Playstation’s Journey gets five gongs at Bafta game awards

SONY CONSOLE EXCLUSIVE Journey has picked up a fistfull of gongs at the British Film and Television Awards for gaming.

Journey, for those that do not have a Playstation, sounds like the sort of thing dreamed up at the latter end of a wild night.

In it you play a robed character who wanders a desert in dreamy fashion. You might or might not bump into other players, but you cannot talk to them.

Instead you perform a Shout. Shouts are used to set off any kind of action. Be that to communicate with a total stranger, or turn things red.

Over time your character can get charged up enough to float up in the air. Journey is a piece of art, a slow moving indepth and subtle adventure.

It's also a winner. It picked up trophies for Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Game Design, Online Multiplayer and Original Music. After that we imagined it spent some time in a bar before floating up in the air briefly.

Those awards are cool, sure. But who won Best Game? Say hello to Dishonored, which beat other likely winners including Far Cry 3, Mass Effect 3 and FIFA 13.

Best Action game went to Far Cry 3, which is an island hopping revenge-athon, and Best Brit game was the absorbing point and click adventure the Room by Fireproof Games.

The very interesting Unfinished Swan picked up a couple of awards, including Game Innovation and Best Debut, while the The Walking Dead shuffled off with Best Mobile & Handheld and Best Story.

Sony, which has just settled down from the Playstation 4 launch announcement, is cock-a-hoop about it's winning titles, Unfinished Swan and The Journey, and thanked its creative games development community for all of its efforts.

"We were absolutely delighted to have the recognition for Journey and The Unfinished Swan and a huge thank you to Bafta for that. Both of these games deliver a huge boost in the 'games as art' debate, being as they are mould-breaking completely innovative titles," a Sony spokesperson told The INQUIRER.

"We will always have the big blockbuster titles in our portfolio but having titles like Journey and Unfinished Swan is something we are eminently proud of. Huge kudos to Giant Sparrow and Thatgamecompany for creating these landmark titles." µ