A few nights ago, bored with all my other games, I threw in the Journey collection, intending to continue my Journey, but I decided instead to finish off Flower, and after I finished that, I felt compelled to write this up. I might do a short thing like this as I finish this massive collection of games I have here. We'll see.

Flower:

Shelf-time (Time it sat on my shelf unfinished): Roughly 2 months.

Total time to complete: Roughly 5 or so hours, spread over those two months.

Cost: $25, with two other games on the same disc.

So, I'll begin this by saying I bought this in the collection that comes along with Journey (The sole reason I purchased it) and flOw, and this was the first of the three I completed. We'll see those later on in this chronicle of finished games. Well, hopefully.

First of all, Flower is the very definition of flashy artistic gaming. Ambiguous goals, bright colours, sparkles all over the place and flower petals all over the god damn screen. It's overwhelming how much it shoves in your face in the few levels (Or flowers, I suppose you could say) you're offered.

But that's not a bad thing in the slightest.

It looks amazing, really. Those looks, to me at least, are the primary driving force to completing this game. All of those colours and sparkles I previously mentioned draw you in with an 'Ooo, shiny' mentality, and it couldn’t have been done any better way. I love it.

You're given nothing to go on, no narrative, not even as much as a word. When you first fire up the game, you're presented with a room, a window and a sickly looking flower on a bench, and from that, your journey begins. This game employs the use of Six-Axis on the PS3, a little used feature (Usually a good thing) that never got proper exposure. On that, this is the first game I've ever played where it's actually used well, instead of a really annoying tacked-on use, like in GTA IV (God damn tutorial in the phone) or the Ratchet and Clank (I never used those guns. Ever) games. Using Six-Axis, and feeling silly doing so, you steer over to the flower and are thrown into a completely new world, no story, no nothing. Especially no annoying tutorial that assumes I've never played a game in my life.

Your goal in Flower, though not explicitly stated, is to fly around a massive open field-sort area and bloom flowers by flying close by, as you 'bloom' these flowers, a petal from that flower joins your chain, and so over the stage you build a massive collection of flower petals (Which looks very pretty). You're steering with the controller, so it adds some slight difficulty until you find your bearings and remember that you have to use motion controls, and then it's only a matter of going the right way.

As you drive your flower chain through the level, the world opens up to you. As you head through fields full of dead grass, they are brought back to life and explode into a sea of green. As you head through dark fields covered in old power lines, you re-light lamps atop them. As you head through ruined cities, you destroy old pillars and paint buildings bright shades of blue, green and yellow.

Though the journey is short, the journey is beautiful. Every stage throws a new purpose at you, even if the mechanics don't change. Every moment of this game is enjoyable. Even after you finish each and every stage and reach the credits, you're thrown into another level, where you control a final petal as you 'play' the credits. Seriously, I love this game.

Final rating: Try it, carry on if you like what you see. And you will, trust me.