So I’ve had about a week to sit with Life Is Strange, and I am just… not over it whatsoever. I’m still sitting here wondering if my decisions were worth it, or if I was too harsh and didn’t go back to make things better. I didn’t know if the choices I made ended up being the fate of the event, or if I could really change everything.


The one big thing that stuck with me is the full circle factor. In the beginning frames, we see a fearful and petrified Max Caulfield, walking through a forest during a storm, with a tornado the size of the entire island heading for land. We have no other information, no context, just that moment on its own. Then, you end up in a classroom during a lecture about photography, distracted by your own thoughts. The strange thing about these moments comes from the fact at the end of the game, you have to decide your best friend’s fate in that same moment. So my question is… did it ever really happen? If you choose to live life the way it’s supposed to go, then why was Max “the chosen one?”


Max has a gift and a curse. Her power to travel back in time can benefit her in ways she could never imagine, but the turn for the worse is always ahead of her. The decision-based genre is filled with things like this, the protagonist having either a perk that makes them different, or some sort of power that changes the trajectory of the people around them. In the end, they’re almost always alone in their cruel world. What’s great about Life Is Strange is that the decisions you make aren’t timed like most decision-based games. The point is to make you think about what you’re doing, making for a psychological battle between you and yourself. The decisions you choose are deep, even if it means it’ll affect what happens in the future.


To think a bit deeper, there’s a handful of things I want to touch on about the story in particular without simply summarizing what it’s all about. There’s something so important about the bathroom scene. Max hides behind a bathroom stall when Nathan Prescott, a rich and troubled high schooler, shoots Chloe Price, Max’s childhood friend. Between the tearing of the Everyday Hero competition polaroid photo, the significance of the butterfly, and the shooting itself, the scene captivates everything that happens in the entire game into one moment. Was that moment Chloe’s fate? Why did Nathan have a gun, and why was he in the women’s bathroom? Max’s decisions in that moment completely shatter everything, and her memories are an encapsulated hellscape, based on the choices you make of course. It’s a tough pill to swallow at the beginning, and gets worse the more it pops up throughout the story.


No matter what you chose, Kate Marsh’s story is so hard to fathom. The viral video of her that went around Blackwell Academy haunted her every day. The creepy security guard David Madsen would never cut her any slack even though she was just scared. And ofcourse, being a victim of Mr. Jefferson’s horrific “art.” Because of the choices I made, I had to watch Kate jump off of the roof of the girls’ dormitories, as Max was right behind her trying to persuade her that she was there for her. The cutscene was slow, painful, and felt real, because you as the player had to make those choices for the people around you.


Another character I wanted to focus on is Nathan Prescott. His rich, powerful, and naive tendencies lead him to seem crazy, though he ended up being misunderstood in a way. He was still considered an asshole for the person he always was, but with his background, it’s hard to put the blame on him. He was hinted to have had a rough childhood and traumatic family life despite his wealth. That doesn’t exactly explain all of the dark and disturbing photos in his room. Mr. Jefferson seemed like the top candidate right behind Nathan, but the art and aesthetics he seemed to show off in his room was a good argument for him being guilty, even though that of course wasn’t the case.


We as viewers had so many reasons to hate David Madsen at the beginning. He seemed out to get Max right from the start, he was an over paranoid stepfather for Chloe(which we learned later on), and he seemed like a creep towards Kate Marsh with the photos he had of her(which is still strange even after beating the game). Come to realize, David is a good man. He saved Max from a near death experience in Mr. Jefferson’s vault, and he was a war veteran who just wanted to hold a stable job and be part of a family. Joyce seemed to bring the best out of him by the end. He didn’t seem to like Chloe from Max’s perspective, but all he wanted to do is be a good parent for her.


It’s strange that we’re really left in the dark about Max’s past. Outside of a few memories with Chloe, we don’t know much about her childhood, her family, or as I said, anything that doesn’t relate back to Chloe. I wish there was a part where Max was forced to look back at her happier self with the people she used to know when she was younger, but that’s just a missed opportunity in my opinion. Well, it was traumatic enough based on how the events of episode five went.


Chloe is just not a horrible influence on Max. I’ve seen so many retrospectives and videos focused on how awful Chloe is, but we have to cut her some slack. Her father’s death and her stepfather’s negative parenting made it hard for her to keep herself up. Also, her best friend completely vanished, so she put everything she had into Max. Although Max didn’t reach out to her for years, she still welcomed her back with open arms. The biggest part is that she quietly, but surely taught Max how to love. They were friends for the longest time, and up to the final moment it started to become real, and it did.


…At the end of the game, I had to watch Chloe get taken away from Max, as I felt horrible letting an entire island perish, along with Chloe’s mother who I took into account. Chloe wanted Max to be the hero although she was giving up her life in the most heroic way possible. It was definitely the most heart-wrenching moment I’ve ever had to deal with in a video game. When the decision popped up on the screen, I had to pause just to breathe for a moment. The funeral was such a hard watch, especially because they showed Frank and his dog watching the ceremony from afar, which were two souls that Chloe had to kill earlier in the story.


These next questions are probably answered in the prequel, Before The Storm, but because of all the signs and chatter about Rachel Amber, I wonder if she was popular. If Chloe is so alone and has no one until Max comes around, then was Rachel any different? Was there a time where Chloe had more respect? It’s just random but interesting things I definitely want to learn, and I will once I get to the prequel.


Those were my thoughts on the storyline, but as for the gameplay itself, it’s a decision tale, so I didn’t expect a Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption type of open world of course. The linear areas didn’t feel like they had barriers, as everything that was gripping was never on the other side of the tunnel, and I think that’s such an important concept that a lot of games lack. It makes you want to explore what’s around you, not farther than the gates that were built for a reason.


The art direction is gorgeous. The sets do a great job of portraying concepts of childhood, the school system, and the disturbing memories that are jumbled together to mess with Max’s mind. Every place is detailed to the max(no pun intended), with so many little things to click and learn about that could even change what happens later. I was exploring a room one time and knocked something over, and apparently that changed something that happened in the future. Those small details are such huge additions that are so important for the genre.


Overall, this is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. I think decision games are definitely my style, I just need to play the right ones to get emotionally connected, and this is a fantastic route to get into the genre if you haven’t played yet.

When it comes to PlayStation classics, Naughty Dog is a company that has solidified its name in the conversation. Naughty Dog gained relevance with their hit games from the late 90s to the early 2000s, including Jak and Daxter, and an even bigger hit, Crash Bandicoot. However, when the late 2000s came around, the Uncharted series began.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the first title in the Uncharted series. A game of simplicity compared to its future releases, but for the time it was groundbreaking. Being released in 2007 for the PlayStation3, the game was a good introduction to start the series. As it’s aged, you can definitely tell that it seems like the first game in the series. The entire game is spent between a jungle and an island of long lost treasure. There’s not much variety, as the majority of the fairly short play time is climbing, which doesn’t require skill or even much gameplay, and the repetitive shootouts. It starts to feel like a chore after a while to keep doing the same things over and over, but the story was captivating enough to proceed. Something that Naughty Dog thrived with at first was the chases and getaways that featured a lot of explosions. Those moments were special, as it made the slow start turn into a cinematic thrill. The puzzles were straightforward for the most part, with a confusing puzzle from time to time. The journal that our protagonist uses to solve the puzzle enhances the experience, as it really puts the explorer aspect into perspective. This is a game with notable flaws, but lives on to be a great introduction for what came after it.

So who is our protagonist? The star of the show is Nate, better known as Nathan Drake, a professional treasure hunter who seems to be a genius when it comes to ancient history. His ancestor, Sir Frances Drake, was an English explorer. Nathan feels that he should continue what his ancestor started but never finished. With a journal full of clues about temples, statues, and general historical knowledge, he’s a man of smarts, but he ends up with continuous situations facing almost fatal situations and battles.

Naughty Dog isn’t a one hit wonder, as Uncharted was one of two games being worked on at the time. In 2013, the game developers released The Last of Us. Over the years, this game has taken the spotlight from the Uncharted series, as it’s known for its historic critical acclaim. The Last of Us won over 200 game of the year awards from numerous publications and critics, along with a remaster for the PlayStation4 a year later. The game has been said to be one of the greatest video games ever made, and from the general consensus of the gaming industry, that argument seems to be true. However, the game took a lot of inspiration from the Uncharted series. From the action, to the emotionally gripping story, to the attachment you make with the characters, it’s an experience that features elements from Uncharted, but works in its own way.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is the third title in the Uncharted series. A game with a huge world filled with variety and so much possibility. An experience with new places to explore, and vibrant scenery to go with it. Fortune begins the series and it ends with deception, but it’s not just the titles that truly bring the trilogy together. It’s a journey, an extravaganza, filled with action primarily in the streets of Yemen. Nate takes on new challenges, new puzzles, and ofcourse, more battles. We even get to see the past, where Nate finds himself in tough situations when he was young and mischievous. The connection the characters make throughout the game is touching, as that’s improved game by game. It’s a satisfying wrap up to a groundbreaking series.

I started by talking about the first game, then I skipped to the third game. I gave them their respective explanations as they deserve. But when it comes to a true masterpiece, the game sandwiched in the middle of the series is the closest thing to it.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the second title in the Uncharted series. Nathan Drake is back after spending time at a hidden island trying to destroy a dangerous treasure so his enemies couldn’t get to it first in order to sell it for millions.

The opening is an important element to a game’s delivery. It should show you what you’re in for, and teach you how to play the game. There’s more than just those general tasks, but in Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog checks every box when it comes to making a perfect opening. The game begins with Nathan Drake covered in blood on a train, where he abruptly falls through and hangs onto a pole as the train car hangs off a mountain in the Himalayas. You have to climb up the poles and do a bit of parkour in order to get to the surface, which is where the game teaches you the controls in order to climb. Abruptly after you make it to the surface, a cutscene plays where you’re drinking at a bar on a tropical beach, where you’re introduced to Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazier. Nathan knows both of them, but pretends to be meeting Chloe for the first time as they’ve had a bit of a hidden relationship in the past. They plan on a mission to steal a Mongolian oil lamp from a museum that may have clues leading back to Marco Polo. After agreeing to go, Nate is taken into the sewers with Harry, and has to climb and do parkour in order to get closer to the lamp. There’s guards, as every museum has, so this is the time where you learn to aim, shoot, fight, and use stealth in order to keep moving through the story. Once they make it to the lamp, Harry ditches Nate, leaving him to be taken in by the Turkey police, where he spends three months in prison. He gets bailed out of prison by his partner in crime throughout the series, Sully, and Chloe, who ended up not being a part of Harry’s plan to ditch Nate. They set out for Borneo in hopes to stop Harry from getting to the Cintamani Stone, which required the lamp to provide a clue for him.

This is such an iconic opening, as it introduces all the mechanics of the game without making it feel like a quote on quote “tutorial”. Adding on to that, you learn about the characters involved and what their relationships are like. In the first hour of the game, we’re given a situation without context, a plan to steal from a museum, friendships, a new love interest, teamwork, betrayal, new mechanics, and an extremely detailed world, which is something the first game lacked. It really shows what an opening should be.

If I haven’t made it clear yet, this game blows everything it’s predecessor did out of the water. The voice acting was good in the first game, but you really get attached to the story and the emotion these characters portray in Uncharted 2. As for the scenery, the first game lacked this, but it was the first game where Naughty Dog went all out on a huge story game, so that’s not surprising. In Uncharted 2, the main locations consist of Turkey, Borneo, Nepal, Tibet, and the Himalayas. Everywhere you go is different, as new characters come around, main characters have drama(especially dealing with Nate wanting others to stay back because of their safety), and the setting is incredible no matter where you go. The attention to detail in the cities, the biomes, the way characters react to the weather, the flow of the story through new places, the list goes on. As for the characters, it’s easy to connect with them, and their differences make them seem genuinely human. Their conversations don’t seem like they were programmed to say it. It feels like the whole game flows like a movie, and each character has their own unique style. The story itself is emotionally gripping, the cutscenes make you wish this was a real movie, and the fact that the cutscenes look exactly like the gameplay is something Naughty Dog has mastered, as most game cutscenes usually enhance the look of the game. The addition of stealth is something I was disappointed that the first game didn’t have. It works pretty well despite not being able to grab someone from another side of a wall when you take cover. However, being able to grab an enemy from under them, usually while hanging from the outside of a window, is one of the most satisfying feelings in gaming. It’s one less enemy to deal with, and it adds so much to the experience with such a small detail. Also, the addition to adding more weapons was desperately needed, as machine guns, rocket launchers, shotguns, snipers, and even miniguns work so well with the new mechanics and locations for battle. They make battles more intense, and enemies with those weapons are usually harder to take down. There’s so much more evidence as to why this game improved upon its predecessor, but that could go on forever.

Chloe has been seen to be the new love interest for Nate, until they run into Elena and Jeff. Jeff is a cameraman helping the reporter, Elena, who in the previous game was Nate’s love interest. When Nate refuses to leave them behind, he finds himself in a tossup between two love interests while trying to survive against non stop guards working for Lazarević, the main villain who’s been working with Harry. Lazarević is a tall, built, burly, bald man who’s very strict with his plans and shows no mercy to get what he wants, leaving Harry terrified when he can’t fulfill Lazarević’s expectations throughout the game.

One of the many highlights of the game was the chases. Running away from a huge truck to enter Nepal, running from gunshots with Elena after they escape from Lazarević, but especially running from an attack helicopter. The multitasking between killing enemies, avoiding the helicopter’s gun shots, and trying to shoot down the helicopter, was an absolute thrill. This happened multiple times through the game, and it felt just as thrilling in new situations every time. One of the other big moments was the train ride, where Nate kills enemies as he makes his way through the train cars to save Chloe. It wasn’t just killing enemies, but also another helicopter, having to do parkour outside the train and jumping back in, and avoiding railroad crossing signs.

The opening scene on the train comes full circle halfway through the game, as Nate is rescued after almost dying in the cold. He was found by a man named Tenzin, who doesn’t speak English, so his only communication with Nate throughout the second half of the game is their teamwork through the challenges they face. They’re told to go on a quest by a man who seems to be an icon of Tenzin’s village, Karl Schäfer. The ice cave they go into is gigantic, where they have to solve many puzzles in order to get to the temple far into the cave. The monsters they have to fight are terrifying, hard to kill, and play a big role through the rest of the game.

The premise of the entire game has been for Nate to go to Shambhala and get to the Cintamani Stone. Lazarević wants to get to it, as he believes it’ll make him invincible. Their journeys to get there are different, but their battle was intense, and the destruction of Shambhala that came with it was a fantastic way to end the gameplay. As for the ending cutscene, the answer to the true love interest naturally happens, and the game ends calmly, after a journey of a lifetime.

This is a truly groundbreaking game that really captures a cinematic experience through its 8 to 10 hour run time. And it beat the test of time, as it still feels smooth today. The feeling of love, loss, sympathy, and anger paint a perfect picture for what this game has in store. It’s nostalgic, but refreshing at the same time. The first game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, was good, but it was simplistic and repetitive, so the deep emotional connection that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves presented was an unexpected surprise, and I was blown away. To put everything in perspective, this is an essential story game that any gamer should consider playing.