The Path

This review does not tell you much about the game because if I started talking about it I would spoil the experience for you. Unlike all other reviews (at least so far) where you can talk about key features or experiences if I did that it would be wrong. What I can say is that The Path is an experience of exploration and emotion. You should enjoy the game in small doses and not rush your way through because it is a slow experience but a wildly artistic one.

An experience like no other, The Path is as unique and engaging as it is unnerving.

Not an example of “games as art,” so much as a work of art deftly supported by a game.

Now play it, because I desperately need to talk to someone about it. [June 2009, p.100]

The Path is art in videogame-form, and its weird ways have the potential to elevate it to the position of one of the best Indie-Games this year.

The Path is not a game, it's art. And damn good art too. If you're open to it, try it and draw your own conclusion.

The path doesn't take the most obvious course. It doesn't have a great control scheme. It doesn't even have a good one, to be honest, but it doesn't need it to be a very immersive experience.

It's slow to unfold and simple to play, but you won't soon forget this extraordinary work of interactive fiction.

An art connoisseur will be in raptures over the perfect, highly stylized look of The Path. A gamer will walk about the forest for 10 minutes and uninstall it. And both will be right in their own way.

It is simple to play, but incredibly deep in its execution. It’s mystical, often perplexing, and more disturbing than pleasant. Think of it as an interactive fairy tale, and you’ll find it much less stupefying and maybe even a bit marvelous.

The Path is a successful experiment and a good example that there are signs of innovation in the games-sector. The fascinating fact about this game is that you will have to use your own fantasy very much.

One thing's for sure, regardless of whether you love or hate The Path, you won't forget it.

Flawed, intriguing art-game. [May 2009, p.70]

Selecting whether you play as the depressed emo girl or the teenage slut might add some replayability, but only if you enjoy the game’s generally sluggish and strange presentation. If it sounds like your cup of tea, you need only shell out ten dollars to walk The Path.

It's totally no fun. It's interesting, but there isn't a fun bone in its mopey body. But I've paid to go into modern art galleries. I've paid for really oddball, minimalist art films. I've gone to gigs where music is divorced from any physical reaction and raised to some cerebral, abstract place - and plenty of gigs where most sane human beings would consider there was nothing actually musical going on. I haven't, but could pay for experimental theatre tickets. Lots of poetry. Whatever.

Whichever way you look at it, The Path is a phenomenal experience that has already generated huge amounts of debate over its adult content on message boards and forums.

At the end, we should probably have split the final score in two parts and fixing it it's a very hard job. The Path is an experience more than a videogame as it is defined. The Path is not for everyone: you have not objectives, achievements and stuff like that. Someone could find this boring, someone else could think about an analysis of the life, when every step is a choice.

If you don’t like The Path, then you only spent ten dollars. And if you do like it, then it could well be one of your favorite games of the year.