Firewatch | Spoiler Discussion

WanderingWind said:
What they utterly failed at was continuing any of those fantastic ideals. Before you even get a chance to explore the emotional setup they provided with the (as it turns out) entirely inconsequential beginning, they ask you to begin having feelings vicariously, about two characters you never met.

Instead of a nuanced, in-depth look at the nature of relationships - long-term and transient - isolation, dealing with life's major events or anything of the sort, we're given a succession of lame duck red herrings. The teens. The science equipment with the fence that couldn't have possibly been built without Delilah knowing about it. The "mystery" conversation.

None of these things are very interesting in and of themselves, they were worth paying attention to because they could've lead to interesting. Red herrings can be used to good effect, but not when they're used back-to-back-to-back and not when they're used as a substitute for actual progression. Between those and the time skips and uneven dialogue dispersion, there were just too many tricks obscuring the base ideals of the game.

I'm not disappointed that Firewatch didn't veer into sci-fi or horror territory. Quite the opposite. I'm disappointed because it had such an amazing premise, an absolutely riveting setting and style and an immediately likable dynamic between H&D and then it promptly squandered all of it. They didn't need to resort to using so many tricks. They needed to have way more confidence in their writing and the initial setup. There is an amazing, touching, human story somewhere in this game's past. It got lost somewhere along its development. Of all the things I'm most disappointed in with Firewatch, the fact that we'll never get to play that game is the biggest.
Click to expand...

Fantastic post. Sums up my feelings precisely and eloquently
 
Fuchsdh said:
It's made worse by the fact that these are story-focused games (I've never played a Bioshock game for the gameplay) and it feels like half-assing your game because you couldn't be bothered (Hell, Bioshock even had unique models for at least Tenenbaum and someone had the bright idea to just turn her into a generic Splicer in the final product, which as you say undercut the story.)

I definitely knew we were never going to actually meet Delilah because the "voice on the line" trope in games is worn very thin at this point, and saying "we should meet up" at the beginning was hanging a lantern on the "THEY WILL NEVER MEET" expectation.
Click to expand...

The sad thing is that the game already has a good interaction system in place so I think they could have handled a person to person encounter just fine.

I did think it possible that they might end with approaching her cabin and seeing her there in silhouette.
 
WanderingWind said:
I'm not disappointed that Firewatch didn't veer into sci-fi or horror territory. Quite the opposite. I'm disappointed because it had such an amazing premise, an absolutely riveting setting and style and an immediately likable dynamic between H&D and then it promptly squandered all of it. They didn't need to resort to using so many tricks. They needed to have way more confidence in their writing and the initial setup. There is an amazing, touching, human story somewhere in this game's past. It got lost somewhere along its development. Of all the things I'm most disappointed in with Firewatch, the fact that we'll never get to play that game is the biggest.
Click to expand...

This sums up my feelings on the story.

My first moments with this game added up to overwhelming and frustrating. You walk into the station and have dozens of objects to look at but you're hurried to use the radio, but wait, you didn't respond in time, oh you wanted to look more? Day 2.

Honestly, I feel the entire games design is very confused. You have the exploration that feels extremely gated(I would've rather it was even more linear). And then the upgrades like the axe end up being used for minor shortcuts which you don't need as you don't really cross the map much at all. ANd every single thing is press x to use, forever, you can't be trusted to remember.

You have the minimalist map feature which they loved so much from Far Cry 2, but it's combined with an onscreen UI that's anything but, highlighting and describing dozens of meaningless objects, which could've been reserved for radio conversations instead of onscreen descriptions.

Using the radio felt like a combination of Assassin's Creed and Grow Home, entirely too complicated and confusing. Why is zoom L1?
 
Finished it. Too bad I couldn't do it in one sitting. It would have made the experience somewhat better. I had to sleep, unfortunately.

Charming little game. It manages to stay interesting, despite it's very simplistic gameplay mechanics. Fun world to walk around in and amazing atmosphere. It makes me want to spend time in a forest by myself. I want to go hiking!

Both Henry and Delilah's voice actors really steal the show. Their banter and conversations feel natural and genuine. Really well done.

Like most of you, the story leaves me with some questions. The biggest one being: Why in the hell did Ned lead Henry to the backpack with the key if he is trying to cover the thing up and frame Henry? It makes no sense. It might also be something I missed.

The conclusion had me scratching my head at first. I think I even muttered the words "That's it?". But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It's a very human and mature story. While watching movies or playing games, we are so dead set on discovering the truth in grand fashion. We expect crazy twists and turns and one hell of a revealing finale. This game does not do that. Which is fine by me actually. It touches me on a deeper emotional level than "WHABAM, HAHAHAHAA, DELILAH IS ACTUALLY NED'S EX WIFE AND THEY WORKED TOGETHER TO FRAME YOU FOR THE SON THEY KILLED!!!!!!". Or something of the like. The shock would've been bigger, but not as touching or profound.

Overall, really loved it.

And at least now I know what the face of pure evil looks like. My mighty heart, I nearly had to call an ambulance.
mFKVYPp.png
 
CrichtonKicks said:
I disagree with the rest of your post but I think this is a good point. I think the game would have done itself a favor by having at least one actual character model somewhere in the game just to prove that they would do it. Because otherwise you kind of realize "oh, this game doesn't do that so I probably will never actually meet Ned, Delilah, or anyone else. System Shock 2 and Bioshock are examples of a similar problem- The games go out of their way to avoid ever putting you in a room with a live person. Once you realize that Irrational doesn't have a system in place for actual character interaction or cutscenes then you automatically know that every time there is a "go meet this person" objective it will fail for some reason. It's a bit of a seeing the wizard behind the curtain moment.
Click to expand...

This is a really great articulation of something that bothered me because yes, it totally became clear to me that I was never going to meet another NPC and it really let the air out of the last hour or so of the game for me.
 
Denzar said:
Finished it. Too bad I couldn't do it in one sitting. It would have made the experience somewhat better. I had to sleep, unfortunately.

Charming little game. It manages to stay interesting, despite it's very simplistic gameplay mechanics. Fun world to walk around in and amazing atmosphere. It makes me want to spend time in a forest by myself. I want to go hiking!

Both Henry and Delilah's voice actors really steal the show. Their banter and conversations feel natural and genuine. Really well done.

Like most of you, the story leaves me with some questions. The biggest one being: Why in the hell did Ned lead Henry to the backpack with the key if he is trying to cover the thing up and frame Henry? It makes no sense. It might also be something I missed.

The conclusion had me scratching my head at first. I think I even muttered the words "That's it?". But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It's a very human and mature story. While watching movies or playing games, we are so dead set on discovering the truth in grand fashion. We expect crazy twists and turns and one hell of a revealing finale. This game does not do that. Which is fine by me actually. It touches me on a deeper emotional level than "WHABAM, HAHAHAHAA, DELILAH IS ACTUALLY NED'S EX WIFE AND THEY WORKED TOGETHER TO FRAME YOU FOR THE SON THEY KILLED!!!!!!". Or something of the like. The shock would've been bigger, but not as touching or profound.

Overall, really loved it.

And at least now I know what the face of pure evil looks like. My mighty heart, I nearly had to call an ambulance.
mFKVYPp.png
Click to expand...

Ned didn't lead him to the backpack. The alarm on the backpack messed up the wave frequency thingy.

The ending wasn't touching for me, because I didn't care for Ned or his dead son, I cared for Delilah.

bodyofanamerican said:
This is a really great articulation of something that bothered me because yes, it totally became clear to me that I was never going to meet another NPC and it really let the air out of the last hour or so of the game for me.
Click to expand...

Yep. I knew I wasn't going to meet ingame Delilah, but a cartoony cutscene or simple text like in the beginning, saying how Henry and Delilah ended up (depending on the dialogue choices) would had been enough.
 
plidex said:
Ned didn't lead him to the backpack. The alarm on the backpack messed up the wave frequency thingy.

The ending wasn't touching for me, because I didn't care for Ned or his dead son, I cared for Delilah.

.
Click to expand...

Oh. See, something I missed.


Didn't care for Ned or Brian either, but I cared for H and D. That was touching to me.
 
Jest Chillin said:
-The Backpack with the Key was most likely hid by Brian. Ned would've accessed the Cave by climbing but Brian would've used the Gate Key to get to his hideout as he didn't like climbing. Since the hideout was also where the Pitons were located, he probably hid the key to prevent his father from finding the hideout. The alarm was already there to capture images of Elk.
Click to expand...

Late in replying to this but I have to say it's my favorite explanation for the hidden backpack. Yes, another reply said that the backpack's not there earlier in the game but I feel that can be chalked up to the game not wanting you to sequence break. They could've handled it better, but cheaped out and just didn't place the backpack in the world until you're supposed to find out.

It really just makes the most sense. Everything up to that point had been about Ned thinking you found the body and wanting you to not investigate farther into it and get you to leave, plus he intentionally avoids trying to KILL you up to that point. Plus, while you're away, he sneaks in to plant the tape with evidence that suggests you started the station fire. What would be the point of handing you the key to the cave as well?

I doubt Ned ever visited that cave himself, he couldn't bare to see the sight of his dead son there. Also keep in mind that when he first saw you go in there on day 1 he thought you found the body, which is impossible because of the locked gate. So either he doesn't KNOW the gate is there, or he doesn't have the key and thinks you have it at that point.

When he locks you in the cave it's pretty clear that it's out of desperation and he meant to trap you there too, which would mean he doesn't know of the other exit. Plus, the other exit only leads to one place, Brian's hideout, which Ned presumably didn't know about. So again, it seems Ned never went in the cave himself, and never had the key to it. Brian was the one who found it after the key was lost, Brian was the one who went in and explore the cave, coming out the other side and finding the secret spot he set up as his hideout. Not wanting Ned to find the key Brian hid it in the forest, with the alarm there so he would know if someone found it. The alarm could very well have been built by him since it's shown that he knew some basic stuff about electronics, but because his knowledge is so basic it's poorly insulated and thus emits radio waves that your wave finder pick up.

When you fit all the pieces together, I feel this is the most logical explanation for the key and backpack. The only question really is HOW Ned locks the gate since there are presumably only one set of keys, but that might just be a minor plot hole. Edit: Actually now that I think about it, the gate probably is one of those that automatically lock when closed. My apartment's pool has something just like it, so no plot hole at all!
 
I felt the game was too short, and there wasn't any kind of plot twist, it was just "oh ok" and then it ended. It's just one of those games that could have been so much more.
 
Shrike Alvaron said:
Late in replying to this but I have to say it's my favorite explanation for the hidden backpack. Yes, another reply said that the backpack's not there earlier in the game but I feel that can be chalked up to the game not wanting you to sequence break. They could've handled it better, but cheaped out and just didn't place the backpack in the world until you're supposed to find out.
Click to expand...

Similarly, when you have to go to the cotton prairie, you have to zoom in on the floral poster first. If you go to the prairie before zooming in, I am 99% sure that the cache where D is supposed to have hidden an untapped talkie-walkie won't contain it (the one with the 5678 code). This means that D knows that she is going to put the talkie-walkie in this cache (this is the reason why she calls H and asks him to look at the floral poster in the first place), but she only goes to the cache once H zooms in on the poster. This does not make sense since D is further away from the cache than H, and that there is no way to meet her on her walk back to her lookout. This is plain plot hole to avoid sequence break.

Shrike Alvaron said:
Actually now that I think about it, the gate probably is one of those that automatically lock when closed. My apartment's pool has something just like it, so no plot hole at all!
Click to expand...

In that case, it should be possible to open the gate from inside the cave by simply using the keys. Either you open from inside or you put your hand between the metal bars and you open from outside.
 
Wok said:
In that case, it should be possible to open the gate from inside the cave by simply using the keys. Either you open from inside or you put your hand between the metal bars and you open from outside.
Click to expand...

If you examine the gate, there's no keyhole on the inside and there's metal wires running on either side of the lock, preventing you from reaching through the bares to unlock it. Why it's set up that way, I don't know. May be that the devs realized that issue for themselves and so put the metal wires there later on as a subtle explanation.
 
Shancake said:
We've published an amazing in-depth look at the story below. I'm still struggling with it personally. The game felt like it was building to an incredible climax right until the final reveal. Whilst I can still appreciate the game in it's entirety, it's hard to look back and be moved by the story.

http://press-start.com.au/2016/02/11/firewatch-explanation-and-analysis/
Click to expand...

There's some interesting interpretation there, but the article needs a stiff copyedit. In some places it made it hard to understand your meaning.
 
Gave it a night to decompress and internalize what I felt about the ending and my ultimate end result was that I liked it.

Sure there seemed to be some threads that didn't unrealistically and conveniently wrap themselves back into the main narrative but...that's actually a good thing, IMO.

While I do feel that Ned being the writer of the character profiles was a deus ex machina I have no issue with the other hanging threads of narrative.

I was dreading the moment where the sister in law ended up being a criminal mastermind.. or Delilah being in on it.. or any number of other cliched "see, it was all connected all along" plot twists.

Not every occurrence needs to be plot centric. Reality is almost 100% full of "red herrings" so I don't fault any story for using them especially since they all provided additional info on the characters that were central to the story. I got to spend some time with characters that I quickly grew to love and I experienced the entirety of their relationship.

It was a good experience and I enjoyed it.
 
UnblessedSoul said:
I felt the game was too short, and there wasn't any kind of plot twist, it was just "oh ok" and then it ended. It's just one of those games that could have been so much more.
Click to expand...

5/10 game for me. Was hyping this game since reveal.... Everything just felt so flat outside of the dialogue.
 
How many endings are there? Just the one where Delilah tells Henry to go back to Julia?

If there's more please point me in the right direction :)
 
UnblessedSoul said:
I felt the game was too short, and there wasn't any kind of plot twist, it was just "oh ok" and then it ended. It's just one of those games that could have been so much more.
Click to expand...

Does there have to be a plot twist or a huge reveal in every game though?
I actually liked that there was just nothing in the end, sometimes there is just nothing more and you dont get an explanation for everything that happened and the only thing you can do is speculate what might have been.
 
dLMN8R said:
I loved it.

I'm so happy a game like this can exist. Just a story about two people going through difficult times in their lives. Two people immensely lonely despite the fact that they have each other for months.

So lonely that they'll imagine conspiracies where they are none. Conspiracies where they hope, maybe subconsciously, that there's something larger at work going on, just so they can feel like they're important and part of something bigger.


But they're not. And that's why Delilah feels so empty after discovering that it was just Ned all along. And when the girls are found safe and in jail, she can't even be a part of that story either.


And Henry too. He keeps running after every suspicious thing because he wants some sort of human contact. He doesn't care if it puts his life at risk, he just needs...something. Anything. Just so his life can have some sort of importance or meaning.

But he can't ever find anyone. The girls are too far away. His stalker is always just out of reach. His attacker ran away before he could see anything. The person who locked the door behind him got away quickly. The guy in his lookout tower was gone seconds before he got back there. Delilah gets away on a helicopter before he can see her.

He can't even prevent or create fires. He's just powerless. Powerless to help his wife. Powerless in his relationship with Delilah. Powerless in his ability to scare those girls since someone else scared them away for him.

In the end, it's just a story of two lonely people, connected by a simple radio, and even their most convincing conspiracies were built up out of nothing.


It was a beautiful story unlike anything I've ever seen in a game. I'm so happy for Campo Santo and what they created.
Click to expand...

Just finished it now, this sums it up for me.

I loved it turned out how it did, it didn't need any big twist, it told a story and that story was enjoyable, it was something totally different to my usual FPS games and i throughly enjoyed it.

As the quote says it was just two people connected by a radio who both have flaws.
 
basically how I feel after finishing it
3a0.gif


I have no idea why anyone would think highly of this title. Underwhelming for sure.
 
The reveal was so weak that I thought they were going to do a switcheroo and reveal the proper reveal at the end, but nope...

The story is very weak but the dialogue makes up for it.
 
dLMN8R said:
I loved it.

I'm so happy a game like this can exist. Just a story about two people going through difficult times in their lives. Two people immensely lonely despite the fact that they have each other for months.

So lonely that they'll imagine conspiracies where they are none. Conspiracies where they hope, maybe subconsciously, that there's something larger at work going on, just so they can feel like they're important and part of something bigger.


But they're not. And that's why Delilah feels so empty after discovering that it was just Ned all along. And when the girls are found safe and in jail, she can't even be a part of that story either.


And Henry too. He keeps running after every suspicious thing because he wants some sort of human contact. He doesn't care if it puts his life at risk, he just needs...something. Anything. Just so his life can have some sort of importance or meaning.

But he can't ever find anyone. The girls are too far away. His stalker is always just out of reach. His attacker ran away before he could see anything. The person who locked the door behind him got away quickly. The guy in his lookout tower was gone seconds before he got back there. Delilah gets away on a helicopter before he can see her.

He can't even prevent or create fires. He's just powerless. Powerless to help his wife. Powerless in his relationship with Delilah. Powerless in his ability to scare those girls since someone else scared them away for him.

In the end, it's just a story of two lonely people, connected by a simple radio, and even their most convincing conspiracies were built up out of nothing.


It was a beautiful story unlike anything I've ever seen in a game. I'm so happy for Campo Santo and what they created.
Click to expand...
Well said
 
Lime said:
basically how I feel after finishing it
3a0.gif


I have no idea why anyone would think highly of this title. Underwhelming for sure.
Click to expand...
I love that it wasn't what people were expecting. The whole point of the game is drawing conclusions due to the effects of isolation. You essentially end up role playing the lead character, even after the initial warnings of what isolation does from the moment you arrive on site.
 
I thought it was a good game and a very good idea, but I do kind of feel as though it was an anti-climax and would have been better if it went a little bigger in it's reveal.

chaislip3 said:
Wait, so who wrecked the tent and clothes that those girls owned? Was it Ned? A bear or something?
Click to expand...

Ned had all their shit in his bunker, so I'm going with him.
 
gai_shain said:
Does there have to be a plot twist or a huge reveal in every game though?
I actually liked that there was just nothing in the end, sometimes there is just nothing more and you dont get an explanation for everything that happened and the only thing you can do is speculate what might have been.
Click to expand...

There doesn't have to be a twist, but a twist can keep things interesting.

I feel this game did not satisfactorily tell a story and could have benefited greatly from some kinda of turn of events. Felt very shallow, especially when I go back and watch the trailers for this game.

I guess me thinking about the game isn't enough to satisfy my experience WITH the game. Maybe I didn't connect to the characters, but that would be because I have almost nothing of similar experiences in life to connect to them with.

And what was with the camp site at Wapiti Station?
 
Sheroking said:
Ned had all their shit in his bunker, so I'm going with him.
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

I'm actually fine with the ending being a bit anticlimactic. The fact that the story was really about these two people bonding over the summer who have their own demons, and that it didn't amount to some huge conspiracy theory was pretty cool, imo.
 
I enjoyed it, story and all. Didn't need a big climax or mind bending plot twist.

My dialogue choices went down the road of Delilah saying "when you love somebody, you take care of them", at the end, regarding Ned and Brian, which pretty blatantly frames this whole summer adventure as some mirror of Henry's relationship with his wife.

Felt like it was a neat little interactive short story, so I got what I wanted out of it.
 
OrlanisWorks said:
I guess me thinking about the game isn't enough to satisfy my experience WITH the game. Maybe I didn't connect to the characters, but that would be because I have almost nothing of similar experiences in life to connect to them with.
Click to expand...

I actually think this has the potential to shape a lot of people's feelings. It made me greatly connect with the game because one of my favorite times in life was a summer fling I had while doing farm work away from everyone else I knew. Suddenly all of the highs came back, and then all of the lows of knowing it's going to end and we're going to go our separate ways and probably just never see or talk to each other again. I don't think one needs a similar experience to appreciate the games story, but I can imagine it really helps.

OrlanisWorks said:
And what was with the camp site at Wapiti Station?
Click to expand...

I think it was just set up to monitor seismic activity in the region before it was slightly co-opted by Ned while the scientists were away for a bit.
 
A good climax for this game doesn't necessarily entail some massive twist or an action set piece. If the concept was their conspiracy is overblown by their own isolation and angst, it could have been rolled out a hundred times better than it was. There was, for me, no satisfying emotional peak to this game. Surely there was a better way to have you figure out Ned's story than being led to a cassette that just blurted the whole answer out.

There's also so many little unexplained details that just don't fit into the Ned/Brian narrative. The Wapiti Station, for example, explicitly had advanced tech. They set up the massive fence, there were three cots. There was binders of shit detailing the behaviors of the watch. They had earthquake censors and barometers and none of that stuff was ever explained to my knowledge.

I guess I'm meant to assume that there WAS an experiment going on, and that I would have a better understanding of it if I had found all the easter egg documents and letters. I'm left to assume that Ned found this crap and used it to spy on you. It just feels like there was a bigger story under all here that would have been more interesting or IS more interesting, if we actually find it.

Good game, great concept, imperfectly put together IMO. A solid 8. Certainly worth the $20.
 
Sheroking said:
There's also so many little unexplained details that just don't fit into the Ned/Brian narrative. The Wapiti Station, for example, explicitly had advanced tech. They set up the massive fence, there were three cots. There was binders of shit detailing the behaviors of the watch. They had earthquake censors and barometers and none of that stuff was ever explained to my knowledge.
Click to expand...

It was explained sorta, as in it was.....just a research station.
 
The more I think about it the more none of it makes any sense. Ned is listening to Delilah and Henry's conversations. He KNOWS that they don't know a damn thing about him and Brian. So what does he do? He fabricates research on them to spook them? He gives Henry the key to the cave to trap him? Why? Henry and Delilah posed literally no threat. Neither of them even suspected Brian was down there. Someone needs to illuminate the motive behind Ned's actions because I'm really not seeing it.
 
I feel like anyone who hated this probably loved Breaking Bad for some reason, idk. The flow of this and how it ended reminded me of a Coen film, in which it's more of a slice of a story than neatly wrapped up in a little bow. It's a character piece, similar to how Lost was. I wish the majority of gamers would stop thinking that narratives live and die by the endings, because when too much emphasis is put on an ending, the rest of the story loses its lasting effect.
 
the themes of isolation and paranoia it deals in, and the tension it builds up makes it an ideal candidate for vr

jett said:
Yeah I enjoyed that too and also the reference to TLOU's University of Eastern Colorado.
Click to expand...

i like that henry got a "hey there delilah" in at least once, it sounded very natural too, the va is just perfect
 
Permanently A said:
The more I think about it the more none of it makes any sense. Ned is listening to Delilah and Henry's conversations. He KNOWS that they don't know a damn thing about him and Brian. So what does he do? He fabricates research on them to spook them? He gives Henry the key to the cave to trap him? Why? Henry and Delilah posed literally no threat. Neither of them even suspected Brian was down there. Someone needs to illuminate the motive behind Ned's actions because I'm really not seeing it.
Click to expand...

He's worried about being discovered himself. He isn't listening when he sees Henry come out of the cave at the beginning. He assumes the worst, panics, and ransacks Henry's stuff. He frames the girls for the vandalism.

And all of that pretty much works. H&D think the girls were behind the vandalism and life goes on. Ned leaves them be. Then 2 months later Henry stumbles upon the clipboard and radio and Ned feels like he has to act. And this time he probably does- the clipboard is major creeper territory and H&D probably wouldn't have dropped it this time. If Delilah called in the Rangers and they pored over the woods they might have found Ned's hiding spot. It's not just worry over finding Brian- if someone finds Ned and finds out who he is then they find out about Brian by default even if they never discover his body.
 
This isn't some character piece. It is precisely because that it fails in providing a proper treatment and arc to its characters and the mentioned theme that it falls flat in the end and feels disappointing.

- What we have of Julia amounts to a simple Twine game (which is fine by the way, but all she and the relationship to her that we as players get is the introductory text)
- Apparently some sort of thing develops between D and H, but that gets swept under the rug once the whole conspiracy thing gets thrown into it. It never really gets picked up again because the whole conspiracy plot takes over the plot
- The ending doesn't have much resolve or denouement. It's just is without any indication of what's going to happen with the characters. How did Henry cope with his wife's dementia? It's such an interesting theme, but it's never really explored at all except for the introduction.
- The lack of human faces. Fine that Campo Santo doesn't want to animate and model those things that express emotions and it can totally work without it, but it would be nice to have some pictures of people like Gone Home had to relate and understand the characters. All Julia and Henry get is the same non-descript drawing we see every day.

This game isn't a character piece. Sure, it has some nice snarky banter between Henry and Delilah, but the range of emotions and the development of the characters are so bare-bones that I simply leave the game with a "so what?". The characters didn't evolve, there wasn't any sort of deeper introspection for the two main characters, and a complex and serious topic like dementia of a loved one is just used as fluff rather than actually conveyed and treated thematically. Firewatch suffers the exact same criticism that Ian Bogost levelled at Gone Home (which imo did things better than FW)
 
It feels like the movie "The Game" in a way, just that in the movie it was a prank set up by a big corporation and in this case it wasn't a prank but it was a set up just that in this case it's only one man doing all the work.

I really think that you need a lot of explanations to Ned's story to "somehow" make sense... it's too much, well intended but too much.
 
Yamibito said:
I feel like anyone who hated this probably loved Breaking Bad for some reason, idk. The flow of this and how it ended reminded me of a Coen film, in which it's more of a slice of a story than neatly wrapped up in a little bow. It's a character piece, similar to how Lost was. I wish the majority of gamers would stop thinking that narratives live and die by the endings, because when too much emphasis is put on an ending, the rest of the story loses its lasting effect.
Click to expand...

I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either -- and it's not because I didn't like the picture they painted, it's that that picture remains, to me at least, incomplete. And not on the basis of the ending either; the ending is an ending for the "mystery" of the game; something I found myself caring less and less about the more the game stressed its existence.

There's a foundation for this game laid at the beginning that tells a pretty sad story about a man's life leading down dark, realistic corridors of human existence; it introduces us to another character, Delilah, who could act as a mirror for that -- and allows for a new connection for this person. The first few days of this game are the best days; not because anything is happy, or because there's a promise that "in the end, it'll all be all right!" but because there was a huge opportunity to make it the emotional core of the experience, satisfyingly explored.

But it wasn't explored. Instead, they explored other issues; paranoia, fear, sense of confusion, fight or flight mechanisms -- they took those characters down a different path, such that, by the end, there wasn't time or seemingly purpose to revisit the other themes of the game so breathtakingly introduced. If you like the mystery of this game, and care less about those other themes, then this game has a satisfying beginning, middle and end. If, on the other hand, you saw the mystery as a backdrop with its own beginning and end, but not the focal point of the story, then it is stressed too much in lieu of the finer things.

I don't think games live or die by their endings, but the ending here wasn't an ending it all; it was a wholly unconvincing abrupt non-sequitur that squanders the potential of its characters, and the players investment in them.

Now, maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is, you don't really know people. Still, I would've liked to know them better.
 
80s Bad Guy said:
The soundtrack is fantastic, so glad I picked it up.
Click to expand...

Is it only available through steam?

-

Also to speak more on the game, I personally wanted more information about D. But I understand that this is a story about two lonely individuals, and I felt the loneliness Henry felt whenever communication was cut off or when I was denied the one thing I wanted after 15 minutes of playing: seeing what D looks like.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Firewatch was released 9 years ago today
2
79
5K
ValiantInstance replied
Metal Gear Advice, Playthrough Order, General Discussion (HUGE SPOILERS)
2
57
3K
Killer8 replied
What is the most serious discussion topic in gaming?
38
753
Danjin44 replied
Metaphor: ReFantazio Discussion and Spoilercast | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 426
Opinion 
0
299
Go_Ly_Dow replied
  • Poll
[Tronicsfix] The Gaming Industry's BIGGEST SCAM! Spoiler: It's about controllers.
2 3
106
2K
Sethbacca replied
Top Bottom