We Happy Few First View
First of all let me just start by saying that this is by no means a review of We Happy Few, it is merely an opinion piece on the game
in its current state. As We Happy Few is still in early access we don’t yet
have full access to the game or most of the game elements and won’t do for
quite some time with it due to exit early access sometime next year.
We Happy Few is a survival/adventure/objective based game that allows the player to complete tasks in his or her own way. It is set in a very Victorian steampunk kind of setting in the 1960’s and the city is named Wellington Wells. Very colourful and bright environments bring about memories and similarities to the setting of 2K’s Bioshock Infinite. This setting leads the player into a false sense of security as the inhabitants of Wellington Wells are highly unpredictable and as you will later read, very protective over their personal belongings, even their duct tape.
The game by no means
holds your hand and you must adapt quickly or suffer the same fate as myself
when first starting. You must eat, drink and sleep as well as keep your body in
good nick by not eating rotting food or drinking stagnant water, because let’s face it,
neither of those things are good for you. Upon becoming sick you must take
medication to help rectify your health situation and as in most survival games, you
can bleed out if you run into a bit of trouble as I did. But I mean how was I
supposed to know that stealing a lady's duct tape roll was going to turn into
an all-in brawl that resulted in myself legging 10 miles up the street before
they finally gave up the chase? It seems to be okay to steal these things when
the house tenants aren’t watching but without an indicator as to whether or not
you can be seen it makes this a little tricky.
Throw permadeath in the mix and every little choice that you
make feels like it could be your last one. I literally made it out with about
1% health when things went south when I was caught stealing, but hey, nothing
like a little adrenaline rush to make sure you are still alive right? After my
ordeal, not only did I have to deal with the bleeding, but I also had my thirst,
hunger and sleep levels to look after. Talk about a waste of a day. I
dusted myself off and went along for more the next day. Thankfully the citizens
of Wellington Wells have a short memory and all of yesterday’s wrong doings had
been forgotten!
You are given quests, these include main quests and side quests just like you would expect to see in many RPG’s these days. How and when you complete these are completely up to you. For example, I had a quest that wanted me to disable or stop this person who thought it was fun to continually run. I will give you a handy tip, by disable they only meant to knock unconscious, not smash him over the back of the head with a cricket bat and kill him (whoops my bad). While you have quests that you can complete, the game seems to be quite simple. You are a human who is trapped in Wellington Wells and forced to take "Joy" in so that you can always be happy and not dwell on the past. Those who come off their Joy generally meet a bad or untimely end.
I believe that in full release, We Happy Few is meant to have
3 different playable characters as well as their own story lines. The story lines
available at the moment are those that are in the prologue/first part of the
game. However this is all I need at the
moment and from what I have seen we have a lot to look forward to when the game
is in its final version and has gone gold for release. Overall I believe that Compulsion Games may have found it easier and less time consuming to keep the early access of this game on the PC. However reading through their forums and updates, they are responding to the community's feedback swiftly.
Thanks for reading and I hope you find Joy inside Wellington Wells!
Cheers Weeksy
Zachary Weeks
Aussie Gamers Express
Aussie Gamers Express