(Review written by Scott Dirk.)
Yonder is an open world exploration game that really delivers on its premise. You begin your journey on a ship your parents have sent you away on in an attempt to keep you safe from danger. After talking to the crew, a storm rolls in and the ship is quickly struck by lightning. A Sprite then intercedes and makes a deal with you to help you if you help the spirit find its children. These Sprites help you to combat the Murk that is littered across the land in which you are now stranded.
The game has a relaxed atmosphere of letting you explore your surroundings with childlike wonder without fear of monsters or traps. The game has a lot to explore, from huge plains, forests, and towns for trading and quests. Once you obtain tools, you’ll be able to collect various resources which you can use for crafting. The main mission is to restore the land from the infection of the Murk, but you do so at your own pace. The game gives you a lot of side quests to do as well as having farms and ranching.
The graphics in the game are very lush, but are not too demanding. The landscape is very enjoyable to look at while traveling between locations, and you can get lost in simply exploring what is around you. The world music is relaxed, but cycles between varied motifs, so it’s not just one tune set repetitively. There is also a day-night cycle which seems to have little effect other than the wild animals sleeping; the NPCs seem to be night owls.
The mechanic I enjoyed most was fishing, where you cast your line and use WASD keys to move the bobber. Once a fish bites, you then pull in the opposite direction of the fish. There is an arrow to help you with the direction, which made me feel like I was pulling in the fish. The fishing mechanic does seem better suited to a controller with thumb sticks but combing WASD keys worked well; you can also customize the key bind commands.
This is one of those expansive games that may take players a while to complete depending on how they pace themselves during gameplay. I think it’s worth the time to explore Yonder in this world.
Yonder is available on PC and PlayStation 4.
Don’t feel bad guys, I listen every week. Even though its a bit hit/miss when one of you starts on a rant it’s still a good listen and a good place to get in depth gaming news 🙂
I’ll try to keep this one more brief then my last post, hopefully bullet pointing will help.
* I’m sorry to hear about your foot, I don’t know what could do that but I guess the one silver lining is you can say you will be a Cyborg now or training up to be the Six Million Dollar man.
* The Bobba Fett game: All I can say is Ouch, that would have made many a SW fan happy. I am in the camp of “meh” about Bobba Fett, I agree with Jordan’s assessment on him.
* Dying Light: I certainly hope that it isn’t another DI, I found that game to be boring very quickly. Just the unending swarm of Zombies can get tedious.
* Watch Dogs: If it requires the install, might as well get it for PC.
* This episode pretty much confirmed my decision to stick with PC and get 3ds for the family to play together. If Atari and Sega can survive on software sales so can Nintendo. I feel that Nintendo has been behind the hardware race really since N64.
* It just seems like a lack of foresight to try to make their previous libraries available on PSN (and same with Microsoft) If they make more money on software then they are losing money from this potential customer that wants to buy games they refuse to have on digital stores. I end up having to buy PC versions or emulate them on PC.
Okay I think I managed to keep that shorter, great episode guys lots of laughs and I told Dan to write you.
Oh and the guy with “yo-yo” weapon was Rygar. he has one of the best themes ever.
I considered using only consonants to shorten the post but then I decided to simply write less 😉
* Shout out to Red Letter Media. I love those guys. Mr. Plinkett reviews are awesome and their other shows – Half in the Bag and Best of the Worst are very entertaining.
* Shout out to Dying Light – Polish guys know how to develop great games – remember Robbo?
* Anti-shout out to Ubisoft – at least I’m getting that 1TB drive for the PS4. Maybe it will be enough for Watch Dogs. I’m really looking forward to that game.
http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/63162/gabriel-knight-returns-interview-with-jane-jensen
Jane Jensen is getting the license to remake the GK1 game Sins of the Fathers. According to that article it’s because of all the adventure games being crowd funded on Kickstarter. The Adventure series of GK may be getting new life if this remake does well. I’m excited not just for this game but for the fact that Kickstarter games seem to be making a difference now in giving Adventure genre another chance.