When I was in ninth grade, a guy in class told us about this new game which was a high-school simulator. According to him, you’d wake up, brush, get ready, attend school and basically do all the stuff that you do in school.
At first, I thought that would be a pretty boring concept, since it would get monotonous doing the same things everyday; and that too in a video game.
But he told us that whatever you’d do would have an impact on the game. For example, if you chose not to brush your teeth one day, the hot guy in class might not want to talk to you and hence your relationship with him in the game would be affected.
I actually thought this was a neat concept and there would have to be lots of algorithms to connect such choices and just how advanced gaming was getting. I didn’t care to research about the game on my own, so i just believed what he told me.
He said the game was called ‘Life is Strange’.
Yes, I’m well aware now that such a game existed only in his imagination, and LiS is much more than a high-school simulator.
Oddly enough, I chose to play this game on my Android phone. Not on my 360, PS4 or my PC. Playing it on Android, there were quite some perks, but it came at a cost.
What I didn’t like :
- The controls. I’m sure they aren’t that bad while playing with a controller or a keyboard/mouse but they were horrible on a touch screen. You had to keep clicking on objects and then tapping even more to hear what Max had to say about them. And this just made the whole exploration factor tiring. Movement also wasn’t very fluid in the game.
- Some of the choices. They seemed pointless because they didn’t really have any impact on the game. Also, I didn’t like the fact that you could rewind and check out the other choices. That made the whole concept of choosing pointless.
- The loading screens were a plenty on Android. Before every cutscene, there would be a loading screen of about 10-20 seconds. While I understand that this is a game made for consoles and PC, the loading did ruin the experience for me.
- Some areas stretched out for too long. Like sometimes when you had to look for something or collect things, it would take me forever to find them and I’d have to check a walkthrough after I had given up. That could be partly because the controls were annoying.
What I liked :
- The story! Oh my God! It was brilliant. Along with The Last of Us, LiS has the one of the best stories I’ve played in games.
- The music choices are FANTASTIC! I’m still listening to Obstacles and Spanish Sahara from the game.
- The episodic format and there was a cliffhanger or reveal at the end of every episode made it like a TV show. A really great TV show.
- The voice actors for Max and Chloe were terrific. Max’s voice is just so soothing and calm, while Chloe’s is full of energy and makes me want to rebel against something.
- The graphics were unique and though they weren’t that good for facial animations, they lent a vibe of originality to the game.
- The portability I got by playing it on my phone. I could literally pop it out anywhere and start playing. Bored on the commute ? Life is Strange. Class cancelled ? Life is Strange. Casual existential crisis while sitting in college ? Life is Strange.
Final Thoughts :
For me, the positives outweigh the negatives. This game didn’t have that strong of an emotional impact on me like it had on others, but I loved playing it a lot. It felt like I was playing a video game of 13 Reasons Why, a lot of the times. And that’s a compliment to how real the game felt.
I’m totally hyped to play Before the Storm now and I’ll be playing it on my PC for sure, since most of my negatives pertained to the Android version of this game.
Verdict :
Three joysticks out of five! (one joystick more if you play it on consoles, pc)
This game was ‘hella’ good!
The Mechromancer 