Telling Lies isn't a fun game. Whereas Barlow's previous title Her Story felt like simulated the work involved in the investigative process, his follow up just feels like work. Composed of hidden camera and webcam footage, each example of the latter category has another video to be found that shows the other side of the conversation. Combined with the beefed up length of clips, and a bountiful query in the early game could easily produce a couple dozen minutes of footage to scrub through to identify yet more query. Scrubbing is something you'll be doing a lot of, as most videos have a few solid minutes of dead air as you spy into these character's private lives. Your choice of research methodology is critical here, I filled up sixteen pages of pen and paper notes before I ditched them and started just following whatever leads I fancied. I recommend bookmarking each clip you find at a memorable line, which help you keep track of the timeline and easily reference clips, which may stave off the tedium.
Critically however, Telling Lies has another central quality, which is that it is fucking devastating. There aren't so many big reveals that excite in their elucidation of some grand mystery, but rather dozens of small revelations that add another emotional barb to uncovering where this powder keg of a setup is going to wind up. The aforementioned dead air is often palpable with the pain of this characters written on their faces as they reel from a development unseen by you. It is in those small details that this title flourishes, its plot spliced together from various high profile news stories but rendered captivating through their intimacy and specificity.
As such, the tediousness contributes to this in its own way, the work your character doing is grimy, arguably working towards a noble end but unarguably through unethical means, which makes for a fascinating foil to the game's main character, David, as he begins to question both the ends and means he has chosen and been assigned. Albeit, I can't blame anyone for finding the movie compilation videos on Youtube a more satisfying experience, and as when we reach the point when it is fully normalized that games can benefit from being things other than fun, I think I will sour more on the particular ways that Telling Lies accomplishes that through its tedium. Still, I expect that the story it weaves will stick with me for a good while longer than that.
Critically however, Telling Lies has another central quality, which is that it is fucking devastating. There aren't so many big reveals that excite in their elucidation of some grand mystery, but rather dozens of small revelations that add another emotional barb to uncovering where this powder keg of a setup is going to wind up. The aforementioned dead air is often palpable with the pain of this characters written on their faces as they reel from a development unseen by you. It is in those small details that this title flourishes, its plot spliced together from various high profile news stories but rendered captivating through their intimacy and specificity.
As such, the tediousness contributes to this in its own way, the work your character doing is grimy, arguably working towards a noble end but unarguably through unethical means, which makes for a fascinating foil to the game's main character, David, as he begins to question both the ends and means he has chosen and been assigned. Albeit, I can't blame anyone for finding the movie compilation videos on Youtube a more satisfying experience, and as when we reach the point when it is fully normalized that games can benefit from being things other than fun, I think I will sour more on the particular ways that Telling Lies accomplishes that through its tedium. Still, I expect that the story it weaves will stick with me for a good while longer than that.