The tester in his environment often gets up as soon as the sun rises at 14:30 p.m. It must be said in his defense that his sleep was once again disturbed by many nightmares caused by the game he is testing. And even if his nonchalant awakening, while scratching his right buttock, does not show any concern, the tester is nevertheless very annoyed today because he has to talk about Away: The Survival Series, a documentary exploration game that he had been waiting a long time - having adored titles like Beyond Blue which he had greatly appreciated - but in the situation that interests us here, the disappointment seems to him as great as the prospect of playing an animal in a documentary exploration game the was vibrating. He who is so close to animals, rare creatures whose contact is able to soothe his soul tortured by a thousand daily torments...
Let's observe him in his quest for the day and see together if he will succeed in his perilous mission.
At the beginning of his adventure, the tester enjoys discovering the sugar glider, a small endangered mammal, but highly capable of evolving to ensure his survival and that of his species, since his objective is to save his family from the predators. Guided by an English narrator who will eventually annoy by a certain weariness and redundancy, the tester follows the instructions subtitled in French to learn how to handle his protagonist of the day. It is then that he will quickly find that being a sugar glider, just like being the person who controls him, is a real hell. It's not because of the visual that makes him think of what he was playing twenty years ago, but which the tester makes fun of because, for him, what matters is the fun of the game.
With his nimble little fingers, the tester may well master many platform games, here, handling the little mammal is a nameless ordeal because of controls that often react haphazardly and completely imprecise and really random jumps. But it is by facing the camera of the game that our courageous tester lets out his first cry of despair of unlimited power, alerting the neighborhood to his annoyance. It must be said in his defense - before the other inhabitants of his building call the police for a fuss - that he frequently finds himself facing a camera that does what he pleases, or even has fun blocking in angles without any visibility of anything despite the vain manipulations of the tester to fix the situation with the right joystick of his controller, is a test without name.
But the tester does not suspect that his suffering is only at its beginning. That nature can therefore be cruel to the tester, because its sworn enemy ends up appearing: the terrifying bug. Or rather the terrifying bugs, since many subspecies of bugs have decided to attack our innocent tester. He gets confused when the aim indicator is unreadable or shows a completely wrong direction. He gets annoyed when cut scenes don't play and goes berserk when the game decides to randomly trigger failure cut scenes when there was no reason for it. The tester doesn't like having to restart pieces of the game for no good reason. But what he likes even less are the bugs in the already underdeveloped AI, which make the tester's mission a completely unwelcome random party and which makes our young friend completely mad with rage.
It was then that the authorities came to the tester and took him on board to calm him down while he continued to yell at anyone who wanted to hear him, his immense disappointment in this game that he had been waiting for with the greatest impatience.
The tester does not suspect, however, that his quest is far from over, since on his return from police custody, our unfortunate individual finds that the object of his deep frustration also offers a concentrate of all the faults of the game in a mode called Exploration in which it is possible to own a few other species and perform challenges with them. It was only after a few tens of minutes filled with bugs of all kinds that, in front of a camera just as horrifying as in story mode and of little interest, that the tester burst into tears of despair, turned off his Calmly consoles, then his TV, before getting up in a silence that is both frightening and penetrating the soul like the calm before the storm.
No one will know what happened to our hapless tester except for the series of swear words filled with rage and agony that echo through his town and indicate that he is still alive, injured.
But his world famous resilience assures us that he will reappear one day for a next quest...
Latest news: the tester, still in a state of intense daze, has just seen the following tweet pass under his heavy eyelids: https://twitter.com/AwaySeries/status/1443244387136413704?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp %5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet%7Ctwtr%5Etrue. Are bugs about to be fixed? O joy! But will that be enough to heal his wounded soul?
- Shop now Away : The Survival Series on Playstation (Playstation 4 tested version)
- Shop now Away : The Survival Series on Steam
