Good god Im so conflicted about this game. I’m going to break this review off into sections because I do have a lot to say about it.
GAMEPLAY:
It’s bad. I personally don’t really care about quick-time events and am pretty indifferent towards them. However, I am pretty negative towards what Girlfriend Reviews dubbed “stop-time” events, where the game just decides to pause the entire events of what’s happening like it’s pausing time. It breaks immersion, it’s not fun, it’s not creative, it takes no effort, and the game is filled with them. The gameplay in general is similar to a TellTale game in that it’s a ton of fun to watch, but not so fun to play. I suppose the time-based decision-making was pretty engaging (which I will dive more into in the “Level Design” section of the review). But man, I wish I had more fun overall with this.
VISUALS:
Absolutely gorgeous. Even five years later, this remains one of the best-looking games I’ve ever seen. Something as simple as rain racing down a window is so beautiful, and people’s faces are actually animated in a way where you can register emotion from them, which adds a ton of weight to the really solid performances throughout. Automated cutscenes are a big turn-off for me when it comes to video game cutscenes, especially if the game is narrative-driven. So when the visuals complement the drama, it helps get me more invested in the story. And I have to give all of the animators, visual effect artists, and engineers massive props for what they were able to accomplish here; it’s simply stunning.
CONNOR’S STORY:
This is my personal favorite of the three storylines. Does it borrow heavily from Blade Runner? Yes. Are there nitpicks I have with character moments? For sure. But in the end, I don’t really care. This is my favorite because of the relationship between Hank and Connor and how it evolves over time, even if it’s simply portrayed and honestly nothing you’ve never seen before. I also appreciate this storyline because it feels like it’s the only one that could be tied directly to the implications of artificial intelligence. In every other storyline, the android issues are clearly either just a stand-in for race issues or sexism issues. Back of the bus, housewife (and domestic abuse) topics and even extermination camps are major parts of this game, and none of them has anything to do with the specifics of androids. Connor’s story does. There’s a really interesting scene involving a discussion of the Turing test and the existential questions involving it, and I wish the game was full of more moments like that, instead of keeping them exclusive to Connor’s story. Honestly, if they just fleshed out Connor’s story more and made him the sole focus of the game, I would probably raise my score a lot more.
KARA’S STORY:
It’s fine. This is where the sexism issues come in, and they’re dealt with in a whatever sort of way. Alice is a whatever character. Kara is a whatever character. Luther is alright I guess. Jerry is a character I have no emotional attachment to, which is really funny because, towards the end of the game, they’re going to force you to make a decision where they clearly expect you to have some emotional attachment to him so the decision is difficult to make. But he has no personality so there wasn’t any emotion attached to my decision whatsoever. This is maybe my least favourite of the three storylines, but honestly, I don’t know if I would call it bad per se. It’s ehh at worst and passable at best.
MARKUS’ STORY:
My lord this storyline is all over the place. This is clearly the most important storyline out of the three, but it feels like they should have put more thought into it if this was the case. Markus literally finds Jericho because of some really obvious visual symbols scattered throughout the city, and the reasoning that only androids could identify them feels like the writers are stretching a lot. Markus’ relationship with Carl is nothing nuanced but it’s pretty sweet and is honestly probably the highlight of this whole storyline (at least for me). The route I took personally for the revolution was the pacifist route, but honestly, I’m really not passionate about either Josh or North, and I felt like giving them more nuance and sympathetic characteristics that feel unique to each character would have made choosing between those two paths much more interesting. North has a bit more to her character than Josh, but I feel like that’s mainly just because she’s your romantic interest. Markus’ storyline is the most explicit when it comes to the unnecessary and on-the-nose race issue parallels aforementioned in Connor’s section, and thus this is the storyline that hurts the most from those criticisms.
GAME DESIGN:
This is really great. One of my favorite parts of the design a lot of the time is these timed sections where you only have oh so much time to gather clues and evidence. You’re not going to be able to collect every bit of evidence so you need to be selective and almost play these sections like it’s a speed run. It adds some much-needed tension to the gameplay and while this only comes up a few times, it’s really fun whenever it does. The flowcharts are insanely sprawling and complex. I hear that there are something like 40 endings to the game, and honestly, it makes me intrigued enough to come back to it again at some point in the future. Seemingly minor decisions will have grand consequences on not just your character’s storyline, but all other storylines and the world. It’s insanely impressive how this game was designed in this chose-your-own-adventure fashion. I also appreciate how some areas are open for player choice in just deciding what destination to go to. There’s a part as Kara where I have to find some shelter for the night. And the game doesn’t put it as a text-based decision; rather, it builds the decision into the environment. Choosing where to go and what to do is left entirely to the player, and I find that very cool. It’s an idea I maybe wish was pushed a little further, but when it shows up it’s really cool.
OVERALL:
I think I like it. Maybe? God, I’m so conflicted this is one of the most confused and loose 6/10s I’ve ever given, but who knows? Maybe on a second playthrough, my thoughts will be more concrete.
(Oh yeah also this review was written like a year ago, but I didn’t post it until now. If you think that’s bad, wait until you see my Death Stranding review!)
GAMEPLAY:
It’s bad. I personally don’t really care about quick-time events and am pretty indifferent towards them. However, I am pretty negative towards what Girlfriend Reviews dubbed “stop-time” events, where the game just decides to pause the entire events of what’s happening like it’s pausing time. It breaks immersion, it’s not fun, it’s not creative, it takes no effort, and the game is filled with them. The gameplay in general is similar to a TellTale game in that it’s a ton of fun to watch, but not so fun to play. I suppose the time-based decision-making was pretty engaging (which I will dive more into in the “Level Design” section of the review). But man, I wish I had more fun overall with this.
VISUALS:
Absolutely gorgeous. Even five years later, this remains one of the best-looking games I’ve ever seen. Something as simple as rain racing down a window is so beautiful, and people’s faces are actually animated in a way where you can register emotion from them, which adds a ton of weight to the really solid performances throughout. Automated cutscenes are a big turn-off for me when it comes to video game cutscenes, especially if the game is narrative-driven. So when the visuals complement the drama, it helps get me more invested in the story. And I have to give all of the animators, visual effect artists, and engineers massive props for what they were able to accomplish here; it’s simply stunning.
CONNOR’S STORY:
This is my personal favorite of the three storylines. Does it borrow heavily from Blade Runner? Yes. Are there nitpicks I have with character moments? For sure. But in the end, I don’t really care. This is my favorite because of the relationship between Hank and Connor and how it evolves over time, even if it’s simply portrayed and honestly nothing you’ve never seen before. I also appreciate this storyline because it feels like it’s the only one that could be tied directly to the implications of artificial intelligence. In every other storyline, the android issues are clearly either just a stand-in for race issues or sexism issues. Back of the bus, housewife (and domestic abuse) topics and even extermination camps are major parts of this game, and none of them has anything to do with the specifics of androids. Connor’s story does. There’s a really interesting scene involving a discussion of the Turing test and the existential questions involving it, and I wish the game was full of more moments like that, instead of keeping them exclusive to Connor’s story. Honestly, if they just fleshed out Connor’s story more and made him the sole focus of the game, I would probably raise my score a lot more.
KARA’S STORY:
It’s fine. This is where the sexism issues come in, and they’re dealt with in a whatever sort of way. Alice is a whatever character. Kara is a whatever character. Luther is alright I guess. Jerry is a character I have no emotional attachment to, which is really funny because, towards the end of the game, they’re going to force you to make a decision where they clearly expect you to have some emotional attachment to him so the decision is difficult to make. But he has no personality so there wasn’t any emotion attached to my decision whatsoever. This is maybe my least favourite of the three storylines, but honestly, I don’t know if I would call it bad per se. It’s ehh at worst and passable at best.
MARKUS’ STORY:
My lord this storyline is all over the place. This is clearly the most important storyline out of the three, but it feels like they should have put more thought into it if this was the case. Markus literally finds Jericho because of some really obvious visual symbols scattered throughout the city, and the reasoning that only androids could identify them feels like the writers are stretching a lot. Markus’ relationship with Carl is nothing nuanced but it’s pretty sweet and is honestly probably the highlight of this whole storyline (at least for me). The route I took personally for the revolution was the pacifist route, but honestly, I’m really not passionate about either Josh or North, and I felt like giving them more nuance and sympathetic characteristics that feel unique to each character would have made choosing between those two paths much more interesting. North has a bit more to her character than Josh, but I feel like that’s mainly just because she’s your romantic interest. Markus’ storyline is the most explicit when it comes to the unnecessary and on-the-nose race issue parallels aforementioned in Connor’s section, and thus this is the storyline that hurts the most from those criticisms.
GAME DESIGN:
This is really great. One of my favorite parts of the design a lot of the time is these timed sections where you only have oh so much time to gather clues and evidence. You’re not going to be able to collect every bit of evidence so you need to be selective and almost play these sections like it’s a speed run. It adds some much-needed tension to the gameplay and while this only comes up a few times, it’s really fun whenever it does. The flowcharts are insanely sprawling and complex. I hear that there are something like 40 endings to the game, and honestly, it makes me intrigued enough to come back to it again at some point in the future. Seemingly minor decisions will have grand consequences on not just your character’s storyline, but all other storylines and the world. It’s insanely impressive how this game was designed in this chose-your-own-adventure fashion. I also appreciate how some areas are open for player choice in just deciding what destination to go to. There’s a part as Kara where I have to find some shelter for the night. And the game doesn’t put it as a text-based decision; rather, it builds the decision into the environment. Choosing where to go and what to do is left entirely to the player, and I find that very cool. It’s an idea I maybe wish was pushed a little further, but when it shows up it’s really cool.
OVERALL:
I think I like it. Maybe? God, I’m so conflicted this is one of the most confused and loose 6/10s I’ve ever given, but who knows? Maybe on a second playthrough, my thoughts will be more concrete.
(Oh yeah also this review was written like a year ago, but I didn’t post it until now. If you think that’s bad, wait until you see my Death Stranding review!)