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Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is one unique experience
Wed, 12th Aug 2015
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a new indie game for the PS4. It is unlike any other game that has been released in 2015.  The game is one that makes the player think for themselves. The free roaming UK town is available for you to explore from the get-go and everything is in first-person. It's your job to find out what is happening in this place.  As the title of the game suggest, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a post-apocalyptic game, although there are no zombies or enemies for you to kill. It's your job to find out what has happened and why.  The game is set in the UK and all living things have mysteriously disappeared. You have to go around the town looking for clues to find out why the world has become a ghost town. Beams of lights guide to where you need to go and they also recreate the conversations that occurred between the humans before the world ended.  The game is in first-person and the controls are very simplistic as only the "X" button is used. You use the left stick to walk and the right stick to look around, and that's about it. Occasionally, you need to shake the controller to initiate a new conversation to occur.  There are a few things that are still interactive in this game. You can press X to open doors, open gates, answer telephones and listen to the radio. This is the "bulk" of the gameplay as most of it requires you to listen to the dialogue that plays out. The more dialogue that you listen to, the more clues you will decipher to know what happened to all of the humans.  I'm not allowed to talk to you about any details of the story, but I will say it's fascinating to find out what happens. At first I was bored playing the game as I wasn't sure what to do, but the story starts to kick in after the first hour or so. This is when I wasn't about put the controller down. Near the end of the game, I was determined to finish it before I went to sleep that night.  The graphics and level design of the UK town are excellent. The term "photo-realistic" gets thrown around a lot of times, but I can honestly say this game's graphics achieves just that. Not only do all of the buildings look realistic, but the grass, trees, water and other features look stunning. It is one of the best looking PS4 games I have ever played.  That being said, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is not a game that will appeal to everyone. It has a slow pace and you have to use a lot of your imagination and interpretation to know what is happening to the characters in the game. Not to mention your character can only walk and it takes several minutes just to get from one area to the next.  Another flaw that might make people stay away from the game is its lack of replayability. It took me around 5-6 hours to complete this game. Although I enjoyed the story and graphics, it's not a game that I think I will never play through a second time. Once you know where to go and how the story ends, there's little to no incentive to play through the game again.  Overall, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a unique game with some of the best visuals that the PS4 has to offer. The story is engaging and not predictable as well. However, the lack of actual gameplay and replay offer might put off some people. Still, this game is worth playing if you want to experience something different.  Verdict: 7.5/10