Beneath his airs of a bad boy and a big-mouthed developer who doesn't hesitate to give the middle fingers live on TV, Josef Fares is an author with a big heart. A man endowed with great sensitivity, which he also wishes to reveal to the whole world. In 2013, we could see with strength and emotion how much this former film director wants to tell stories based on mutual aid and fraternity. Two themes that are dear to him and that we find once again with A Way Out, a title in which two men will have to unite to each achieve their respective objective. To begin with, there is Leo Caruso, 36, big hooked nose, broken mouth, impulsive, sure of himself and a bit sarcastic. He is serving an 8-year prison sentence for armed robbery, assault and aggravated theft. Played by Fares Fares, the older brother of Josef Fares, Leo is actually a fairly faithful representation of the latter, an almost autobiographical portrait. On the other, we have Vincent Moretti, 43, sentenced to spend 14 years behind bars for fraud, embezzlement and murder, that of his brother, which he obviously did not commit. Rather of the discreet and disciplined type, Vincent never lets himself be overwhelmed by his emotions, thus revealing himself to be the exact opposite of Leo. Two men with diametrically opposed characters, but who will have to make friends to escape this prison and find the man who unites them in their destiny.
TANGO & CASH
With a lifespan of around 7 hours of play, A Way Out is divided into two large parts. The first, perhaps the most interesting, is to escape from the prison where our two thugs are being held. It is also in this prison that we will be able to appreciate all the contours that draw the gameplay of the title, but also its staging. From the outset, A Way Out immerses us in the game in cooperation, resuming – and imposing – the famous split screen which once made the happiness of the players in the 80s/90s, a period during which the online did not yet exist. But unlike those titles where the screen was split either horizontally or vertically, the demarcation line in A Way Out changes according to the situations and the skits, constantly renewing the framing, but above all energizing the setting. scene. The game goes even further, with a striking scene where a third character comes into play, then dividing the screen into three parts, thus delivering three different points of view. Unheard of in video games, and no doubt to be repeated in the future. This is clearly one of the strengths of this title which relies on mutual aid, sharing and more importantly: communication. With the help of a friend (or his wife) sitting next to you, or at the end of the web, hooked up to his headset, A Way Out is a must for two. A choice that may displease some people, but that Josef Fares hopes to convert to his idea by offering a friend pass that allows you to invite a friend to participate in the adventure with the one who bought the game. doubt the base, the base of the game of Josef Fares, who absolutely insists that the players speak to each other, in order to create an osmosis between them, and therefore a form of brotherhood. And for once, it is successful. Because it is together that Leo and Vincent (and by extension the two players in front of their television) will face adversity and overcome all the trials that will stand in their way.
TERRENCE HILL & BUD SPENCER
Create a diversion to divert the attention of a guard or nurse, light an area to turn a crank lurking in the dark, stand watch while the other unscrews an air vent, kick down a door in pairs, rescuing during a brawl, stunning guards in a synchronized way, doing the short ladder, the actions to be carried out in pairs are as numerous as they are varied, knowing that everything is based on simultaneity and thus generate any form of exchange and communication between players. Everything has been thought out and produced so that the adventure, which is also very narrative, is rarely tainted by too much difficulty. In line with a David Cage game, the gameplay is based on a lot of QTEs that the Ayatollahs of the video game will reject like the plague, while the others will see it as a rather subtle way of involving characters up to present refractory to any form of video game that requires too much skill. Despite a few gunfight and chase scenes, A Way Out does not claim to be aimed at the most hardcore players, even if we still regret a certain lack of challenge, and some situations that we found ubiquitous.
More ambitious, more adult and more narrative too, A Way Out has two major ambitions: to raise Josef Fares, its creator, to the rank of game designers who matter, and to ensure that solitary players become united.
This is also the main flaw of A Way Out, namely to multiply the awkwardness, both in certain situations that are not very credible or incoherent, and to sink into somewhat crude clichés for a game coming out in 2018. The title by Josef Fares would have gained in depth and maturity if he had taken the trouble to lengthen his story, deepen certain aspects of the character and perhaps hide some big screenplay threads, which would perhaps have prevented we guess the final outcome after only 3 hours of adventure. As we told you above, it's the first part of A Way Out that comes out the best, where you have to work together to achieve your goals. As soon as the game turns into basic cooperation where the split screen is no longer necessary, especially during the gunfight sequences and the motorcycle chase, the game sinks into a maddening banality, which is caught up more is by a rather dated realization and an obvious lack of energy in certain action scenes, proving that the 3D engine was not developed for this.
JACQUIE & MICHEL
So yes, Leo and Vincent are rather well modeled and the close-ups on their faces, as well as certain environments (the whole passage in the forest for example) manage to hide the obvious lack of budget. We are well aware that the studio did not have the means for a AAA at the GOD OF WAR, but with Electronic Arts in back up, we would have liked more worked graphics, in particular at the level of the secondary characters and the representation of water, ultra cheap in its animations. To counterbalance these visual asperities, A Way Out knows how to surprise with its staging, with two quite memorable moments. The first is none other than the chase with the crooked foreman on a construction site, where the camera then begins to move back until it becomes aerial, while the second takes up the signature shot of Park's film Old Boy Chan-Wook, who was already inspired by video games to reproduce the horizontal scrolling movement of the beat'em all of the 90s. A way to close the loop somewhere.
