A CAT'S TALE

So, this wasn't really something I was planning, but after serious consideration, and replays I've decided to tell you why a game about a cat is essential consumption.

No, I'm not talking about a goat/cat simulator crossover. No, this is not an adaptation of the cinematic abomination Cats (2019). This is a game made by the indie studio Annapurna Interactive, for cat lovers, by cat lovers, but also gamers. And hot furry damn, this game stuck with me like moist catnip.

Have you ever wanted to know the euphoria a cat feels ruining your couch? Or maybe you've always admired the limber nature of your feral acolyte. Maybe, just maybe you want to slap someone in the face with your fluffy tail, without any care for the repercussions that come with slapping someone as a human.

This game has it all, but the heart lies in its adventure. It wears its most interesting component front and center - there are no human characters; you're a cat in a world absent of organic life. Instead the world you inhabit is one fused with cyberpunk aesthetics and neon light, where sentient robots are left to fend for themselves, mimicking the actions of humans who abandoned them to an unfathomable fate.

They left the word polluted, infected by hazardous waste and a mutated solution that's now turned against the robots in the form of toxic rodents; they're fungal looking and marinate the world in organic filth, nesting in numbers like Ridley Scott's Alien. It's actually pretty gross and immediately gave me chills the moment I saw alley ways covered in organic matter. As a horror fan, I was pleasantly surprised to see in my cat game. The marketing material left this part out.

But why is this game essential? Why an article? Is this guy just a cat-loving freak with too much time on his hands? I'm not going to lie, I do have too much time on my hands, and any man who says scratching a cat doesn't release serotonin is a liar and a cult leader.

But there's so much more to this than just that; media is escapism. In gaming that escapism can last 6 hours, 10 hours, 20 hours or 50 plus hours - for me escapism was 4 hours of intimate world building. Stray's world is drenched in character, lights reflect off of puddles, robots sway and shiver among the warmth of a fire or the cold of the city; as if imitating the behavior of their absent creators - despite being incapable of feeling the dreadful cold, or blissful warmth.

They have stories of longing, they play the guitar outside their windows, they visit bars, and tell their woes to the bartender, they speak of loss, memory, they speak of ambition, sadness, contemplation and even leave graffiti on walls as simple expression. They long for purpose, feeling abandoned and dream of a better world - one they believe exist above their own.

They learned from their creators and inhabited a world where their repeat functions became what was the conditioning of man; they inherited the broken world we left them and they made the best of it with what they scrounged.

All the while a cat, the player's avatar becomes the listener, the observer and the thread that pulls it all together. Though the gameplay mechanics are simple; find this, manage that, find a way around that, run away from this - it's in its story, characters and structure of these missions where the game leaves an impression. It doesn't over-stay its welcome, it doesn't give you repeat-based side missions to span an unnecessarily long run time - it all fits to cater to a feeling, a sense that everything you do is helping this abandoned culture find some peace among their dissected hope - and that's rare in a game.

This isn't an in-depth review of game mechanics, or specs for a reason - sure this game looks like something out of a water colored, neon-drenched, cyberpunk Narnia, but that wasn't what made this feel essential.

You ever felt small, wanting to make a big difference but had a hard time seeming significant because your voice just wasn't loud enough?

Well this puts you in the mitts of the the smallest mammal, with the lowest resounding onomatopoeia, and a big heart - and it made all the difference for me as a player.

5/5