Life Is Strange...both a universal truth and a modern adventure game

After my last post about Until Dawn, someone suggested I give my thoughts on Life Is Strange.  While distinctly different than Until Dawn, there are also some areas in which these can be compared and contrasted, including the fact that this game has its ups and downs.  I would probably recommend this game, although looking back on it (I finished this a couple months ago) my reception  has cooled a bit as I had the opportunity to reflect on my experience.

What Is It?

A couple years ago, new life was injected into the "Adventure" genre of games.  Telltale released The Walking Dead, which reinvigorated interest in the point and click style game where you interact with items and people within the world to advance the story.  Many other games in a similar vein came out after Walking Dead, especially from Telltale (perhaps too many from Telltale).  While some people may think adventure games sound like action games, the truth is that the genre is closer to a puzzle game than a "twitchy" action game.

Life Is Strange for the most part runs along the same lines as Telltale's adventure games.  The character you control, Max, is a girl who is studying photography at a private school in a fictional Oregon town heavily inspired by the show Twin Peaks.  Max is clearly the protagonist, and like many high school protagonists, she's not the most popular kid in school, but she is soft spoken, identifiable, and easy to like.  What makes this game unique is the mechanic of reversing time, which is a power Max discovers very early on.  The time reversal mechanic is used constantly, mostly in interesting ways, like exploring how other characters react to different dialogue choices, or undoing an accident that may cause some damage.  It's also the central plot device.  Max uses this ability very early to avoid a life changing tragedy which I won't elaborate on since it's a spoiler.  But in essence, Max's ability to rewind time is what advances the plot and is responsible for much of the conflict and resolution of the main story.  

If you read my Until Dawn post, you should immediately see one of the biggest differences between the two games.  Until Dawn forces you to live with your decisions, while Life Is Strange encourages you to play with your choices and settle on what makes you comfortable.  As a result, Life Is Strange is much less tense (not a bad thing...just a thing).  Perhaps you don't know the full impact of your decisions over the full course of the game, which is 5 episodes, but generally you know how other characters will perceive Max as a result of your decisions.

The game also uses the time reversal mechanic for puzzles.  You try something, it doesn't work, and you discover the right way to make it work by reversing time.  Or you move a bunch of stuff around and then reverse time so it moves back.  Sometimes you go back in time a few seconds, and other times you go back much, much further (with significant plot consequences).

It takes about 10 hours or so to complete all 5 episodes, and since it is episodic it's not very expensive to purchase.  In fact, I got my Steam key from Newegg on sale for less than $10.  It's also available on consoles.

Do I Like It?

Yeah, I like it.  When I finished the game, I felt at the time like it was one of the best games of the year.  But now that I've had some time to reflect on it, there are a lot of negatives and I think in the end I would rank Until Dawn ahead of it (although that's entirely subjective and even I'm not 100% sure I will feel that way a month from now).  I'll discuss my thoughts without getting into spoilers.

Let's start with the positive.  The game is paced reasonably well.  It's subtle, but the music and sound are well done.  Arcadia Bay, Oregon really does "feel" like the Pacific Northwest.  There is also something artistic about the general design of the environments.  Personally, the Twin Peaks references are a welcome addition for me as a big fan of the show, although if you haven't seen the show you probably won't get it.  It's fun seeing the different options when you use your time reversal abilities.

There is some nice depth to the presentation as well.  Max gets text messages from other characters throughout the game that call back to some of the earlier ways you interacted with them.  Sometimes, it's a threat from someone who doesn't like you.  Other times, it's gratitude or admiration for something you did.  This is a really nice touch.  I did feel things towards these characters, and they had a lot of depth to their personalities.  All of the characters have interesting elements to them, even those that I found myself resenting.  You can shape Max's persona with the decisions you make.  I appreciated these qualities very much.  For a game that allows you to reverse time, the characters themselves felt very real and believable.

The graphics, simply put, are not great.  There are basically no textures to the environments.  When the characters talk, the movements of the mouths I found to be somewhat like that of a puppet.  Part of that is clearly a style choice, but clearly they didn't come close to any kind of realism.  At times it's almost cartoony.  To me, this wasn't a big deal.  The game didn't need to rely on graphical fidelity to get me interested.  But it's worth mentioning.  

Artistically, it's not bad at all.  Graphically...meh.

The story and plot are also a mixed bag.  While I'm generally satisfied with the overall arc and how my game finished, there are way too many loose ends when all is said and done.  So many things were discovered throughout the game that seemed like they deserved explanation, including the actual origin of Max's power.  There is a nice twist towards the end of the game, and it did get me (although a friend told me he figured it out ahead of time).  

There is some decision making that impacts the outcome, but ultimately you really only have two choices in the end.  It's a little unclear to me why you have to make that specific choice as well and why it makes such an impact to the resolution of the game.  Plus this choice speaks again to the origins of Max's power, and it feels like the creators didn't want to have to come up with a complicated, but logical, connection.  Many of the other characters in the game simply aren't a part of the finale.  You spend a lot of time developing relationships with these characters, but in the end they don't really impact the resolution.  This is a shame, because when you go to great lengths to make secondary characters that have complexity to them, they should be a part of the main story and resolution.  And much of the game is spent thinking about how you want to respond to another character's dialogue or actions.  As you might be able to tell, I'm having a hard time articulating these gripes without spoiling the plot.

The gameplay is...OK.  The general adventure style, including most of the time reversal puzzles, kept me interested enough.  However, this game does something I absolutely can't stand (and many games do this today), which is introduce gameplay mechanics that are totally out of place when placed in context with the rest of the experience.  Specifically, there are two sections of the game that require you to utilize stealth in order to proceed.  And since you can just reverse time, mistakes can just be undone.  So what's the point of the stealth?  It feels clunky, and to compensate for the clunkyness, the creators simply made it easy to grind through using Max's time reversal.  If I wanted stealth, I'd be playing Metal Gear, Mark Of The Ninja, or even an RPG like Fallout or Skyrim, which utilize stealth in clever ways (or makes stealth an option, but not the only option).  It's not good that for a game I played a few months ago, one of the most distinct memories I have of it is me groaning over the fact that I had to play this junk stealth section.

There was a puzzle regarding putting clues together, and while I suppose the puzzle was fine, it just wasn't something I wanted to do when it came up.  I was more interested in advancing the story, rather than have to break down a bunch of clues and connect the dots by repeatedly pointing and clicking.  It seems to me like in the resurgence of adventure games over the past few years, they lack the quality of puzzles that existed in the classic games in the genre such as King's Quest, or even Leisure Suit Larry.  The exception to this is Broken Age, which looks modern but plays very old school.  Of course, those games have really no decision making whatsoever.  The story is what it is.

Should You Play It?

If you like this genre of game (casual adventure games), sure.  It's cheap, and it should keep you interested.  Even with my criticisms, it gets the job done.  There are plenty of things that aren't perfect but still enjoyable, like most games, movies, TV shows, or any other media.  Would it be the first adventure game I would recommend?  No.  I think if someone was starting off, I would recommend A Wolf Among Us over this (if they like comics).  

As always, thanks for reading my post.  I try to be thorough and informative but also interesting, so feedback is appreciated so I can make my content better for you, the reader.

Until Dawn: An interesting...game?

It's been quite some time since I've written anything on here, but after I finished my playthrough of Until Dawn I felt like it might be time to post some thoughts.  Until Dawn, if nothing else, is a "game" that does make you think about your decisions and the different possibilities that can come as a result.  It's definitely not perfect.  But it is memorable.

What is it?

Until Dawn is probably best described as an interactive horror/slasher movie where your actions help shape the ultimate outcome.  Like the Quantic Dream developed games such as Beyond Two Souls and Heavy Rain, most of the gameplay is tied into quick time events and binary decisions.  It works well.  The only unique part is when the game forces you to stay still by sensing motion in the controller (which I did fail on one occasion, despite the fact that I really didn't feel like I was moving).  In a tense moment, or just because most people fidget around when they are doing stuff, it is harder than you might think to keep the controller still.  The gameplay is secondary and not really innovative.  But that doesn't matter.  It's not why you play this game.

The reason you would play Until Dawn is the combination of uncertain decisions resulting in real consequences to the story, and the feeling you get by realizing that you helped to create that outcome, for better or worse.  Until Dawn really plays up the concept of the Butterfly Effect, because things you decide to say to your friends, or the path you decide to take during a chase, or a successful or failed quick time event could lead to characters living or dying.  And you have to live with it, because you only have one shot.  The game is constantly auto saving.  Until you finish the game the first time, you can't go back and change things (once you do finish it you can go back and replay to get different outcomes).  Regret what you just said to your girlfriend?  Too bad.  Make a good decision and you will feel proud of yourself for doing it "right" the first time.

Of course, there is no real wrong or right.  There are clues in the form of totems scattered throughout that will give you hints on how you might be able to avoid a tragic fate.  From what I can tell, just about anybody can be saved, but maybe you WON'T want to save them.  It is your experience, after all.  Do you want to be true to the character's personality they establish in the beginning, or do you want to do things your way?  I tended to do things in between.  There were characters I disliked and yet I found myself doing noble things for them, and so on.  I messed up at times, but in the end it didn't really bother me.  Like most movies, I accepted the fact that despite my wishes or efforts I couldn't totally control the outcome the first time.

Do I like it?

For the most part, I enjoyed my time with Until Dawn.  It has some positive qualities.  The actors, especially Peter Stormare (vee vahnt ze monee Lebowskeee), are pretty good, although the writing is predictably dumb as you might expect for a horror movie.  That's also fine in my opinion.  They have to make the characters do stupid things in order to create a fleshed out experience.  It also looks great, despite framerate dips.  The motion capture and facial details are absolutely outstanding.  The lighting is incredible.  Just look at this.

The creators made a smart move prioritizing detail over framerate.  The dips never impact the gameplay experience, but the detail enhances the cinematic experience.  Well done.

So I put the word game in quotes earlier because one of my biggest gripes with Until Dawn, probably the only significant one, is the fact that the action feels very uneven.  The first few chapters I found very boring.  Part of it is that these early jump scares, especially those that are red herrings, don't really grab me.  The game forces you to walk at times very slowly through areas with basically no significance or action.  I guess the goal is to increase the tension as well as show off the graphics, although at times it feels like too much.  The thing about the Quantic Dream games I mentioned earlier that is sometimes criticized is the fact that some of the quick time events don't really mean anything, but after playing this I realized that sometimes those meaningless events actually keep you into the game by forcing you to interact with the world, whether it really matters or not.  Until Dawn also has many pointless decisions and actions though, and it has way less interactivity.  If you miss your high five with Josh in one of the early parts of the game (spoiler alert, I guess...), something tells me that won't be the pivotal moment you'll regret in the end.  The actual gameplay is minimal, although later in the game the action picks up and should keep most people interested.  

The characters for the most part I found unlikeable.  The acting is fine...the characters are annoying and come across as entitled brats (NOTE: Peter Stormare does not play an entitled high school brat...I know you were wondering).  That's the intent, but I think if they were at least a little more relateable it may have created more desire for you to save people.  By the end of the game I think my sympathy for their experience overcame my antipathy towards them.

Until Dawn is truly memorable and I recommend it for almost everyone who can deal with the graphic nature of the content simply because of the variety of outcomes.  Not all of the characters survived for me (I won't say who), but it's possible for someone to be a superhero and save everybody.  Truth be told...I think a horror movie where nobody dies is fucking lame, so I'm glad some of these people bit the dust.  In fact some of the deaths were gory to a point where I did find it humorous.  Some may find it dark, but I think over the top deaths can be quite funny.  I suppose remembering the fact that it's fiction allows me to see it that way.  That may have a different affect on others.  It could be troubling if these kinds of images bother you.  This game didn't scare me like P.T. (RIP) did.  P.T was insane.  I don't think it really was as scary as Dead Space 1 and 2 (personal favorites and you should play them).  But with movies/TV/games it takes quite a lot to scare me.  As I said, I never quite get over the fact that it's not real.  It's a legit horror experience though.  

The fact that I wanted to write something about this game, despite many flaws including some moments where I didn't actually find it enjoyable, speaks to why I ultimately feel it's worth your time.  There are a lot of games that have super tight gameplay and offer no substance to actually keep you motivated (*cough* Destiny *cough*), and when you are done you never think about them again.  What I want to do now is talk about the decisions I made, and find out how I could have done things differently from my friends.  Of course, I won't be doing that here.  Many games try to give you the feeling of affecting the outcome based on your actions, but few do it as well as Until Dawn.  Even now I'm considering what I could have done differently...and if I would want it to be different.  This is really where Until Dawn sets itself apart from the Quantic Dream games.  The ending is YOUR ending...not purely the game's ending.

So turn off your lights, install the game, then install the updates (make a sandwich or get a drink so you pee yourself over the jump scares while you wait for PSN to download it) and give this one a shot.  It will stay with you much more than most games.  

Thanks for reading.  Feel free to comment.