Kentucky Route Zero Switch
Kentucky Route Zero is immersive theater for your Nintendo Switch An epic episodic art piece comes to a conclusion, and is now available for consoles: The game's creators talk to CNET about what.
TheGamer – Privacy PolicyWe respect your privacy and we are committed to safeguarding your privacy while online at oursite. The following discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices for this Website.This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 10, 2018.
Legal OwnershipTheGamer (the “Website”) is owned and operated by Valnet inc. (“us” or “we”), a corporationincorporated under the laws of Canada, having its head office at 7405 Transcanada Highway,Suite 100, Saint Laurent, Quebec H4T 1Z2.
Personal Data CollectedWhen you visit our Website, we collect certain information related to your device, such as yourIP address, what pages you visit on our Website, whether you were referred to by anotherwebsite, and at what time you accessed our Website.We do not collect any other type of personal data. If you are accessing our website through asocial media account, please refer to the social media provider’s privacy policy for informationregarding their data collection. Log FilesLike most standard Web site servers, we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP)addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type,date/timestamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’smovement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. The long-awaited final form of Kentucky Route Zero is getting a physical edition on.The cartridge version of Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition is already available for pre-order on and is planned to ship early in the third quarter of 2020. In line with the secretive development of the game, not many details have been revealed about what will actually come with this limited edition other than vague selling points like: “Definitely a Physical Game for Nintendo Switch” and “Includes Secret Components, Exclusively Available Only @ iam8bit.”There is also a phone number available for those looking for more details, 1-858-943-6579. When dialed, the number treats callers to a bit of dialog about the Department of the Real and some hold music, possibly more if you stay on the line long enough.
First Kickstarted in 2011 Kentucky Route Zero is an adventure game about an especially difficult furniture delivery, to put it in the most reductive way possible. The game is actually a magical-realist examination of the struggles of working-class people in the United States. The game shifts focus between multiple characters but the central figure in the story is Conway, a truck driver tasked with making a delivery on the seemingly nonexistent Route Zero.Kentucky Route Zero is also the last of the great wave of episodic games, of which the most well-known example is Telltale’s The Walking Dead. The TV edition getting this limited edition is a collection of five episodes, referred to as acts by the game in theatrical style, of Kentucky Route Zero that have been coming out since 2013. Related:Act four of the game was released in 2016 revealing one of the problems of the episodic model in general, which is that an episodic game’s development needs to keep pace with hardware development.
Development of Kentucky Route Zero began before the Xbox One and PS4 were released, acts one through four were released pre Nintendo Switch and PC hardware has been constantly evolving the whole time. The challenge of hitting this kind of moving target in production is one reason many of the games began in this episodic boom suffered as some players tired of visual styles that looked outdated. Outside of some performance hiccups on the Switch, Kentucky Route Zero dodges the effects of this problem is some clever ways.
| write a review of this game read more reviews by krisko6 |
Summary
Retro Digital AmericanaThe Good
* Distinctive visual style* Great soundtrack
* Contains all Acts and Interludes
* A truly unique experience
The Bad
* Dull as a conventional game* Narrative eventually loses its focus
* May be too abstract and interpretive for some players
The Bottom Line
Kentucky Route Zero might just be the most difficult game I’ve ever tried to review. Not because the game itself is impossible to beat, far from it in fact. Rather, Kentucky Route Zero is an experience that, while utilizing the language and platforms of video games, also exists so far outside of the video game sphere that calling it a game is simultaneously incredibly reductive and overblown. It can be best described as something of an interactive art piece which happens to run on a console, something to experience and think about rather than simply finish. Even if you compare it to some of its contemporaries in the adventure and interactive fiction genres, it clearly is set apart thanks to its unique setting and interpretive, dreamlike nature.Taking influences from literary genres such as magical realism, American folklore, and southern gothic literature, Kentucky Route Zero is an interactive drama which initially casts the player as Joseph Conway, a truck driver in Kentucky who is making his last delivery before retirement. He is tasked with delivering antiques to “5 Dogwood Drive”, an address which seemingly doesn’t exist anywhere on the map of Kentucky. After exploring around for a bit, he learns that the only way to complete his delivery is to follow the Zero, a mysterious, circular inter-dimensional highway which makes seemingly no logical sense. Along the way, Conway will interact and build relationships with several fellow travelers. These include tv repair woman Shannon Marquez, Johnny and Junebug, a roaming pair of robotic new wave musicians traveling to Nashville, and Ezra, a young orphan boy whose brother is a giant bald eagle named Julian.
Kentucky Route Zero draws inspirations from sources not typically associated with video games, and its hard to think of any other game with a setting like this. The setting is highly unusual, mixing mundane bars, gas stations, and rest stops, with fantastical, seemingly impossible locations, such as an office building with bears on one floor. The game has a strangely timeless feel, as the technology, designs, and fashions in the game make it difficult to pinpoint a decade as to when this is taking place. All of the game’s computers use tape and cathode-ray displays. The truck Conway drives looks like something out of the 1940’s, while the televisions resemble those of the 1950’s, and VHS tapes are still commonly used. Yet at least one character has a cell phone. It’s another intriguing layer to the game’s setting.
Unusually for the point-and-click genre, Kentucky Route Zero is definitely a game that is much more about theme rather than narrative. so right away this will only appeal to a certain set of players. It deals with the plight of America’s forgotten places and downtrodden blue-collar workers, who try and move forward with grit and determination. Perhaps its an tough love letter to red-state America, or perhaps its a bleak social commentary on capitalism and the recession. There’s so much going on in each act that it can be difficult to determine exactly what the game is trying to say. Every player will no doubt see different things in Kentucky Route Zero. Rich in symbolism and metaphor, Kentucky Route Zero sometimes forgoes logical sense and standard narrative tropes entirely in order to emphasize certain ideas or catch the player off guard. Nothing in this game was what I really expected it to be. At a certain stage, it almost feels like finishing the delivery is less important than what is happening with the characters and how the process certain events.
Kentucky Route Zero is constantly shifting perspectives, and during conversations you will be asked to make dialogue choices not just for Conway, but these other characters as well. These choices don’t change the plot too much, but they do allow the player to fill in a backstory and characterization for each of these wayward souls as the game progresses. You will also take control of these characters during certain scenes. Much like the Telltale games the developers have clearly taken influence from, there are no real puzzles during the game although there might be a few moments where you get lost figuring out what to do next.
On console, playing the game works extremely well. You move your character using the analog stick and select clickable objects with the right stick, while pressing a button to interact with the object. It is all very intuitive. On Nintendo Switch, you also have the option of playing the game utilizing the touch screen controls, which gives the game a more traditional point-and-click feel. This is a very nice touch from the developers.
Kentucky Route Zero is divided into 5 acts which follow Conway and his friends, although there are interludes between each act which follow other characters and events happening in the title’s universe. These interludes were originally released for free as standalone downloads, but are now integrated as part of the main experience.
When discussing Kentucky Route Zero, its protracted development time will inevitably be brought up. Originally Kickstarted around 2011, the game was released episodically on PC beginning in 2013, when the PS3, 360, and Wii U were still the dominant consoles. The developers had planned to finish the entire game within a single year, although that obviously didn’t happen. Instead, Kentucky Route Zero became a target of awe for some internet fans and frustration for most, as the developer would often be completely radio silent for years between releasing each act. It’s hard not to look at certain aspects of this game and see how the development time helped or hurt them. Even looking at the game’s original Kickstarter page reveals a vastly different art style and synopsis for the finished game, indicating a ton of changes behind the scenes. You can clearly see the developers getting more confident with visuals and camera tricks with each episode, but you also have to question what exactly took so long to develop in the first place. Act V is easily the game’s shortest, yet it took almost 4 years to finally release!.
Graphically, Kentucky Route Zero has a simple but striking art style, mainly consisting of flat-shaded polygons with a few textures. The character models have a low-poly feel not unlike the early cinematic platformer games such as Another World, although unlike that game they have no visible facial features. This is augmented by some of the best camera work and transitions I’ve ever seen in an adventure game. The way the camera zooms in on objects only to have them fade or cut out to reveal new things is a wonderful feeling. Many areas have a dynamic camera which travels all around, making for a unique experience. Map screens and menus utilize a sort of vector-graphics style. Together these two styles give the game a distinctly retro vibe, but the kind of retro that is rarely invoked rather than merely pixel art. On the Switch Kentucky Route Zero runs mostly fine although there are a few places, mainly act V, with some light stuttering probably thanks to the game’s use of the Unity engine, which seems to have optimization problems on every console. I wouldn’t let that put you off from the Switch version though, since its portability allows you to consume it like the book that it is.
There is little voice acting in the game to speak of outside of a few radio broadcasts or as part of the ambient soundscape. Much of the game consists of the sounds of rural Kentucky: the roar of the highway, the chirping of crickets, and the crackle of flame as it lights darkness. There are a few ambient tracks played during the map screens. During gameplay, you’ll get to hear some absolutely wonderful songs with vocals, which perhaps evoke the game’s strongest emotions. Most of the songs have a folk or bluegrass style, though there is one that has more of a soft pop style. I was always in awe whenever a song would come on, as it usually signaled that an Act was drawing to a close. These songs bring a sense of warmth and humanity to a game which mostly consists of silently reading character dialog and picking responses.
If you can’t already tell, Kentucky Route Zero is definitely not for everyone. When the curtain closed on the final act I wasn’t even really sure if I actually liked it. Perhaps its not the kind of game that wants to be liked. It will infuriate traditional game fans with its lack of anything meaningfully challenging or conventionally fun, while narrative lovers may be put off by the game’s insistence at being more interpretive than literal. Its themes are depressing and sad, and the ending doesn’t really offer much in the way of closure. Nevertheless, I can’t deny that there is indeed something truly one-of-a-kind here. For proponents of games as a form of interactive art, it’s another example to use, and its story and themes will likely be discussed for years on end. If you’re up for that kind of experience, then you can turn left onto the Zero. Otherwise, most gamers should just stick to the main highway.
