16.2 hours played
Written 12 days ago
TL;DR Deeply flawed and groundbreaking. 6/10
There's a [url=https://youtu.be/9GHPNKUMf70?si=A5qtR30RAHm9Pvtb&t=198]hilarious clip[/url] of Benedict Cumberbatch totally losing the word "penguin" while narrating a documentary. In Heavy Rain, a game where folded paper dominates the iconography, somehow the entire cast loses the word "origami," and not a single developer had the knowledge or sense to correct them. There's ori-gaaah-me. Ori-game-y. And at one point, no joke, ori-gar-may.
Before I get carried away: the good. The money and manpower spent on assets are obvious. Hundreds of meticulously decorated locations. Endless unique mo-capped animations. Dozens of branching dialogue and choice trees with lasting consequence. A dedication to design simply unseen in games of this era and genre. Gameplay is a walking sim with quick time events, but these QTEs are thoughtfully crafted to mimic actual motion.
And yet, botched details nearly topple the whole endeavor.
The "origami" complaint is just the start. Accents meant to pass as American blow the cover of their European actors in almost every line read. Strange elided and overpronounced Rs. Weird emphasis. Unnatural dialogue pauses between interlocutors, just as there are strange gaps between kissing characters, as if the engine is avoiding overlap of any kind -- at all cost. One character, the PI, is so well-acted relative to the rest, that it plays as a gag. Michael Caine performing his role in A Muppet Christmas Carol straight as if his colleagues were human.
Like any game that automatically switches camera angles for cinematic flair, the controls are wonky. But if you're accustomed to Resident Evil or its ilk, it's manageable. There are also game-breaking input bugs, though fan-made control bindings exist to fix them, so it's no dealbreaker.
At a larger scope, the writing is great. The story beats, pacing, structure, and the mystery itself are all strong. The storyboarding sessions must have felt inspiring, electric. But zoom in to the smaller details, and the actual words spoken are a series of car crashes. In real-life scenarios of extreme duress, humans stutter, misspeak, yell over each other. Instead, here every sterile line erodes the authenticity of the emotion in a game trying to ride deeper feelings all the way home. And that doesn't even address the logical gymnastics necessary to justify some character's motivations and actions.
Enough of it is solid that anyone with a penchant for interactive fiction is going to find enjoyment in the flawed experience. My biggest takeaway? I'd undervalued the difficulty in capturing true emotional depth and psychological nuance in this genre, and I ought to heap more respect on 'Life is Strange's name.