From the makers of Journey comes a gentle eye-opening game that is not exactly just Journey underwater, but certainly stirs similar spiritual stimuli.
So I had just finished (and in this case, lost) a frantic payload delivery map on Overwatch, the last few minutes of which were a hectic frenzy of colour and cartoon brutality.
When the final screen appeared I was shaking with the intensity of the match, and whilst this is great fun, it got me wondering just how much of a release, or relaxation video-gaming can be. Isn’t this that I sometimes do to wind down?
Enter ABZÛ from 505 Games, makers of Journey and Flower, abstract experiences that test imagination and wonderment rather than fast-twitch muscle fibres.
It is the same here, ABZÛ begins, in a similar way to Journey, but rather than a mysterious cloaked figures standing in a desert, we begin as a scuba diver immersed in a colour saturated fairly sparse shallow ocean.
We begin slowly swimming towards the obvious inviting opening in the reef, accompanied by a small shoal of fish.
{loadposition mike08}Exploring the options we see we can swim a little faster if necessary, and send out a short series of sonar “bleeps” – with no real result initially.
What follows is certainly a panacea for any potential sensory overload induced by an action video-game turned up to eleven.
ABZÛ is not a taxing game, “swims with the fishes” is not a veiled Mafia threat, rather it is the bulk of game-play in the game. The aim is to explore, commune with underwater creatures, seek out knowledge about the aquatic world, and wonder at the story undercurrents (see what I did there?)
Or you could blast through it in a few hours and get back to another Overwatch match.
The choice is yours, but this reviewer would recommend a couple of play throughs. Like Inside, this short game rewards the inquisitive.
For me ABZÛ did not grip like Journey, there is no mysterious online companion, and the “puzzles” are elementary at best.
However, if you are looking for some screen time that is calming, holds mystery, and makes for some watercooler discussion, dive down deeper with ABZÛ.