to hurl me back to the desert, and a bitter cold that consumed not only my scarf, but also the cloth creatures I'd grown to love. Step after shivering step, I inched closer to the summit - but the raging blizzard ended my hopes. I watched my traveler collapse into the snow with a solemn understanding. Not all journeys are meant to be.

And in my interpretation of the game, that is where the traveler's life really ended. The white-robed priests of ages past woke me, but only in a spiritual sense - I could not physically reach the mountaintop. And so it goes - there cannot be rebirth without death.

Bioshock Infinite Ending Analysis

(Spoilers, obviously) While I'm someone immediately skeptical of the time-and-space-hopping antics common to many examples of science fiction, it certainly worked well in this story, and I found the big reveal to be both surprising and emotionally powerful - the three Elizabeths holding the player underwater... God! For me, at least, that image drew some unsettling parallels with the bad ending of Bioshock 2. Then, of course, there's the game's depiction of the Elizabeths' disappearances. Apparently, killing Booker was a VERY indirect form of suicide.

Such a sweet and deadly face. Credit: IGN

The fact that Booker can control a bathysphere does indeed suggest that he (or his descendant, given the relative age of the characters) becomes Andrew Ryan in an alternate timeline, creating a Columbia under the sea, rather than in the sky, and with a different ideology. However, the fact that Elizabeth presumably kills this version of Booker as well drew me to a startling conclusion: the Bioshock multiverse could be our own. Rapture, Columbia and all their associated phenomena do not exist in our world thanks to Elizabeth, and presumably, these were the only big differences between the Bioshock multiverse and our own (assuming we have a multiverse, of course).

For all that I'm impressed with the ending, I do wish to point out a flaw which I wouldn't have thought of were it not for a single, interesting choice the designers made: to have the two Luteces be of different genders. It made me realize what a silly assumption it is to say that in alternate universes, Booker deWitt might choose either to be baptized or not, but his DNA will be exactly the same. I mean, every egg cell or sperm cell of an individual is different due to a random assortment of genetic traits. It's not just the sex chromosomes of the Luteces which should be different; every chromosome of theirs, statistically speaking, should be different. And if you take this back all the way to the first humans, each alternate timeline should have an entirely different population due to different sperm cells reaching the egg, or a different egg being fertilized due to a gap in time, or even the simplicity of an individual choosing to have a child with a different individual. This is no real flaw of Infinite's, but rather a flaw with the entire concept of alternate, yet similar, timelines. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials got it right by having each timeline/universe completely distinct from others. Thoughts?

Complete Devastation: Knights in the Nightmare Ending Analysis

Zolgonark: an evil zombie dragon from Hell. Credit: Square Faction

I finally finished Knights in the Nightmare, and boy, the ending's a doozy. (SPOILERS, obviously.)

The whole game had been building up to Wilmgard's (the Wisp's) final confrontation with Lord Zolgonark, the King of the Underworld, who had been summoned to Earth (or whatever the realm between Asgard and the Underworld is called). The battle's pretty epic, with three heads to defeat and a demonic soul that continues to live on after the body's destruction. Just before the player reduces Zolgonark to skin and bones, however, they can use a key item on him, and he will say:

"Order is nothing but an empty world. You know this."

Keep those words in mind.

Next, Wilmgard must fight Melad Margus, the angel Melissa's form upon absorbing Zolgonark's corpse. If Wilmgard loses, the narrator declares that Margus will devastate the universe, rending it asunder with the forces of chaos. There is something hopeful about this outcome, however, for after destruction comes rebirth.

The ending the player receives upon Wilmgard's victory is much bleaker.

When Wilmgard defeats Melad Margus, has he saved the universe from destruction
or stamped out its only hope for renewal? Credit: Lacrima Castle Message Boards

Zolgonark's monsters have killed EVERYONE in the world. Seriously. There are no more knights, no more commoners, no more Tiamats, and no more Westkin. Wilmgard's soul and the angel Maria are left to wander aimlessly in the desolated land for eternity, just as Zolgonark predicted. This isn't even an Adam and Eve scenario, as Wilmgard doesn't have a body with which to repopulate the world, and Maria's a different kind of being altogether.

There is hope in the fact that Asgard (read: Heaven) still exists, but little affection can be had for its angel inhabitants, considering their lack of compassion for the suffering Tiamats and Westkin, as well as their indifference to the whole Zolgonark affair.

The finale is the culmination of all the uncertainty the player has felt the whole game; uncertainty about what's happened, why it happened, who the Wisp is, what the Wisp is doing, and most of all, if it should be doing what it is doing. Wilmgard cut down anything and anyone who stood in his way, and now he is left with nothing - a powerful conclusion to an excellent story.