I went into this expecting a unique vibeworthy story driven experience based on the premise alone but sadly it couldn't live up to its potential.
The first road trip you take feels engaging in seeming like a game that's branching inward/outward based on randomized scenarios or choices you make but after the next few road trips it becomes clear this is kinda of a lie. It's more like you just start over with an alternate route and just happen to come across the characters in random parts of their stories and after a while it becomes predictable and underwhelming. The characters who pop up throughout are fine, I guess -- everything to do with Jarod is cool because he fills that tortured hard boiled Sin City criminal niche decently, and Stan and Mitch can be fun -- but they either feel too annoying or lacking to really stand out memorably. Even when you basically replay the game 6 times to get the full experience of the non-linear presentation, the background politics coming to a climax, and the characters being more connected than first realized it doesn't feel fully earned because the writing isn't quite there enough.
Some of the random scenarios you can come across on your road trip can still be fun and very charming. Whenever they try to do something with the gameplay by inserting little brief mini game-like segments is where it picks up the most. My favorite from my playthrough has to be the random vignette where you take a pit stop and find the abandoned cabin from the young couple. I only wished there were more simpler yet unexpected encounters like that in the game to really feel like a wholly unique experience.
The first road trip you take feels engaging in seeming like a game that's branching inward/outward based on randomized scenarios or choices you make but after the next few road trips it becomes clear this is kinda of a lie. It's more like you just start over with an alternate route and just happen to come across the characters in random parts of their stories and after a while it becomes predictable and underwhelming. The characters who pop up throughout are fine, I guess -- everything to do with Jarod is cool because he fills that tortured hard boiled Sin City criminal niche decently, and Stan and Mitch can be fun -- but they either feel too annoying or lacking to really stand out memorably. Even when you basically replay the game 6 times to get the full experience of the non-linear presentation, the background politics coming to a climax, and the characters being more connected than first realized it doesn't feel fully earned because the writing isn't quite there enough.
Some of the random scenarios you can come across on your road trip can still be fun and very charming. Whenever they try to do something with the gameplay by inserting little brief mini game-like segments is where it picks up the most. My favorite from my playthrough has to be the random vignette where you take a pit stop and find the abandoned cabin from the young couple. I only wished there were more simpler yet unexpected encounters like that in the game to really feel like a wholly unique experience.