Life Is Strange Season 1 Finished

Game: Life Is Strange Season 1
Release Date: 2015
Platform: PC
Date Started: February 7, 2015
Date Finished: October 23, 2015

Conditions: Finish all episodes ✓
                     Collect all photos ✓

Life Is Strange is a second game developed by Dontnod Entertainment, the studio that made Remember Me, a game that was criticized for it's combat and linearity but praised for it's visual design and memory remix. Memory remix is a mechanic that allows you to enter and rearrange people's memories in order to manipulate them. Even tho it was the most interesting aspect of the game, it was heavily underused and you didn't get to play with it more than just a couple of times during the entire game. Enter Life Is Strange, a game build from the ground up around a mechanic inspired by memory remix- time travel. Who would've thought that time travel and choice based gameplay go hand in hand so well. After you make a decision, you can observe short term consequences then rewind and see what would happen if you chose something different before finally settling down with a final answer. However you can only foresee short term consequences and the right answer isn't always clear. Your decision might have a long term impact you will only see in later episodes so you still have to choose carefully.

Story

You play as Max Caulfield, an 18 year old photography student who just returned to her home town after being absent for 5 years. She plans to reunite with her best friend Chloe with whom she lost all contact. One day during a class she experiences a vision of a tornado destroying her town. Then she witnesses a a girl getting shot in a school bathroom which somehow awakens her ability to turn back time and she prevents the murder. All over the school there are missing posters of Rachel Amber, a girl who recently disappeared. The way people talk about her, she seems almost too perfect. Could the disappearance be related to the event in the bathroom earlier? Soon Max gets reunited with Chloe and at first things are a bit awkward but it doesn't take long until the dust of the old friendship falls of and they decide to solve the mystery togehter. The game deals with some topics that aren't usually explored in videogames such as bullying, suicide, teen pregnancy and drugs. But what makes the game so good is a constantly present sense of mystery that makes you wonder what's going on and you will think about the game between playing the episodes. Life Is Strange is heavily influenced by TV shows (Twin Peaks, X-Files), movies (Donnie Darko, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and even web series (Riley Rewind) but still somehow retains it's own unique identity. That is mostly due to relationship between Max and Chloe that is at the heart of the game. Their friendship is portrayed in believable manner and I don't recall any other game that did a better job in doing so. Even a lot of side characters really grew on me during the season even tho I disliked most of them during the first episode. There were many heartbreaking moments in the game that made my eyes watery even tho I don't usually get very emotionally affected while playing games or watching movies.

The relationship between Max and Chloe is at the center of the game

Presentation

The game has a distinctive art style that's somewhere between cartoony and realistic. All the textures in the game are hand painted and there's a huge attention to detail. It's the lightning that adds a final touch and makes the game pretty. The animation looks natural and the voice acting is pretty good. Ashly Burch, who plays Chloe, delivered a great performance and stole the show but some of the side characters are voiced by the same actors and it's noticeable. It's a shame they didn't hire some more actors for supporting characters. The soundtrack is one of the strongest points of the game and adds a lot to the atmosphere. It is mostly composed from licensed music along with original tunes by Johnatan Morali, the frontman of the band Syd Matters which is also featured.

Gameplay

The game is very cinematic but it isn't mostly made of running cut scenes like Telltale games. Most of the time you have a control over the character as you wonder around, explore areas and interact with people and objects in third person. Looking at things and reading notes is strongly encouraged and paying attention to some seemingly insignificant information might turn out very helpful later down the road. A lot of the puzzles in the game are built around the time rewind mechanic. The puzzles in the first two episodes aren't that good but they get a lot better in episode 3 onward. There's one excellent puzzle in episode 4 that made me feel like I'm doing real detective work. Solving it felt super satisfying.  There were also a couple of simple stealth sections thrown in but they are very easy since you have the power to rewind time. The rewind mechanic itself has a cool looking effect and it's use is not limited. Still you can't rewind past the last automatic save point in the area you're currently in.

Verdict

Life Is Strange is really enjoyable game with a great atmosphere, likable characters, awesome soundtrack and choices that have consequences. This is episodic game done right. Only the finale was a little disappointing but it didn't ruin the experience for me so I'm giving it 9/10.


You can read separate SPOILER reviews for each episode:

Episode 1 review - 8.5/10
Episode 2 review - 9/10
Episode 3 review - 9/10
Episode 4 review - 9/10
Episode 5 review - 6.5/10

Note that prior to launching episode 5, Dontnod released a huge patch that improved lip sync of previous episodes and added a few features which make replaying individual chapters a lot easier.

+ choices and consequences + character relationships + sense of mystery + heartbreaking moments + great soundtrack + good voice acting and motion capture

- at times cringeworthy dialogue - multiple characters voiced by same actors - weak finale - unanswered questions

9/10

Life Is Strange Episode 5: Polarized Finished

Game: Life Is Strange Episode 5: Polarized
Release Date: 2015
Platform: PC
Date Started: October 21, 2015
Date Finished: October 23, 2015

WARNING: SPOILERS! Don't read if you haven't finished the game yet.

The final episode got pretty polarized reactions and a lot of people complained about the ending. It wasn't just the ending that bothered me personally, it was the whole episode. But let's start from the beginning. Episode four ended on a huge twist that revealed Mark Jefferson is a murderer. I hoped they would provide a good explanation behind his motivation and develop his character in an interesting way but no, he's just evil. He explained his motivation in a overly long exposition speech that just bored me to death because I didn't believe a single word that came out of his mouth. Way to flush a good character down a toilet. The whole  episode was evidently rushed. That is unfortunate because even if they delayed it for a whole another month, they would still release episodes at a faster pace than Telltale. The Zeitgeist gallery level is clearly unfinished. Normally a conversation with any character would trigger a cut scene but in this part you talk to various critics and they just speak their dialogue without even looking at you. There's a a guy who talks about Jefferson, voiced by the same actor who plays Jefferson and it's painfully obvious. Oh and somehow all critics know Max Caulfield. She is just one of the many, many contestants but everyone recognizes her face and remembers her name.

I never asked for this

This episode felt a lot less interactive compared to the previous ones and thus less engaging. But I think that might be the point. Max is no longer in control. In one part she is drugged and tied up to a chair and in another she is trapped inside a nightmare. There's a lot of jumping between timelines  and it can get quite confusing, so much that even Max can't quite understand it and finds herself trapped once again because of it. After playing through this episode and reflecting on it, I think I was able to fully grasp the theory of time travel in this game and it doesn't make much sense. The way Max loses memory of what she has just done after jumping into a photograph gives me a bit of a creepy body snatcher vibe.

Oh Max, you're so punny

The thing that bothered me the most in this episode was Warren's reaction, or lack of, when Max told him she can rewind time. He just accepted it with a straight face. He didn't question it for a second, didn't even ask how she can travel through time (as far as he knows, she might be using a time machine) but somehow he knew right away that she caused a tornado and started to lecture her about chaos theory. That single scene made me suspend my disbelief thousand times harder than any of the sci-fi time travel stuff.

This guy wouldn't raise an eyebrow if Max just told him she's the Batman

Then there was this trippy nightmare sequence that blew my mind since it came out of nowhere and got progressively weirder. The looping dorm hall puzzle in which you have to connect a character with a corresponding room was pretty cool and it was obviously inspired by Kojima's P.T. However the best puzzle in the game was ruined for me when Max straight up told me the solution after a short time. I haven't even started solving it yet, I was just taking screenshots and stuff, I would totally solve it on my own but I guess Dontnod took an advice from stupid game reviewers. Let me quote a line from a GameSpot review of episode 4:

"When the puzzle began, I had no idea what I was looking for, and it was a long time before Max's voice-over offered any hints as to what I should be searching." - Alexa Ray Corriea, GS

There's a lot self referential humor in this episode. Dontnod throws a jab at it's own infamous bottle hunting fetch quest in episode 2

The whole nightmare sequence goes on for way too long and ads very little to the story. The long walk at the end of it reminds you of all the things you went through with Chloe, as you witness both happy and sad moments from previous episodes. The purpose of this recap is to put bigger emotional weight on your final decision (sacrifice Chloe or sacrifice Arcadia Bay). It's basically game's equivalent of a movie montage. Despite that, the ending didn't hit my emotional cord as hard as it should. The scene on the rooftop with Kate in episode 2, the ending of the episode 3 and the whole goddamn episode 4 had a huge emotional impact on me. Even the earlier scenes in this episode, like David's reaction to Chloe's death or Nathan's phone message had a stronger effect because at the time things still felt somewhat grounded. But after jumping between timelines so many times, seeing Arcadia Bay destroyed and people killed and then going through that insanely long nightmare sequence, things just didn't feel real anymore. Not only that but I sort of accepted Chloe's death already after telling David about it. The ending was fairly predictable (many people already called it after playing through the first 2 episodes) and it left a lot of questions unanswered. Most important of all, how did Max get her powers? I've seen a lot of people complain about why she even got the power if she wasn't supposed to use it and I thought about it and here's my personal interpretation:

It seems to me like Max got her powers so she can spend a few days with her best friend and have a chance to say goodbye. Now imagine what would happen if she didn't get the rewind power. Max left Chloe behind and went to Seattle when she needed her the most and never called or wrote her. She returned after a few years and avoided her for a whole month only to see her get shot in front of her eyes without a having a chance to say one word to her. Imagine how shitty Max would feel if things have played out this way. The guilt would destroy her. Through her powers she was able to reconcile with Chloe and spend some quality time with her. It didn't happen in this timeline but it was still real to Max. In Blade Runner Roy said "All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in rain" but their moments won't be lost as long as Max remembers them.

Episode 5 was definitely the weakest. I expected much better finale but it didn't ruin the game for me. There are still good moments in it and some characters got great closure, mainly David and Chloe.

View post on imgur.com

My choices and collectible photos

+ David's resolution + trippy nightmare sequence + creative ways to get collectibles

- rushed and unfinished - unbelievable character reaction - the way time travel works doesn't make much sense  - things left unexplained (in a bad way) - nightmare sequence went for way too long - game tells you puzzle solution

6.5/10

Next to play: Penumbra: Overture

Game: Penumbra: Overture
Release Date: 2007
Platform: PC

Conditions: 
Finish the game








It's Halloween so it's only natural that I'm going to play a horror game. So I went through my Steam library and out of many horror games I picked Penumbra from Frictional Games.

What do I expect?

I haven't played Amnesia but I've seen how it plays so I would imagine Penumbra plays in a similar way but with more puzzles. I don't know anything about the game's story so or much else so I'm going into it pretty blind, as it should be for the best experience. Hope it's gonna scare me a little.

Next to play: Starcraft

Game: Starcraft
Release Date: 1998
Platform: PC

Conditions:
- Beat all 3 campaigns: Terran, Zerg and Protoss





Starcraft 2 is not only one of the best RTS games ever made but one of the best games ever made period. Legacy of the Void is just around the corner so I have to catch up with the story.

What do I expect?
I've played this game before. I remember beating terran campaign but I couldn't do it with zerg. But that was back when I played RTS with mouse only. After playing a little bit of SC2 I'm familiar with keyboard shortcuts so single player shouldn't give me any trouble.

System Shock 2 Finished

Game: System Shock 2
Release Date: 1999
Platform: PC
Date Started: August 28, 2015
Date Finished: September 6, 2015

Conditions: Beat the game on impossible difficulty ✓
                     Play it only in the dark with the headphones on ✓

This post contains spoilers! 

I played the GOG version with the universal update patch. I didn't use SS2Tool, mods or HD textures because I want to experience games in their original form during the first playthrough. I actually played Shock 2 before but I didn't get to the end. There is a lot of backtracking in the game but I didn't find it annoying because the ship Von Braun, just like the Citadel station from the first game, feels like a real place and it's a character on it's own. Out of the 3 character classes I chose NAVI (tech specialist) and decided to focus on hacking and standard weapons skills. This game gave me nightmares as a kid and I was happy to revisit it but nothing could prepare me for the true horror - the protagonist's face. It is so terribly misshapen it doesn't even look human. I'm sure this was really bad even at a time it came out. Just look at it!

The protagonist is even uglier than mutants he fights

Never mind that, I just woke up from hypersleep and the entire sector is depressurizing, time to run. As Polito's voice is leading me through corridors and I listen to audio logs, I'm thinking the voice acting is really good. In the room with upgrade units I witness a ghostly apparition reenacting an event from the past. Apparently cybernetic implants enhance your perception and they can pick up ghostly phenomena. I always thought the ghost stuff was pretty stupid. The doors to the main hall open and I can hear distant mumbling of a mutant hybrid - "We seek, WEE SEEK!"  Nope, I'm not leaving this room. I back off whenever the voices get closer. I swear I spent at least 5 minutes just leaning behind a wall, afraid to step forward.

I think I'll just stay here.

All the horror disappeared in a second after I  killed a first hybrid. The same thing happened when I played Aliens versus Predator. At first I was nervously looking around in fear and I nearly shit my pants at the cliché broken steam pipe jump scare but after encountering an actual xenomorph, all fear was gone. System Shock 2 really creeped me out as a kid but both me and the game aged and I don't find it scary anymore. Doesn't matter, the story is still interesting and the game is hard. At this point I would go down from a single pipe swing of a hybrid. The game is really good at making you feel vulnerable and there is serious lack of ammo so you have to conserve it whenever it's possible. Wrench will be your best friend, get used to it. Scavenging and item management is really important so it's safe to say this game is a first person survival horror. Even the seemingly useless items like plants, cups and magazines can be recycled and converted into money. The gunplay feels alrigh, a lot better than in Deus Ex for example. The only problem is weapons are apparently made out of paper and they break after a couple of shots.

Psychic monkeys are the wost

Like it was yesterday

Yo Dawg, I herd you like games so I put a game in your game so you can play while you play. 

Honey, you got reeeal ugly

The story is pretty good and well told through audio logs. Unfortunately I got the big twist spoiled and I knew that Polito will turn out to be SHODAN but I didn't know the details so it was still a surprise to find we will be allies. The story suffers from some sci-fi stereotypes and they basically ripped off Alien. I mean they straight up called them "xenomorphs". Then again it wasn't totally unexpected since the later levels of the first game had very Giger-ish imagery.

Wait, WHAT? Xenomorphs? I didn't sign up for this!

Shameless

Also some enemies feel a bit out of place. Like why the hell are there cybernetic ninja assassins on a FTL space ship? Doesn't matter, they are one of the more interesting enemies to fight. They throw energy shurikens at you from long range and run away when you get close to them. They are super fast so it was a nightmare trying to catch one of them with a wrench after I ran out of bullets. They remind me of the Black Ops assassins from Half-Life. After I crashed into bio mass in the Rickenbacker and started to descent into corridors made out of flesh, I started losing all hope for a happy ending. I thought the game could only end in two ways. Either SHODAN will transfer herself into my increasingly more cybernetic body and I will become her avatar, or more likely, I'll end up sacrificing myself  in order to blow up the bio mass. None of that happened. After SHODAN gets the power to alter reality, it starts recreating the Citadel station from memory and the final level of the game is actually the first level of System Shock 1. I felt right at home, having played the first game a few years ago. Visiting Rapture in Bioshock Infinite was awesome but System Shock 2 did it first!

SHODAN's Citadel recreation is pretty faithful. Left side is the original of course

The final boss fight was very disappointing, even compared to the anti-climatic boss fight from the first game. The ending cut scene was even worse.  I get what they were going for. Of course player wouldn't do what SHODAN wants and the "nah" after the epic long James Bond villain-like talk was similar to Indiana Jones simply shooting the swordsman who spent last 10 seconds showing off his skill. However I don't think the ending worked because it completely shifted the tone of the game that tried to be serious up to that point and the incredibly poor delivery of that single word didn't help either.

nah

I already have an urge to replay the game. On my first playthrough I barely touched Psi skills and I wasn't able to use more powerful weapons like machine gun, grenade launcher or any heavy or exotic weapons. This time I'm going to use some mods and HD textures. The co-op seems really cool so hopefully I can get it to work.

+ complex level design + sense of vulnerability + superb sound and voice acting + improved interface + plot twist + final level + replayability + SHODAN

- weapon degradation - poorly done character models - ending

9/10

Next to play: System Shock 2

Game: System Shock 2
Release Date: 1999
Platform: PC

Conditions:
- Beat the game on "impossible" difficulty
- Play it only in the dark and with headphones on






Even tho I've never finished Shock 2, it's still one of my favorite games of all time. I've beaten demo countless times. When I finally got the full version my hard disk crashed as I was about halfway through the game. Then life happened and I didn't quite get back to it even tho I love the game. Now finally after all these years I'm about to witness the game in it's full glory and I cannot wait.

What do I expect?
I expect the game will be good all the way through and won't let me down. Hoping for some horror and I hope the monkeys will still scare me as they did when I was a kid:)

Heart of Darkness Finished

Game: Heart of Darkness
Release Date: 1998
Platform: PSX
Date Started: January 31, 2015
Date Finished: August 23, 2015

Conditions: Finish the game on a medium difficulty ✓

I was almost at the end of the game when  my disk stopped working. Fortunately I found  a replacement and I was able to finish the game.

The game is about Andy, a young boy who doesn't pay any attention in class yet somehow he's able to construct a functional flying machine and lightning gun out of scrap metal. He suffers from nyctophobia (fear of the dark) and has a loyal dog named Whiskey. Sudden eclipse happens while they chill in a park and Whiskey gets kidnapped by the darkness...somehow (it happens off camera). Determined to rescue his friend, Andy runs home to his treehouse full of fantastic inventions, grabs a Tesla gun and takes off in his flying machine. How does he even know where to look for Whiskey? Up in the sky he collides with a flying darkling and crashes into a cliff. By the look of it he must be from Arizona. He gets attacked by shadowy creatures and the game throws tons of them at you from the very beginning which is a very odd since the first 5 minutes are one of the hardest in a whole game. Instead of  giving players some time to familiarize themselves with controls and whatnot, they throw at you an angry mob of shadow creatures that will literally tear you apart. I can't understand that decision. After a while Andy meets Jar Jar-like creatures called Amigos and they are just as annoying. The twist ending will answer all the questions you could possibly have about this weird world and it will sort out all the things that didn't make sense. I see how some people could hate the ending but it didn't bother me. But I'm surprised they put such an effort to make this game feel cinematic but they didn't write a very good plot. It's kinda terrible actually. What is also surprising is they hired a film and TV composer Bruce Broughton (Homeward Bound!) and a symphonic orchestra but they only used the music during cut scenes. There is no music during the gameplay for some reason.

The game has great pacing and keeps changing things up so it's always interesting. Starts with some shooting sections, then you lose your gun and you have to run away from the enemies using your platforming skills. Andy gets a new power after coming in contact with a glowing green rock. Now he can shoot things as well as make seeds grow into trees. The later ability is used for puzzles. There are a lot of environmental puzzles where you have to move objects to a specific place and then activate them. They are not hard to figure out. Right in the beginning the game shows some interesting mechanics. Shadows can attack you and the only way to get rid of them is to destroy objects that are casting them. Great idea but sadly the game doesn't use it often and it feels like a wasted potential. The game has beautiful backgrounds and amazing animation. It can be frustrating at times, the last level made me scream at a TV for one hour straight but I enjoy the challenge (unless it's totally unfair like MK2). Heart of Darkness is officially the first PS1 game I've ever beaten.

Sauron, is that you?

+ animation + character design + gorgeous backgrounds + brutal death scenes + good mix of shooting, puzzles and platforming

- story - shadow mechanic not used enough - rough start

7/10