Review of A Way Out

Just played this game tonight on PS4. A friend asked if i wanted to play, and the idea of old school split screen sounded good. Unfortunately, it was quite clear from the start, that this game only gives you the illusion of a game. The "gameplay" is the major problem with this game. The only elements of the game are moving your character to the marked area and then pressing or square, x, or R2. Sometimes you have hold the button. Sometimes you must tap it. The focus of the game is co-op. But there is no real co-op aspect to the gameplay. Most of the time you push square, x or R2 independent of each other. Sometimes you must push the buttons at the same time! If you fail to do so, the game will often just wait for you. No consequences. In the few "action" scene, you have quick time events, where you have to push the right button, then the prompt comes on the screen. You have a couple of seconds to do so, so there is no challenge. If you fail (you won't, but we tried to force the game to have us fail often, just to see the reaction) you loss the progress of approx. the last 30 seconds, and start up again at the same situation. It is a game designed to give you the illusion of action and excitement, but when you realize that there is no consequences to you action, and the entire gameplay consists of, pressing/holding/tapping the button displayed on the screen, you lose the excitement. The "game" has some option throughout the scenes, to interact with the environment, be it talking to people, or using equipment or a farm or the likes. I like it when games give you a rich world, that you feel is actually inhabited with the NPC's. But unlike The Last of Us or even Undertale, these interactions bring nothing to the game. Petting a cow, doing pull ups or asking a NPC if he like cleaning I washing machine, is neither funny nor considered actual gameplay. There is a couple of minigames, where you can compete with your co-op partner, but is too little too late, and only underlines that it is an otherwise barren game. So, this is not really a game, but more of a interactive movie/story. Unfortunately, the story isn't really that compelling. A couple of guys bonds in prison, and breaks out to get revenge on the guy who got them there. Unoriginal and predictive. Perhaps i am not seeing the brilliance of the game. The game has gotten otherwise fine reviews. After playing the game, I searched for reviews that could confirm my suspiciance that this was the worst game o 2018 so far, but I couldn't find any. Reviewers seems blinded by the fake action the game tries to force on you. Therefor I found it relevant to give you another perspective of A Way Out.