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New on Motherboard: Hell on High Seas
"The Mourning Tree," from the soundtrack to 'Everybody's Gone to the Rapture'Rapture's sci-fi-meets-the-supernatural (via a healthy wallop of religiosity) creepiness, lurking just beneath its pastoral veneer, remains for its entire duration. Perhaps it's the Englishness of the experience, but I'm reminded, for its first few hours, of a great Doctor Who episode that's yet to be, probably Mark Gatiss-penned, a story where the Time Lord arrives at an abandoned village and has to suss where everyone's disappeared to, perhaps never quite finding the complete answer. (Or, just maybe, a supremely surreal tangent to the long-running radio soap The Archers, also set in the English midlands.) And certainly, come the climax of the game, it's likely that many players won't know for sure what's happened—and I felt that the dénouement was as much a warning as a wrap-up. But that's almost beside the point—it's how you get to the end that matters, and the path you follow, stunningly soundtracked by in-house composer Jessica Curry (given Journey's score by Austin Wintory got itself a Grammy nod, this definitely deserves to be in the running for a whole bunch of awards), is never dull.Could it be traveled faster? It could, and can be, but if you're rushing your way through Rapture then you're playing it in entirely the wrong way. Take your time: The Chinese Room's gentle apocalypse is one of the most magically immersive experiences that gaming in 2015 is going to provide, but a second playthrough won't ever be as special as the first. Step slowly, and surely. Stall beneath the stars and, for a second or two, just wonder about what makes a video game. Rapture has fewer traditional elements of player agency to it than Submerged, but I know which of the two impressed me most on a first play, and which I'll happily, albeit with the mystery lifted, sit through all over again. There's no need to run—the credits won't begin without you.Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is out now for PlayStation 4. Submerged is out now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.