This post is SO late! My goodness, you’d think I forgot about it… which I didn’t, I just misplaced my journal from the trip before typing up the events therein, then I wasn’t blogging for a period of time, and well, here we are.
Our second day trip was to the Titanic museum in Belfast, the city where she was built.
Continue reading “Travel | Ireland: Day 5”
From the moment you find the Diver floating in this vast blue ocean, it’s hard to set the controller down. Not only because of the mesmerizing visuals and amazing score, but by the feeling of being something so tiny in a world so big.
Throughout the game, I repeatedly found myself getting distracted by the sheer scope of what I was experiencing. Which is not to say that ABZÛ is a very long game, because it’s not. I think, from beginning to end, it can be completed in about an hour and a half.
But that doesn’t matter because ABZÛ isn’t a game you play just to win, it’s really one that it’s meant to be explored and Giant Squid made the exploration so very enjoyable!
The sea is a desert of waves,
Langston Hughes
A wilderness of water.”
I really loved being able to see and interact with different kinds of sea life, from itty bitty anchovies to enormous blue whales and giant squid! You can even hitch a ride on the larger sea creatures and explore the ocean from their point of view. As someone who grew up watching Flipper and Free Willy, the idea of riding a dolphin or a whale or even a Great White shark is just magical.
The main objective in ABZÛ is to revive underwater ‘temples’ and bring life back to the ocean. You accomplish this by finding clues, solving puzzles, and unlocking new parts of this massive underwater world.
One of the things I really appreciated is that as you swim up to these temples you can see a clear delineation between the layer of water you’re in and another that is deeper and much more ominous. Our oceans have layers similar to this, where the further down you go the different, darker layers you encounter. You must swim into the temple in order to access this deeper layer of the ocean and be able to continue on your adventure.
Along the way, you’ll activate hidden pools of fish and release new and interesting species into the waters around you. You’ll find creatures such as the…
Possibly my favorite part of the game was finding the meditation statues in each level. These statues allow you to ‘meditate’ and while doing so, you follow different creatures around you as they swim, eat, and communicate with each other. It was so peaceful to have the soothing music and a serene underwater ballet playing on the screen… I could just sit there and watch it for hours.
The sound design for ABZÛ is really great, as well. It manages to somehow feel like you’re underwater without being suffocating (no pun intended), rather it’s like being wrapped up in a really thick, warm blanket and just enjoying being a blanket-burrito. If I could wrap myself up in ABZÛ all day long, then believe me when I say that I would!
These last few weeks and months have been stressful in any number of ways and it was such a relief to find a game that let me forget the real world for just a moment. ABZÛ pulls you right in, with it’s amazing music and scenery, and if you’re willing to just keep swimming, you might lose at least a few hours to it.
Now, I am a huge fan of Indie games, but there have only been a couple that have actual re-play-ability. ABZÛ definitely makes the list, as I’ve played it now three times through (with another play-through planned for live-streaming on my Twitch page). I feel like the game is more than worth the $19.99 PlayStation Store price tag.
Like Among the Sleep and Unravel, I think that ABZÛ is a game that players can return to over and over again and still be able to experience the wonder and enjoyment of it.
As for trophies, the most difficult trophy in the game was Collector. If the game wasn’t so enjoyable, I’m sure I would have gotten frustrated many times over as I searched for all of the very well-hidden seashells. 😛
Collector
Ultra Rare 2.6%
Add all secret shells to your collection.
With a total of twelve trophies in all, there’s a little bit of a challenge required to hunt down all of the seashells, hidden pools, and meditations spots. However, if you’re looking to earn a (fairly) easy platinum, you won’t find it in ABZÛ.
I wish I knew what the criteria was to get a platinum in a game, because I feel like there should be one for a game like this.
Three of the trophies require the player to both pay attention AND to explore beyond the main objective. It was suitably difficult to find all of the trophy requirements while the game remained fun and getting to 100% entirely doable.
Title: ABZÛ
Developer: Giant Squid
Genre: Adventure
Platform: PS4
Rating: ★★★★★
Trophy difficulty: Medium
“You know it’s sort of morbid that this is how we make our s’mores, right?” Ransom laughed, as he skewered another marshmallow bunny on the stick he’d found in the woods and held it over the fire.
Quill was having a difficult time not collapsing into laughter himself, as he watched the poor marshmallow bunny slowly turning brown and getting crispy along the edges. He reached into the bag for a bunny of his own and skewered it lengthwise on his stick.
Quill much preferred the vaguely burnt taste of marshmallow on his s’mores, so his bunny wasn’t allowed the dignity of a slow, well-toasted death.
No, Quill thrust his marshmallow straight into the flames and waited for the brief moment it took for the bunny to catch fire before pulling it back out and watching as it burned on the end of the stick.
“That is so evil.” Ransom laughed. He was grinning madly, as he watched his best friend staring maniacally at the burning and warping body of the marshmallow bunny.
It was something they had always clashed on, the proper way to toast marshmallows for s’mores, and as they’d grown older it had become less of a fight and more of a mutual disagreement with the other man’s preferred methods.
It was the only time that Ransom thought his normally safety conscious friend might have pyro-maniacal tendencies, when the poor, innocent bunny was casting light up on his face with the flames that were eating away at its body.
“Yep.” Quill agreed.
He blew the flames out and watched as smoke continued to rise from the marshmallow bunny’s corpse. It was sort of sad, now that he thought about it, but Quill wasn’t about to let the guilt get to him. He reached over and picked up his prepared graham cracker with chocolate and smashed the bunny’s corpse right into the middle, grinning as the marshmallow started to ooze over the edges and strung out in the air between the cracker and the stick.
“You might be right, but this? This is the absolute best way to eat a s’more when you’re in the woods with the fire and fresh air. You really need that smoky flavoring, my friend, it makes the whole experience better.”
Ransom could fee his eyebrows raising at his friend’s words. “I think that what you really meant to say is that you need the flavor of charcoal in your diet, isn’t that right?”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to.” Quill responded. He took a bite of his s’more and let the melted chocolate and burned marshmallow ooze from the other side, watching as Ransom only shook his head in exasperation as Quill enjoyed making a mess of his treat.
Anyone who said a little crispiness was bad on a s’more, well, they were so very wrong on all counts.
There is no dialogue in Old Man’s Journey, no speaking, no subtitles, no nothin! But, in reality, it really doesn’t need it.
Old Man’s Journey tells us the story of yes, an old man, as he travels to reconnect with the family he left behind. Through memories and flashbacks, we learn what lead him to his little house on the seashore and, ultimately, what brings him home to his family again.
Continue reading “Video Game Review | Old Man's Journey”…better to stare out the window than the holes in your own mind.
Fanfic author
It’s all nonfiction, all the time, in April!
I did choose to cut my #TBR down to just the one book because of my upcoming O.W.L.’s and the fact that I’ve been kind of obsessed with knitting… can’t hold a book and knitting needles at the same time. So frustrating!
The Vanishing Fleece by Clara Parkes
Join Clara Parkes on a cross-country adventure and meet a cast of characters that includes the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting needles would be empty, our mills idle, and our feet woefully cold. Travel the country with her as she meets a flock of Saxon Merino sheep in upstate New York, tours a scouring plant in Texas, visits a steamy Maine dyehouse, helps sort freshly shorn wool on a working farm, and learns how wool fleece is measured, baled, shipped, and turned into skeins.
In pursuit of the perfect yarn, Parkes describes a brush with the dangers of opening a bale (they can explode), and her adventures from Maine to Wisconsin (“the most knitterly state”) and back again; along the way, she presents a behind-the-scenes look at the spinners, scourers, genius inventors, and crazy-complex mill machines that populate the yarn-making industry. By the end of the book, you’ll be ready to set aside the backyard chickens and add a flock of sheep instead. Simply put, no other book exists that explores American culture through the lens of wool.
Top Ten Tuesday for March 30: Ten Signs You’re a Book Lover (basically, people know you’re a book lover because… i.e., you’re always carrying a book or two, your library card broke from overuse, etc.)
Meandering Michelle 