![]() ![]() You manipulate objects by manoeuvring your arm tentacles with the analogue sticks and latching on with the R2 or X button. You move by swinging your lower tentacles one at a time with rapid squeezes of the PS4 DualShock 4’s L2 and R2 triggers. Unfortunately, Dadliest Catch is just an inconsistent, intermittently hilarious trifle, and not the game this terrific character deserves.This is both Octodad’s main gag and the mainstay of its gameplay. Although the flimsy narrative couldn't be more cliche in its communication of a message about loving ourselves and each other for who we really are, Octodad is an endearing hero whose struggle to live an ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances is bizarrely inspiring. You can easily complete the game in about two hours, and it ends up feeling like an incomplete experience that doesn't come close to fulfilling its potential. There also just aren't enough situations in Octodad in general. It's a lot less funny when the situations he's placed in are as absurd as he is. The game is at its funniest when it puts the absurd Octodad in ordinary situations. Additionally, the activities you have to complete at the aquarium lack the domestic quality that makes the first few stages so amusing. It's hard to see the humor in a situation when you find yourself failing it repeatedly and applying trial and error to find a path that might successfully take you through a treacherous environment. You must sneak around these marine biologists, and once the game starts actually demanding some degree of physical prowess from you, the looseness and complexity that previously made the controls fun to grapple with suddenly make them frustrating. Octodad is terrified of the aquarium because the marine biologists there, with their exhaustive knowledge of sea creatures and their remarkable powers of deductive reasoning, can see through his carefully constructed disguise and determine that he is, in fact, no ordinary father, but a cephalo-pop. Despite Octodad's burbled objections, the family takes a trip to the local aquarium. But before long, Dadliest Catch loses its way. You can just relax and laugh at yourself as your attempts to do ordinary things are rendered anything but ordinary by the fact that you are an octopus. The early stages aren't challenging in the least, and this works in the game's favor. The fact that you use one thumbstick to move your "arm" horizontally and another to move it vertically fills tasks like grilling burgers and shopping for groceries with the potential for hilarious physical comedy. Like walking around, interacting with objects is also a lot more complicated for Octodad than it is for your typical video game hero. Here you are, an octopus in a tuxedo on your wedding day, walking down the aisle, making a complete mess of things, and yet nobody suspects a thing. ![]() It's almost impossible to walk around as Octodad without knocking over objects left and right, and that's a big part of the fun. ![]() Simply walking around takes more focus in Octodad than it does in your typical game, because you must hold the left and right bumpers to raise your left or right "legs" and then maneuver those legs around with thumbsticks. However, as the game progresses, it gets away from its spirit of leisurely whimsy, with stealth sequences and boss battles that don't play to the strengths of Octodad's goofy controls. Initially, the juxtaposition of common domestic situations with the gleefully absurd concept makes Octodad: Dadliest Catch a delightful comic romp. Ordinary tasks like making coffee and mowing the lawn are acts that require determination and heroism when you've got flailing octopus tentacles instead of human hands. You see, Octodad has carved out an ordinary life for himself as a husband and father, but secretly, he's an octopus, which makes living this ordinary life especially difficult. But Octodad is a different kind of hero, one whose struggles remind us that the trials and tribulations of everyday life can be tough for us all. For a typical hero like Superman, saving dozens of people from a burning building may be all in a day's work.
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