I still can\’t believe that it\’s already 2023, like what? I feel like I\’m still at 2020 but it\’s already been 3 years.😂

Anyway, I\’m hoping to finally be able to have some time to actually pursue my passions, particularly gaming and then blogging about it.😁

So, 2 weekends ago, my son, \”L\” persuaded me to play this game with him and I didn\’t expect to enjoy it, I regret not agreeing to play this with him sooner.

It\’s \”A\” Game

It\’s My \”A\” Game is going to be my space on this blog where I get to write about games I\’ve played that have left an impression so great that I just have to tell someone about it!

\’Bringing your \”A\” game\’ is a phrase used to incite one\’s best efforts.

To bring one\’s A-game means to do one\’s best, to perform at the highest level that is possible for that person. Someone who is demonstrating his peak ability in a certain arena is said to bring his A-game

Trending

Why SUNOD will keep me up at night…

Grammarist

A Way Out

Developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts, the same company that published one of my favourite games ever, The Sims!

\”A\” Rating: ❤️❤️❤️♡♡

Pros:

❤️ Fast paced gameplay
❤️ Engaging story line
❤️ Interesting characters
❤️ In-game mini games
❤️ Must play more than once

Cons:

♡ Expensive at ₱1, 395 for PS4 ($25.32)
♡ Disappointing ending (both endings)

The Plot

A Way Out, released in 2018 is a 2 player, action-adventure game set in 1972 and follows the lives of 2 convicts, Vincent Moretti and Leo Caruso, as they try and escape prison and exact revenge against a crime boss who killed Vincent\’s brother and double crossed Leo.

Watch the game\’s trailer here:

The Gameplay

This is a 2 player, split screen, third person p-o-v game, you can either play locally, meaning you\’re on the same console, or online, meaning you\’re in 2 different places, using two different consoles, but not like online like GTA V Online where it\’s an open world, which simply means you can explore the places on the map at any given time and there are new events and new things to discover and do.

The Characters

Vincent Moretti
Age: 43
Crime: Fraud, Embezzlement, Murder
Sentence: About to serve 14 years
Personality: Rational, Disciplined, Reserved
Background: After earning a degree in financing and marrying his high school sweetheart, Vincent settled on a job in banking. Promises of easy money ended up shattering his whole life when he got drawn into the world of organized crime.

Leo Caruso
Age: 36
Crime: Armed Robbery, Assault, Grand Theft
Sentence: Served 6 months out of 8 years
Personality: Confident, Short Temper, Joker
Background: Leo was brought up in an orphanage and turned to crime early in his life. When stealing a famous diamond, everything went horribly wrong. Now he must get out of prison and set things right for his son, his wife and for himself.

⚠️SPOILER ALERT!⚠️

If you don\’t want spoilers, please stop reading here.

Let\’s go!

The Title Screen

Based on the character profiles on the title screen, of course I chose the older one, Vincent, and \”L\” chose the younger one, Leo.

So, it\’s pretty self explanatory, the title screen offers information about their crimes, how long their sentence is and some personality traits.

At the beginning of the game, we meet the characters on what looks like a vehicle of some sort and the characters have a short conversation, which implies that the title screen is the present and that the following scene will be a flashback.

The conversation at the start of the game:

Leo: Hey, Vincent, what\’s your plan after this?
Vincent: I don\’t know. Haven\’t really thought about it.
Leo: You haven\’t thought about it? That must be a first for you, Mr Over Thinker.
Vincent: *annoyed* There\’s a difference between overthinking things and being smart, Leo.
Leo: *annoyed* Are you implying that I\’m not smart?
Vincent: *snarky* Your words, not mine.
Leo: *calmly* Hey, I may not be smart in your book but I do get sh*t done.
Vincent: *resigned* Can\’t argue with that.

After the conversation, the players then get a chance to choose which character they\’re going to play as.

A Way out is structured like a play so instead of episodes, they have acts and chapters. It has 5 Acts and 37 Chapters and the entire gameplay lasts around 6 hours, that\’s how long we spent to play the game with both endings, anyway.

⚠️2nd SPOILER ALERT!⚠️

This is your 2nd and last warning, major spoiler alerts coming up next!

The Story and Plot Twist

Vincent is about to serve time for fraud, embezzlement and murder. Leo is already serving time for robbery, assault and grand theft.

So, we learn more about Leo\’s crime from a cutscene; He stole a diamond known as The Black Orlov, and along with his accomplice, Harvey, they meet their buyer at an abandoned warehouse and just as the sale was wrapping up, Harvey shoots the buyer dead and knocks out Leo and then he runs off.

When Leo comes to, he\’s surrounded by policemen and that\’s how he was arrested.

At this point it\’s still unclear exactly what Vincent is in jail for, but he tells Leo that they have a common enemy, Harvey and that like Leo, he also wants revenge.

Leo then comes up with a plan and Vincent reluctantly helps him out, eventually, Vincent is all on board in Leo\’s escape plan and this is where the gameplay gets exciting as players literally have to work together to escape the prison.

After successfully escaping prison, Vincent then tells Leo that Harvey killed his brother and framed him for it, that\’s why he\’s in prison. They make a short stop to visit Leo\’s wife, Linda and son, Alex. It\’s a short but sweet reconciliation. Vincent tries to call his pregnant wife whenever he gets to a phone but he never really says anything.

Then they setup a plan to get to Harvey by visiting one of his henchmen and torturing him to give up Harvey\’s location. They find out Harvey is in Mexico and as they make plans to acquire guns, Vincent gets a tip that his wife has given birth.

So, then Vincent decides he wants to make a pit stop at the hospital to visit his wife and newborn daughter and Leo feels for him, so he agrees to accompany him.

They sneak into the hospital and Vincent gets to see his wife and daughter. He\’s not 100% okay with his wife yet, she\’s still pissed at him for going to jail. Soon after, someone tips off the cops and the hospital is surrounded, so again, you help each other to escape the police.

While on the plane to Mexico, Leo gives Vincent an unsolicited advice and told him to write his wife a letter if he wants her back. Leo says he experienced the same thing with his wife, Linda and that he wrote her a heartfelt letter and that \”softened\” her up. Vincent thinks about this and actually writes a letter to his wife, Carol.

They both make it to Mexico and we realize where they are during the title screen, they\’re on a plane going to Mexico, but Harvey already knows they\’re coming because they captured his henchman that ratted him out to Vincent and Leo and as per Harvey\’s command he was shot to death.

Team work makes the dream work and before you know it, you\’ve succeeded in killing off Harvey\’s henchmen and cornering him in an office, he tries to take one of them hostage but because team work, they get The Black Orlov back and they kill Harvey.

They then leave Mexico on the same plane they used to go in and once the plane has landed, you\’re surrounded by cops.

The plane is surrounded by cops, and there\’s no escape. A police goes over to collect The Black Orlov from Leo and another policeman goes straight to Vincent and hands him a gun.

This is the part where I screamed, WHAAAATTTT? and NOOOOOOOO! I did not see that coming! Oh how gullible and how convincing he was!

So, the major plot twist of this game is that, Vincent is a cop, an FBI agent!😱

He was undercover and went to prison to get close to Leo to find out where Harvey was and retrieve The Black Orlov and turn Leo in. Harvey did kill Vincent\’s brother, the \”buyer\” was Vincent\’s brother and Harvey killed him when he double crossed Leo.

I absolutely did not see that coming, he just looked like a convincing criminal.😂 And also, why else would his pregnant wife be so mad at him to the point that she doesn\’t even want him to be a part of her life? That\’s what I thought anyway.

Although, I did second guess when Vincent got a tip that his wife went into labour, but like at the same time, criminals have like contacts, right? So, he could\’ve been tipped off that way.

When Vincent told Leo why he wanted revenge against, Harvey, I believed him just as Leo believed him. Freaking jerk.😤

My heart broke when I found out that Vincent betrayed Leo and that it was just a setup to retrieve The Black Orlov that Leo and Harvey stole and that revenge on Harvey for his brother\’s death was just like a sweet bonus.

The Ending

So, heart broken with yet another betrayal, poor guy, Leo takes Vincent hostage, steals a police car and tries to escape the police. The car then crashes into water after trying to avoid a road block. Leo escapes the submerged car and steals a boat and Vincent is picked up by a helicopter.

Leo and Vincent end up in an abandoned building where they face off.

I absolutely feel so bad for Leo, like seriously, he treated Vincent like a brother, he could\’ve let him die so many times, but he didn\’t. He was betrayed by Harvey and then again by Vincent, like don\’t blame him if he has trust issues.

As they fight and punch each other, there\’s a brief cutscene of their lives flashing before their eyes, and then they\’re at a stand off and players have to race to a gun nearby and then shoot the other.

So there are 2 endings to this game.

Ending 1:

Leo shoots Vincent.

As Vincent lies dying from blood loss, he reaches out to Leo and hands him the letter he wrote his wife. There\’s a montage of his funeral and he is given an honorable burial. Flashback to months after his funeral and we see a beard-clad Leo approach Vincent\’s apartment, he leaves the letter on the door stop and rings the doorbell. Carol, Vincent\’s wife opens the door, holding their baby daughter, she finds the letter and we hear Vincent in the background narrating his letter. It\’s a bitter sweet ending for Vincent.

After that, Leo drives into a motel and goes into a room to pick up his wife and kid and they drive off into the sunset to live a quiet life.

Ending 2:

Vincent shoots Leo.

As Leo lies dying from blood loss, he reaches for Vincent and they just hold hands until Leo dies. I guess it\’s like Leo saying, \”I forgive you\”. Vincent then goes to visit Leo\’s wife and kid and he tells Leo\’s wife, Linda, that they need to talk so she asks their son to give them a moment, and then Vincent tells her that Leo passed away.

She breaks down crying and asks Vincent to leave, Alex then hears her crying and he rushes into their trailer to comfort her, it\’s as if he also already knew that his Dad was gone.

Vincent then goes to visit his wife, Carol and their newborn daughter, who Carol named, Julie. He apologizes to her and give her the letter he wrote and he tells her that he quit the force and that he wants to work on their marriage and be the best Dad he can be, Carol accepts his apology and asks him to come in, implying that they have reconciled.

At the very end, we see Linda at Leo\’s grave, still grieving.

My Preferred Ending

I prefer ending one, where Vincent dies, it just makes more sense. It\’s more dramatic and it gives Leo\’s story a much deserved ending. I\’m not saying Vincent deserved to die, of course not.

\”L\” and I agree that they should\’ve both survived and that the death of either one of them was actually pointless, like why kill one of them off anyway? Why not just have them both survive and have Leo serve the rest of his sentence? But like he should have like a couple years shaved off because he did help Vincent locate and subdue Harvey.

Final Thoughts & Violent Reactions

I\’m just really sad about the ending. I feel like it was so unnecessary for any of the main characters to die, it just wasn\’t needed and it didn\’t make the story better, it just makes you feel sad.

I don\’t know about you but I invest more than my time when I\’m playing a game, I get so attached to the characters and death is just something I\’m not prepared to deal with in my games, like that\’s already a fact of life, I don\’t want to have to deal with that in-game as well, you know? So that sucks.

Over all, despite the disappointing ending this was a good game, worth the time spent to play it but like it is kind of expensive at ₱1, 395 ($25.32).

But there are different outcomes to every decision you make, so every scenario warrants a second time to play.

There are also fun mini games within the game, like:

In the Prison Yard:

• Chin-ups
• Dips
• Push-ups
• Sit-ups

In the Farm:

• Horseshoes
• Banjo
• Piano

In the Trailer Park:

• Darts
• Baseball
• Basketball

In the Construction Site:

• Arm Wrestling

In the Hospital:

• Wheelchair Wheelies
• Four in a Row

In the Desert:

• Bottle Shooting

In the Airplane Hangar:

• Arcade Game
• Darts
• Bench Press

So, it\’s definitely not boring, but I do get how one can get tired of it once they\’ve played it, so it\’s definitely one of those games you play more than once, because the first time you play for the story, the second time you play to get the results of the other option you didn\’t choose the first time and to get the other ending and then the third and fourth and so on – to play the mini games.