Life is Strange

Oh no, don't stare into the camera dear.

One of the things that's really great about modern gaming in particular is the incorporation of internet-based features.  Now, from my eyes, this is a bit of a double-edged sword.  Although this allows for MMOs to be possible and allows for easy accessibility to large scale FPS matches, I think in a way this ruins particular games.  The Mario spin-offs are a good example.  Playing Mario Party, Mario Cart, or Super Smash Bros online with complete strangers has never made much sense to me because most of the fun to be had in those games is being in the same room with friends and trash talking them or watching them react to what's happening on the screen.

Though, one of the things that I think the internet has completely changed for the better concerning gaming is making playable demos more readily available to gamers.  Before common incorporation of the internet with console gaming there just really weren't that many playable demos floating around.  Sometimes a playable demo would come packaged with another game and some people had subscriptions to services like Playstation Underground, but really, not very many people had access to playable demos.

Now that gamers can basically download demos to their consoles whenever they want through Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo, it's a win-win because developers can get their games out there to players and reel in new potential customers while gamers can try games that they may otherwise not want to take a chance on at full price.

This is how I came across the game Life is Strange:  a five-part episodic game centered around decision making and navigating social situations.  Here's the kicker though:  you can rewind time.  This makes the game incredibly interesting because situations that you would have no choice but to mess up can be surpassed by rewinding time and using information discovered in the future to affect the past.  For instance, at the beginning of the game, you see someone get shot but you can go back into the past and use the knowledge of the future to prevent the shooting from happening by hitting the nearby fire alarm.

This game currently has a 97% user recommendation rating on Steam and for good reason.  This game does just about everything right.  The story is very well-written; the characters are thoughtfully written and developed with even high school stereotypes breaking their molds.  The voice acting is superb all-round; not even in one character is there a weakness to be found.  The mood of the game is unique in that it mixes very somber moods with the tranquility of autumn.  A lot of this has to do with the colorful art style, hand-drawn menus, and simple acoustic guitar soundtrack.  Also, the ability to interact with many, many objects in the world makes you feel more immersed.  Even the most mundane interactions like sitting against a tree feel majestic.

Oh Square Enix, that's shameless...

haha, they're self-aware how shitty that movie is.  lol alright, good play.

What I particularly like about this game is that in a medium that often involves mindless violence and bloodshed, this game brings it more down to earth where every action is planned out, has apparent importance, and involves an incredible seriousness to life and death.  This game will literally make you feel terrible for causing someone or letting someone die which is very rare to see in a video game from any era.

Even at the beginning of the game, you can see how your choices are affecting the storyline.  Unlike most games of this genre, instead of different decisions in the story feeling like they're branching out into different paths, it feels more like every decision is affecting a web of interactions.  Basically, every decision you make affects more than just one aspect of the plot.  You end up affecting aspects of the plot that you hadn't even considered, and that's pretty cool.

If you want something to compare this game to, think of the game Beyond Two Souls but taken up two levels.  The successful innovation of this game is truly something to praise and allows it to far surpass any similar games before it, such as Beyond Two Souls.

The game isn't completely flawless though.  It seems that the developers haven't even tried to match the lip flaps to the dialogue which is kind of annoying and very noticeable.  Also, some of the blocking isn't perfect as I witnessed a squirrel run through and get stuck in a ledge on the main campus of the school.  Then again, maybe these problems aren't so bad in the current gen versions as I'm playing the Playstation 3 version...

Regardless, you won't play this game for technical prowess.  Even though only 2 out of the 5 episodes have been released so far, I can say fairly certainly that the developers would have to mess up a lot in the next three episodes to make me hate it.  This game just gets everything right while adding in innovation to make it stand on its own.  This game has so much to offer as well since after the first play-through you will want to at least play it through one more time (probably two or three more times) and try different decisions to see the outcome differ.  If you like point and click adventure games or mystery games, you need to try the demo for this game immediately.  If you only like twitch shooters that involve no plot or decision making, you might not like this game, but I suggest you try something new anyways.

After playing the demo for this game, I knew I was playing a special game and didn't hesitate to pay $20 for a season pass.  And yeah it's only twenty bucks!  For a game this good, that's a bargain.  You can pay $4.99 for each episode individually if you're skeptical, but I have a gut-feeling that my twenty dollars were put in the right place.

When the last three episodes come out, I'll probably write about them.  Until then, take it easy.




Life is Strange cover:  http://www.enixorigin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/1422283032-8984-card.jpg

Life is Strange Image:  http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Life-Is-Strange™_20150128172417.jpg

Life is Strange Image 2:  http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OnIODgqUHxw/maxresdefault.jpg