Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) – Review


Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) – Review



While the debate about whether or not Indie titles should count in inane list wars rages on around the internet, the PS4 has continued to pump out downloadable titles in an otherwise slower season for video game releases. The latest such game to release is Octodad: Dadliest Catch, which was previously only released for PC. The idea of playing as an octopus trying to haphazardly imitate a human is certainly intriguing, but does it have lasting appeal?



Octodad is a curious creature. He has managed to marry the love of his life and father two relatively well-rounded children, all while being an octopus quite obviously pretending to be a person. It’s fun to interact with the family as they effortlessly decipher Octodad’s barely comprehensible noises into meaningful speech. There’s even a somewhat intriguing story about family acceptance, and though it doesn’t really carry much in the way of emotional impact, if you come into the game merely expecting to chuckle a bit then you’ll probably be pretty satisfied. Beyond the story, Dadliest Catch is presented in a very simple style, but the main characters still manage to be expressive thanks largely to well performed voice acting.


Pretending to be a person is a pretty tall order as an octopus, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch‘s control system perfectly conveys this struggle. Merely walking requires serious effort, with L2 and R2 assigned to each leg and every movement bringing with it a sense of momentum that makes precision practically impossible. If you aren’t pressing a button for either of your legs then you control your right arm by default with dual analog controls, allowing you to move freely in all three dimensions. Even after playing for two and a half hours I still couldn’t accurately control Octodad’s movement, which is fully intentional on the part of the controls.


This is an excerpt from the full story which was originally featured on gamrReview, read the full version here – Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) – Review

Read more here: gamrReview

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