Life is Strange: Release and Reviews
Life is Strange has received generally positive though critiquing reviews thus far. Polygon gives the game an 8/10, with reviewers praising its artistry, its originality, and its world while criticizing some of the dialogue and mishandled moments of seriousness. PCWorld's reviewer agreed on both counts, saying that while much of the game's dialogue is successful it can occasionally turn "cringe-worthy" and that the schoolkids setting isn't quite integrated with the intended gravity of the game's plot. Both reviews, however, conclude by emphasizing how attractive and compelling the game's environment is. Game Informer was even more optimistic, praising the its realism as well as its decision-making engine, and asserting that the episode successfully engages the player's interest.
Are you playing Life is Strange? Are you thinking about grabbing it? Let us know!
Source: Polygon, PCWorld, Game Informer
Posted in: Square-Enix News
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Death Penalty |
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Comments
| Stiltzkin | Comment 1: 2015-02-08 20:08 |
| Having read this, I came across the game on the PSN store and decided to take a gander. To start, it's pricier in the UK (as ever), coming in at £4.99 for the episode or £15.99 if you purchase the full season in advance. To start, graphically it's an oddity. The animation is good, but deliberately veers away from realism with its pastel pallette. It's beautiful and stylish, but at the same time, clunky. For example, some detailed elements are beautifully animated, but then they've gone and left something like a character's beard so sketchy that it really does just look like marker pen on his face. Also, something that irked me - for a game where your character is a photography geek, I can't fathom why they've decided to make some of the photos you can inspect look like they've been drawn on MS Paint... Gameplay is basically in the button-prompt-matching vein of Heavy Rain. It's the evolution of the old point and click, with puzzles to be solved (hopefully getting more difficult than the tutorial I've experienced so far) as well as the USP time-rewind concept to play with. The game claims that every decision you make will affect the outcome. Obviously, I haven't been able to put this to the test; but what I've experienced so far is that the game not so subtly prompts you when you've made a decision that you can go back in time and pick the other option if you like. In essence, it tells you that you've made the less-than-perfect choice and should try again! Hopefully this is again just tutorial at work - if it continues thorughout the game, only the stubbornest of gamers will make less than a perfect-choice playthrough. The story seems to be very endearing, though - and it's really good to see a Squenix game going back to a solid narrative experience after (in my opinion) neglecting this somewhat in recent efforts. The palyer character, Max, is entertaining, if a little too reminiscent of a couple of other recent mainstream young heroines. The game has no shortage of expletives, which surprised me, but at least fits well with the 18-year-old teenage context. It's kind of like Squenix has tried to capture The O.C. in a game - and done pretty well at it, I think. There was only really one cringeworthy piece of dialogue I experienced, and the characters and story certainly do seem to be the real strength of this game. As for the comments regarding ill-fitting serious moments, I can't say I've really played enough to address this - but the one serious moment I have witnessed felt out of place not so much because of the setting, but the colour palette/style. The game doesn't look gritty enough to have gritty moments, if that makes sense. Still, I think that's something that will change once a player gets acclimated. I've just finished the trial demo, and my feedback is based on that. As you've probably gathered from the above, Life is Strange is not a game that's going to set the world on fire - but if they can keep it up throughout the whole game, it promises to deliver a genuinely engaging narrative, with an actually believable and well-rounded depth to the main character for those who want to seek it. For this reason, I think I might actually take the plunge for the full series. | |
| Death Penalty | Comment 2: 2015-02-11 17:02 |
| Thanks for sharing your feedback! I'm wondering how much of the bluntness you've pointed out (in choices and puzzles) is in fact due to its being a demo. Or, if it does the same hinting regardless of which choice you've picked. I'm not especially into this genre, but I feel like we need to get Lasz to weigh in, what with his love for that other highschooler-protagonist series, Persona (which is not to suggest the similarities go any further than that). | |
| Cefca | Comment 3: 2016-12-09 04:39 |
Just got around to finishing episode 5 and damn did it pull on my heart strings.  | |
| Glenn Magus Harvey | Comment 4: 2016-12-09 20:32 |
| IIRC the first episode is free these days. | |
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©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.