Across

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38888018-United-Critics/] Please follow [b]United Critics[/b] for quality reviews[/url] [h2]Across Review[/h2] Across… is a huge deception for me…I love how this game looks, the art style is fine, not the best that I've ever seen but it’s cozy and minimalistic… and the music… amazing! I love that stuff in my games and I wish more games had this level of quality on art style and music. The game play is fine; it does its job but I don’t love it or dislike it. The thing that made me quit this game and immediately write this review is how buggy the whole experience is. Let me start from the beginning, the first time that I tried this game at launch, before I can even get into the main menu, the game has a nasty habit of sometimes freezing on the Unity logo and crashing, this only happened to me twice: the first time and the 6th time that I launched the game, this eventually got fixed with patches. The keyboard and mouse controls are not the best but they work just "fine". Except when you have to move over irregular geometry. https://youtu.be/_LfsrS1XfCA "It's buggy but not the worst than I ever experienced" I said to my self... Then I got into the glitches that made me fall through the world, from random rocks, to random trees to the simple act of walking made my character fall out of the world and get lost on the infinity of the sky box on my screen. “Good thing that his game has an auto save system” I said… and yes, this game has one of those, but sometimes my files got corrupted randomly…. I got 4 glitches and 2 save file corruptions in the span of the 20 minutes that I spend playing this game… and I couldn't keep doing it… Even months after release and several patches I still can replicate the bug that corrupts my save file. https://youtu.be/ID0Ih29iTP4 You are probably thinking “Maybe the story is good and with bug fixes this game will be worth it” … Well…after only 2 minutes of starting the game I realized that the voice acting and the writing are quite lacking… which is a death sentence for narrative games with light gameplay in my book. The adult voice actress it’s fine, you can sometimes tell that English is not her mother tongue… or maybe it’s an amazing voice actress and can replicate a middle east/Indian accent. My problem is the child voice actor and how miss-directed she was. Most of her line deliveries were fine, but when she misses… she misses hard and pulling me out of the experience and making me laugh with how out of place her “Hhhmm” is. As for the writing, I didn’t really like it, it tried to be a parable about grief and death but it ends up being confusing and sometimes even mean-spirited. I’m not going to give you spoilers just in case you want to play this game on your own, but it has the DNA of a “so bad that is good” movie. https://youtu.be/7bodGG_skyQ Rating: 4/10 I should give this game a 2 out of 10, but I like the music, the art style and I like lions, but even the cutest lions can’t make this game enjoyable for me.

Don't you sometimes want to escape reality? And if it's just a moment. So much accompanies us every day. War, pandemic, amok runs, senseless hatred, violence and and and and. You don't want to list it all. Just a small moment to escape all these. That's why I love Walking Simulators. Because you can just escape for a moment. Just like that. Welcome to ACROSS. Imagine you control a little lion. You steer it through a mystical and beautiful but also simple not too detailed world, which leaves your imaginations room for your own illusions. Imagine you are accompanied by voices from outside who tell a story, so that you have the feeling to experience 2 stories, although it is just the same Story. This is Across. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2839458469 Don´t get me wrong, to dive into a Game like this, to escape reality, does not mean to enter a perfect World. ACROSS is telling a story about Loss but also about Hope. And while this Voices from outside tell you the Story, you can explore this really wonderfull world. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2839459024 That is all i want to say about the Story. More would be a spoiler and i wan´t you, dear Reader, to make this experience i made on your own. The Voices are no pro dubbing actors but this is not VALLEY , this is not Virginia or Dr. Fisher, thats what i call absolut pro dubbing actors, BUT the Voices fit perfectly into THIS Game. Well done. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2839458802 Wonderfull Graphics and Sounds are waiting for you. The Controls are via Mouse and Keyboard and are well balanced. But a Joypad Control is planned for the future. So what can i say? This is a nice Walking Simulator to dive into it. Take your time, explore, listen and forget all your Problems for awhile. Enjoy a wonderfull but deep Journey like i did. If you like Games like THE FIRST TREE, then this is absolutly for you. And keep one thing in Mind, this is the First Game of the Developer, he put a lot of Work and Heartblood into his Game. And you can see and feel it everywhere while you play. Thanks for inviting me, to your wonderfull Journey. I really love it. The Price is absolut worth it, so have an eye on it or buy and enjoy it. But if you still like to see more of ACROSS, just have a look at the Video of my good Friend Ajay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mppO4ppink And thank YOU for reading. [h1][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26335619-Adult-World-Gamers/] If you like this Review and want to read more like this then Follow our AWG Curator! You`re always welcome. [/url][/h1]

[code]For other game reviews, please [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40640212/]follow us at What The Game?[/url][/code] Okay, so I've decided to give this game a try since it looked so beautiful and intriguing in the store page. I've managed to play through the game and finished it. I really do think that Across is good, but halfway through the game I can't say that there weren't times that frustrated me. I'll start by listing a few positives. [u][b]Story[/b][/u] The narration starts off by introducing a grieving daughter whose pet had just deceased. So the mother decides to tell a story about a little cub's journey through the world. It starts off weird because the mother will immediately talk about a family living in the countryside trying to flee soldiers right after mentioning the cub. This may seem random, but trust me on this one, it makes sense as you continue to play. Themes of tragic loss and war are readily apparent in the first part of the game. Later you'll play as a sparrow and a lioness trying to find her lost cubs. There's not much explicit plot here, but I absolutely love the ending! It's pretty implicit in that [spoiler]The mother was the "cub" who lost her parents and is now rebuilding a peaceful life with her daughter[/spoiler]. The game is basically saying that war ruins the lives of families which is something that I believe people should be aware of in these times. [u][b]Art & Sounds[/b][/u] The atmosphere is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. The light of the setting sun feels real along with the falling leaves of the forest. The colors blend well in their respective environments: The orange autumn trees, icy tundra, and the grey ruins of an ancient kingdom. I was mind blown by the sheer quality of the world. The sounds in this game are exceptionally crisp for the most part. The birds chirping sound so lifelike, the waterfall splashing, and walking through the grass feels so nice. The music is the real killer here. It is so relaxing to hear it during the game. You hear the peaceful strumming of the guitar while there could be a somber piano playing in another level. The music manages to perfectly match the tone of each section of the story. [u][b]What I didn't like[/b][/u] Alright so the game sounds pretty good so far, right? Well there are things that really hold it back from being a very good game. [b]*Gameplay[/b]: You're basically playing a cub/sparrow/lioness walking simulator. Is it a bad thing? Absolutely NOT, but the controls feel very clunky especially for some parts that require a bit of platforming and maneuvering. The camera control sensitivity is a bit too high and I notice a bit of a delay when I'm jumping. THIS was very noticeable when I played as the sparrow, it was exceptionally clunky at times when I tried to fly. For the game you mainly walk around interacting with glowing objects to find tidbits of the story. There are puzzles in the second half of the game that could have been explained a bit more, but they are simply "find something, interact" and a bit of switching between the sparrow and lioness. [b]*Narration[/b]: Okay I will be brutally honest here, you can easily tell that English isn't the native language of the voice actors and maybe the developers. It feels like the VA are just reading off of the script and you can barely feel the emotion that they're supposed to be conveying. I couldn't tell at times if the mother was tired or trying to be reassuring since she is telling a story about grief and war. There's clearly some dissonance between the content of the story and how it is being portrayed through narration. Nothing against the VA, I know how hard it is to voice a character, but this is something that could be improved. [u][b]Verdict[/b][/u] This game is beautiful and I find the story to be well done. I love how the story of the cub intertwines with the theme of grief in the family. The atmosphere and music are utterly phenomenal. However the controls and the narration negatively impact the immersion of Across. If Steam had a [b]neutral[/b] option then this game would deserve it at the very least since effort has been clearly made but the negatives really hold it back. For now I'm giving a positive because the story touched me (no not that way) and the environment is breathtaking. It's a walking simulator that I actually enjoyed that had a bit of depth to it. If the issues I mentioned were fixed then I would whole-heartedly recommend Across.

Visually Across is lovely, unfortunately game play is awful. Controls are wonky and unresponsive, it says controllers are supported but I could not get mine to work, and using the keyboard just is not a fun experience on this one. I will be requesting a refund.

I'd put Across in the walking sim genre, which involves enjoying the narrative with very few gameplay elements. You take on the role of a lioness cub that was abandoned by her family and must now seek them out. It sounds simple but it turns out the story is much more complex. Although the graphics may seem minimalistic, this game has been made with far too much passion to be considered cheap. Particularly remarkable is music. Despite the wide open fields in front of you, the game is linear. Staying on the main path will lead you to your destination. You won't get lost either because a pillar of light indicates your next goal and points of interest are easily identifiable by their sparkle. Fragments, little children's paintings that depict the past, motivate you to see the world. Because each one has a position in the "fragments" section, finding them is not difficult. If you collect a new fragment and see a question mark, you will need to go back and continue your exploration. There are other optional secrets to be found. By exploring dead ends or keeping an eye out for dazzling fireflies you might find a rock you can crawl underneath and discover shrines that bring some life to the otherwise dead environment. At the time of release, there is no controller support, but it is promised that it will be added shortly. Mouse and keyboard are good. The only abilities besides basic movement are sprint and jump because you are not required to do complex actions. Since there are no camera customization options, everyone will have a unique experience based on their preferences. The sensitivity is too high in my opinion. There are times when you'll move the camera too quickly and make a 180-degree turn. To be honest, this only occurs in rare circumstances, usually very near the edge of the map. Another problem can be distance. The cub is so little that it can be easily hidden in tall grass that obscures what's directly in front of you when you lower the camera. Voices have an accent and are not native English speakers. I didn't find the voices annoying, even though they had trouble with some of the words and didn't speak in fluid sentences. Accents can occasionally be exciting as well. Subtitles, though, may need some work. I noticed capitalized words in the middle of sentences, missing punctuation, and just ordinary grammatical errors. Stage selection is not available, so if you want to get all achievements the game has to offer, you'll have to earn them in a single run. The bad news is that some don’t work and whenever you start a new game, all of your progress is lost. Even though achievements are unlocked during gameplay, they will only appear on your profile once the game is closed. If you play the game for prolonged periods of time, this may result in many achievements with the same timestamp.