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Also known as JTTCOTE(P1), Journey was a level created by the author CRIFFER, whom I very recently reviewed his "Leaps of Faith" level. After getting to play through a level like that, it felt good playing Journey which definitely felt like CRIFFER had made it. Everything starts fairly normal, you are loaded into a cage-like apparatus and sent down a hole towards the center of the Earth. As you go by you will see the various layers of the Earth's crust and mantle until you reach a lava strewn cave. You will be met with a few minor obstacles in the form of unstable rock formations leading into the magma river below, and the for the most part I was happy that for the entire beginning of the level I definitely got that "stuck at the center of the Earth" kind of feel. It's like watching The Godfather and getting the shivers because of how much it feels like a gangster movie. Everything, though dangerous, feels right at place here. Then **** gets weird... The first oddity is the sudden emergence of vivid flowers and plants. Not normally something you'd find at such a subterranean level. To make matters more strange, you run into a very odd father/son team in the deep cave. Everything from there I'll leave to your imagination, but for a quick run through let's just say by the end of it you will be exterminating something. So where does a level like this do good? Well, it's not in the idea. This concept has been done almost religiously by the LBP community: a mysterious cave with unusual secrets in store. In this case the initial weirdness is left out because unlike a scenario where we don't know where we're going, here we are perfectly aware (Center of the Earth). However, the execution is really strong for a great many reasons. First off, the atmosphere building is excellent. Starting the player off in a molten core when they specifically know they are at the Center allows the player to ground a sense of realism into their head. They expect some oddities sure (it is LBP after all) but they are still expect a science fiction surrounding grounded in realism. As soon as you get them comfortable with that, you drop them in a flower field, thus completely shattering their preconceptions. Altogether, I consider that especially effective, and much fun for the ultimate experience. How about the actual gameplay? Well, I wouldn't say it's quite as ridiculous as Leaps of Faith, but it doesn't need to be. I mentioned in that review that CRIFFER needed to improve his fundamental level building before getting so nuts over weird gimmicks, and I gotta say Journey was very impressive. The platforming was very well conceived and built while still retaining a little bit of CRIFFER flair to it. Nothing in the level was overly complex, but that's why it was so good. Simplistic designs are definitely the easiest to develop, and while I don't think CRIFFER tried anything too out of this world, his ability to build foundation has improved significantly. Finally, there's the look. Journey is one of the more visually impressive pieces I've ever played, everything is easily visible and stylized to match the needs of the creator and audience. The transition from uncultured melting cavern into long lost civilization was done with a fair amount of class, and although the change in color tones is sudden the level never stops feeling like the center of the Earth. Altogether, I don't have much bad to say about Journey. The level is very decent, looks great, and executes it's ideas very well. The only major fault I find is that the level might be a little too basic for it's own good. Part of what made Leaps of Faith reasonably good was that the author took some seriously crazy risks in an attempt to try something fairly new in the LBP universe. Okay, so it didn't work perfectly, but it was very unique. Journey unfortunately feels a little too safe. There's no real risk here, it's a fairly clean cut level, despite how good it is. Final Score: 8.0 / 10 Riskless would be a word to describe Journey, but then again so could Great, Simple, and Fun. On a side note, my PS3 is a little wonky.

2011-01-13 16:35:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

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