As I played my 7-8 hour journey of “A Way Out” with my brother via couch co-op and another 7-8 hours my online friend I realized that although multiplayer is a staple of modern games there’s almost never a feeling of succeeding only because you had help. Example: If you have a team of people who aren’t very good at Fortnite and you’re the only good player and you’re constantly getting kills for your team then they will feel useless in some way…however in “A Way Out” you absolutely need the other person thus bringing back the feeling of real cooperation. Although being a linear experience there’s always something new to check out that you might’ve missed before this gives the game total replayability.
In “A Way Out” you and a buddy play as Leo and Vincent who must escape from prison and dispose of the guy who sent you there in the first place. Storytelling is something that can be expressed in many ways whether it be a book or a television show however A Way Out proves that video games can also be in that outlook, the narrative is something that’ll win awards whether based around the anti-friendship between the two protagonists or based around everything around them. These two are either constantly at each other’s necks over who is better at what mini-game or working together to distract a guard. The friendship between these two is one of the most believable relationships I’ve seen in any form of media in a long time. Leo and Vincent are forced into this situation and both have the same reason for wanting to escape from prison. The game is split-screen all the way through (even with online play) and it sometimes plays with the narrative of a scene, unlike most games this split-screen is cinematic in a way.
This game is beautiful in every sense of the word and really gives a new meaning to modern gaming as a whole, without spoiling anything there’s a hospital scene that uses so many cinematography tricks usually used in movies for transitions that actually might’ve been better than most ACTUAL movies. There are some hiccups with the clipping hair in some scenes and mouth movement but that’s probably the only issue. EA has been getting a lot of flak for Battlefront and bad business practice but in all honesty, this makes up for all of that by the visuals and narrative alone.
Gameplay can range from a shooting segment that you can sometimes choose to avoid by sneaking or a top-down shooter or even a beat em up in one scene. There are choices in most scenes making you either choose Vincent’s easy way out of a sticky situation or Leo’s (usually) violent way out which gives the game a bit more replayability along with being able to do different things and get a different dialogue with both characters. The game also requires a bit of thought and REQUIRES the players have a way to communicate with each other giving a sense of responsibility if a player dies or gets caught doing something. As the excitement will come from actually playing it there’s not a lot that can be said especially with trying to avoid spoiling the game itself, the game is absolutely wonderful and the ending is guaranteed tears from at least one player. When playing do not forget to explore everything you can to get some funny scenes, mini-games, and trophies. At a price of 30$ “A Way Out’ definitely gets my seal of approval.
5 ‘A Way’ Out of 5 stars
