It’s hard not to play and think about this game in relation to Sam Barlow’s other superior directorial efforts in the FMV space, Her Story and Immortality. Telling Lies sits as the awkward middle child, bigger and more convoluted than the first one, but not as groundbreaking nor sophisticated as the latter. Clearly a necessary creative steppingstone for the team, it sadly isn´t nearly as compelling, surprising nor artful as the other two games.
it keeps the same basic method of interaction as Her Story, but fails in truly understanding what makes the clip watching and investigation move forward. I’ve read the same complaint over and over again, the videos are too long, with too many spaces without relevant information because of the nature of them being secretly recorded, one-sided, phone conversations, and the fast forwarding is too slow. And I have the same complaints. I’ve also read that the intention of the developers was to make that ‘scrolling’ intentionally cumbersome in order to force players to search through keywords and locate the beginning, or at least the important part of each conversation clip. There’s an issue here, and it is that that aspect of the investigation is never compelling at all. There’s no real incentive in making the effort of trying to figure out where the relevant part of each conversation begins other than scrolling through the clips being a pain in the ass. There’s not much else in terms of gameplay to talk about, it’s the same as in Her Story, only made duller because of the addition of unnecessary complexity.
The story is solid enough. Fairly basic in terms of narrative, we’ve seen similar stuff before, and the style of narration and succession of events feels closer to a traditional movie or narrative than Her Story and Immortality. In my case I felt like it started fairly slow and dully, and wasn´t truly engaged until I reached around 2 hours of playtime. Maybe it’s because it felt familiar or annoying to play, but it managed to offer enough twists and reveals to keep me engaged the rest of the way. There’s a point where you just get what is going on and the story doesn’t offer much new going forward.
There’s a lot more to chew on from a thematic standpoint. There are some really interesting things being touched upon in terms of toxic masculinity, surveillance, activism, etc. And those are the things that I ended up appreciating more and the ones that kept me coming back to try and finish it. It's a short game, and if you liked Her Story I think you'll at least get some enjoyment out of this, just maybe don't expect the same level of engagement.
As expected by now with these Sam Barlow games, the performances are excellent. Some recognizable faces here just doing great work.
it keeps the same basic method of interaction as Her Story, but fails in truly understanding what makes the clip watching and investigation move forward. I’ve read the same complaint over and over again, the videos are too long, with too many spaces without relevant information because of the nature of them being secretly recorded, one-sided, phone conversations, and the fast forwarding is too slow. And I have the same complaints. I’ve also read that the intention of the developers was to make that ‘scrolling’ intentionally cumbersome in order to force players to search through keywords and locate the beginning, or at least the important part of each conversation clip. There’s an issue here, and it is that that aspect of the investigation is never compelling at all. There’s no real incentive in making the effort of trying to figure out where the relevant part of each conversation begins other than scrolling through the clips being a pain in the ass. There’s not much else in terms of gameplay to talk about, it’s the same as in Her Story, only made duller because of the addition of unnecessary complexity.
The story is solid enough. Fairly basic in terms of narrative, we’ve seen similar stuff before, and the style of narration and succession of events feels closer to a traditional movie or narrative than Her Story and Immortality. In my case I felt like it started fairly slow and dully, and wasn´t truly engaged until I reached around 2 hours of playtime. Maybe it’s because it felt familiar or annoying to play, but it managed to offer enough twists and reveals to keep me engaged the rest of the way. There’s a point where you just get what is going on and the story doesn’t offer much new going forward.
There’s a lot more to chew on from a thematic standpoint. There are some really interesting things being touched upon in terms of toxic masculinity, surveillance, activism, etc. And those are the things that I ended up appreciating more and the ones that kept me coming back to try and finish it. It's a short game, and if you liked Her Story I think you'll at least get some enjoyment out of this, just maybe don't expect the same level of engagement.
As expected by now with these Sam Barlow games, the performances are excellent. Some recognizable faces here just doing great work.