(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.
No New Game Consoles
Formerly Green Monster Games, 38 Studios is growing a large pool of talented folks for their MMO endeavor. First, we heard R.A. Salvatore (writer of the Dark Elf series) was heading over to work on a story, art direction by Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) and now Irena Pereira from Blizzard and a sound designer, Aubrey Hodges.
I’m rather puzzled by the hardware failures already at PS4/Xbone, seems like a lack of foresight to make sure their peripherals to work.
Jordan the Prince of Persia games are Platformers, not adventure.
QotW: My favorite Adventure game has to be Gabriel Knight, each game in the series was a dark thrilling mystery and the main characters were great to follow.
Speaking of which Activision is licensing out the GK IP to Jane Jensen for a remake. Thanks in part to the Kickstart project Moebius that Jane got funded. Along with other Adventure game projects inspired someone at Activision who had a passion for the GK series to convince the company to license out the series to Jane. What has me excited is seeing Adventure games get more notice as a viable product again by game companies, especially Activision.
@Xbox and PS headsets
Personally I don’t see this as a problem. As long as they provide a pack-in headset so that I can discuss my numerous relationships with my oponents mothers on Battlefield I will be fine. I can see how it is a problem for rich folk who blasted loads of cash on some shelled reptilian headset. But I am indifferent to the opinions if others. I fully support Democracy and believe that the opinions of few should be overlooked and they should all be quietly shot.
@Oh can you hear what the Rockstar is cooking?
As long as it’s not ONI 2 I will be glad to play anything Rockstar makes. To me they proved their development ability time and time again. I am curious what it will be. I am guessing it’s Bully 2 but it could be Red Dead as well. Redemption was voted as the best game of last decade so I would expect Rockstar to indulge us with as sequel.
@QOTW
Across my gaming life I played quite a few adventure games. But I don’t remember most of them. Broken Sword 3 was good. Recently I played Anna but had to quit because of lighting issues on my laptop. But my highlight was Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. I know that the prequel was better (never played it) but I quite enjoyed it. Another highlight was Beavis and Buthead game on Mega Drive. It was funny because the Beavis and Buthead IP was aimed at retarded adolescent teens but the game itself was hard as nails. It had puzzles so difficult that you would need a degree in critucal thinking to get to the end.