I expected this to be a fully-animated, Saturday-morning cartoon adventure game, and a groundbreaker for the genre. As far as I know, there are few—if any—games that hybridize 2D/3D art like this in an adventure game setting. It was mostly this.
Open Roads is a first-person walking simulator with very straighforward “collect and inspect” mechanism that drives the gameplay. This is interspersed with interactive, choose-your-response type cutscenes that unfold a rather deep and twisty family-based narrative. I honestly expected a bunch of “wokeness” in the story, especially since the player is placed in the shoes of a female teenager interacting with her divorced mother, but it was refreshingly straightforward with no visible agenda other than tell an interesting tale.
Recommended if you have Game Pass, as that's the most cost-effective way to experience this two-and-a-half-hour journey. Otherwise, I suspect this will be one that shows up for free in Epic Games or GoG giveaways.
2024.03.29 – 2024.03.30
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