Played on PS5 via PS Plus
Also Available on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S and PC
Playtime: 6 Hours
Completion Date: August 5, 2022
No Spoilers
Telling Lies is a narrative focused adventure game developed by Sam Barlow and Furious Bee and it's published by Annapurna Interactive. It's a very interesting, new concept. It was first used on Her Story, the previous game of Sam Barlow and this game is the continuation of it in terms of gameplay. Stories are not connected.
I normally talk about the story and characters of a game first, but in order to talk about them, i have to tell you about the gameplay so we are doing gameplay first. In Telling Lies, you are playing a mysterious character. You have a PC and on it, there is a system called Retina.
This system has 170 videos about a case. But you can't see these videos at first. In order to see them, you need to search a word. When you search that word, the system will find all of the videos that includes that word. It will then put them in a chronological order and will show you the first 5 videos.
And let's say the word you searched for is in the last sentence spoken in the video. You will start there and watch until the video ends. In order to see the earlier parts of the video, you need to search for a word that is used in those earlier parts.
The purpose of the game is to find as many videos as possible and solve the case. In your head. The game automatically ends after watching 30-40 videos but you can and you should get back to it to get at least most of the videos if not all of them.
You will watch videos, take key words from them and you will search them to find more videos or find earlier parts of the same videos. This is the only gameplay style of the game. In the first 2 hours, i was in love with it. But after that, it became repetitive.
This gameplay idea is great and it works good as well. But this shouldn't be the only gameplay style. They should add a little bit more to it. Maybe some dialogue options? QTE's? Not sure. Her Story was much shorter than Telling Lies. This being the only gameplay maybe made sense for that game. But it doesn't make sense for a 6 hours game. 6 hours to 100%. Understanding the main plot points will take 3-4 hours average.
I liked the gameplay, but it's repetitive. What about the story. I really really liked it. Except the ending. I did not liked the ending. I can't tell much about the story. Because the game is about finding key words and i would give you those key words if i talk about the story but as the title suggests, there is a lie in the game.
There are actually multiple lies. And we watch different lives getting destroyed because of the lies and love of a man. Let's get to characters. Again, i can't tell you the names of the characters because every name you hear in the game is worth the search. But I can say this.
There is a man and 3 women. These 4 are the main characters of the game. They are also the 3 main stories of the game. They are all connected in some ways but for the majority of those stories, they are 3 disconnected stories. I loved one of these. I liked the other one. And i hated the third one. The third story is so weird. It's like unfinished. If there is a cut content in this game, i am sure it's about that storyline.
Everything happened too fast and that story came to an end very quickly. We were talking about the characters right? Let's not forget that. Our main character, the man is played by Logan Marshall-Green. He carries the game. Developers asks a lot from him and he does all of it beautifully. Very deep character, very three dimensional, it was fantastic to learn about him.
Alexandra Shipp plays in the story i loved. Her chemistry with Marshall-Green was fantastic. And she did a great job playing her character. She was also very three dimensional. Not as much as Marshall-Green's character but that's understandable. He has 3 times the screen time of Shipp's character.
Kerry Bishé plays in the story i liked. Her role was hard to play. Maybe the hardest after Marshall-Green and i thought she did a good job. Some scenes could have been better, yes. But this is also very good.
Angela Sarafyan plays in the story i hated. I don't think it's her fault that i hated the story. It's because the emptiness of the character. I really think this storyline might have been added just to distract and confuse people about the other two storylines. It's so different, so disconnected. Even when it connects to the others, it doesn't work. I don't know, i really hated this storyline.
In the end, Telling Lies is a good beta for this new gameplay formula. If Her Story was alpha, this is beta. It's bigger and bolder. Now i hope that the next game that uses this gameplay, will be the full thing. Gameplay is repetitive and the ending is not good. But the story, characters and the performances are solid. Especially Logan Marshall-Green. Wow. Just wow.
He was snubbed at The Game Awards 2019. Not even a nomination for best performance. I think he should have win it. And yes i know, Mads Mikkelsen. Mads had like an hour of screen time. And he did nothing just like every movie or show he stars in. Not his fault but people really love to cast him and not use him. This review is going to different places, ok.
Play it, it's good. But not great. Available on PS Plus Extra. Have a great day.
Also Available on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S and PC
Playtime: 6 Hours
Completion Date: August 5, 2022
No Spoilers
Telling Lies is a narrative focused adventure game developed by Sam Barlow and Furious Bee and it's published by Annapurna Interactive. It's a very interesting, new concept. It was first used on Her Story, the previous game of Sam Barlow and this game is the continuation of it in terms of gameplay. Stories are not connected.
I normally talk about the story and characters of a game first, but in order to talk about them, i have to tell you about the gameplay so we are doing gameplay first. In Telling Lies, you are playing a mysterious character. You have a PC and on it, there is a system called Retina.
This system has 170 videos about a case. But you can't see these videos at first. In order to see them, you need to search a word. When you search that word, the system will find all of the videos that includes that word. It will then put them in a chronological order and will show you the first 5 videos.
And let's say the word you searched for is in the last sentence spoken in the video. You will start there and watch until the video ends. In order to see the earlier parts of the video, you need to search for a word that is used in those earlier parts.
The purpose of the game is to find as many videos as possible and solve the case. In your head. The game automatically ends after watching 30-40 videos but you can and you should get back to it to get at least most of the videos if not all of them.
You will watch videos, take key words from them and you will search them to find more videos or find earlier parts of the same videos. This is the only gameplay style of the game. In the first 2 hours, i was in love with it. But after that, it became repetitive.
This gameplay idea is great and it works good as well. But this shouldn't be the only gameplay style. They should add a little bit more to it. Maybe some dialogue options? QTE's? Not sure. Her Story was much shorter than Telling Lies. This being the only gameplay maybe made sense for that game. But it doesn't make sense for a 6 hours game. 6 hours to 100%. Understanding the main plot points will take 3-4 hours average.
I liked the gameplay, but it's repetitive. What about the story. I really really liked it. Except the ending. I did not liked the ending. I can't tell much about the story. Because the game is about finding key words and i would give you those key words if i talk about the story but as the title suggests, there is a lie in the game.
There are actually multiple lies. And we watch different lives getting destroyed because of the lies and love of a man. Let's get to characters. Again, i can't tell you the names of the characters because every name you hear in the game is worth the search. But I can say this.
There is a man and 3 women. These 4 are the main characters of the game. They are also the 3 main stories of the game. They are all connected in some ways but for the majority of those stories, they are 3 disconnected stories. I loved one of these. I liked the other one. And i hated the third one. The third story is so weird. It's like unfinished. If there is a cut content in this game, i am sure it's about that storyline.
Everything happened too fast and that story came to an end very quickly. We were talking about the characters right? Let's not forget that. Our main character, the man is played by Logan Marshall-Green. He carries the game. Developers asks a lot from him and he does all of it beautifully. Very deep character, very three dimensional, it was fantastic to learn about him.
Alexandra Shipp plays in the story i loved. Her chemistry with Marshall-Green was fantastic. And she did a great job playing her character. She was also very three dimensional. Not as much as Marshall-Green's character but that's understandable. He has 3 times the screen time of Shipp's character.
Kerry Bishé plays in the story i liked. Her role was hard to play. Maybe the hardest after Marshall-Green and i thought she did a good job. Some scenes could have been better, yes. But this is also very good.
Angela Sarafyan plays in the story i hated. I don't think it's her fault that i hated the story. It's because the emptiness of the character. I really think this storyline might have been added just to distract and confuse people about the other two storylines. It's so different, so disconnected. Even when it connects to the others, it doesn't work. I don't know, i really hated this storyline.
In the end, Telling Lies is a good beta for this new gameplay formula. If Her Story was alpha, this is beta. It's bigger and bolder. Now i hope that the next game that uses this gameplay, will be the full thing. Gameplay is repetitive and the ending is not good. But the story, characters and the performances are solid. Especially Logan Marshall-Green. Wow. Just wow.
He was snubbed at The Game Awards 2019. Not even a nomination for best performance. I think he should have win it. And yes i know, Mads Mikkelsen. Mads had like an hour of screen time. And he did nothing just like every movie or show he stars in. Not his fault but people really love to cast him and not use him. This review is going to different places, ok.
Play it, it's good. But not great. Available on PS Plus Extra. Have a great day.