It is weird when even the most mediocre, esentially filler episode of a Telltale game gets at least 7.0. IGN always seemed kinda not impressed by it as much as some other outlets.
The reception for the last episode is sure polarizing, but a lot of sites are doing super positive overviews of the whole season.
Definitely agree with this. Yes it's a bit rough around the edges and some of the dialogue is clumsy, but it makes you care for the characters in a way that a very few game has. Max and Chloe are up there among my favorite and most memorable game characters.
It would be incredible. I'd love to see their take on having the protagonist be an unreliable narrator, being driven to madness by all the crazy bullshit she finds (it's safe to say having female protagonists is their thing, right)
Now that had time to process, do you guys want to give it your final score, for the whole season.
As a full package LiS was one of the best experiences I've had this year, not just the game, but also being here talking and speculating with you guys, easily in my top 5 of games from this year (and boy, what a year this one has been for gamers)
I don't usually like scores, but for me I'll say Life is Strange is
......................[GOTY]
[Worth Full Price] [Awesometacular]
......................[8.6/10]
Now that had time to process, do you guys want to give it your final score, for the whole season.
As a full package LiS was one of the best experiences I've had this year, not just the game, but also being here talking and speculating with you guys, easily in my top 5 of games from this year (and boy, what a year this one has been for gamers)
I don't usually like scores, but for me I'll say Life is Strange is
[GOTY]
[Worth Full Price] [Awesometacular]
[8.6/10]
Episode 2 is weird. It's got a ton of the weakest moments in the season (BOTTLLLEEES) but it also has my favorite moment in the entire season (you know the one). Makes it difficult to compare to the other episodes.
Episode 2 is weird. It's got a ton of the weakest moments in the season (BOTTLLLEEES) but it also has my favorite moment in the entire season (you know the one). Makes it difficult to compare to the other episodes.
I.. I don't know what to say. This has to be one of the best, most emotional stories I have ever seen in a video game. Beautiful, just beautiful. Much respect to Dontnod for using this medium in such a great way to tell this story. I'm just sad it's over
I'm going through Episode 5 right now and I just want to say that the writing is fucking GOD AWFUL! Whoever the emo kid is getting a paycheck for this drivel at DONTNOD needs to be fired. The repetitive bullshit drama. "This is happening because of me!" All this garbage writing. It's still going on as I type this. "This coul ebe Rachel's revenge.... our revenge."
Fucking stop, just shut up.
EDIT: To clarify, I like this game and telltale style of storytelling, just fix the fucking dialogue.
I'm going through Episode 5 right now and I just want to say that the writing is fucking GOD AWFUL! Whoever the emo kid is getting a paycheck for this drivel at DONTNOD needs to be fired. The repetitive bullshit drama. "This is happening because of me!" All this garbage writing. It's still going on as I type this. "This coul ebe Rachel's revenge.... our revenge."
I feel like it's just particular conversations or maybe even particular writers on the project. When it's supposed to be super emotional they just repeat themselves over and over.
I'm wondering, is DONTNOD an English-first-language company? I wouldn't be surprised if they were French writeres writing teenage American dialogue. That sorta thing.
Now that had time to process, do you guys want to give it your final score, for the whole season.
As a full package LiS was one of the best experiences I've had this year, not just the game, but also being here talking and speculating with you guys, easily in my top 5 of games from this year (and boy, what a year this one has been for gamers)
I don't usually like scores, but for me I'll say Life is Strange is
......................[GOTY]
[Worth Full Price] [Awesometacular]
......................[8.6/10]
It's game of the year for me. Nothing will overtake it now. And this too in a year where a mainline MGS game has come out when the past three numbered MGS games have all been my GOTY. And before Fallout 4 too.
Sorry, this wins it for me. And quite honestly, it's the best game I've played since The Last of Us, a game which became my favourite game ever after it released in 2013.
If I had to score the whole season, I'd go for a nine. Individually, I'd go - even with the flaws the game had (I was more in for the journey it provided than the roadbumps it would occasionally provide and what a journey it was - 7, 8, 10, 10, 9.
So yeah, Dontnod made something special, flaws and all.
It's about the same length as every other episode. 2-3 hours if you just rush through the story. 4-5 if you take the time to take in scenes, rewind for other outcomes, examine objects, etc.
EDIT: As for the overall quality of Life is Strange, it's great but it's also hard to call it "GOTY" in the same year as Undertale, Ori and the Blind Forest, Pillars of Eternity, Monster Hunter 4, Splatoon, and Dark Souls II: Actually Good Enemy Placement Edition. I think it's a pretty solid 8/10, definitely good for an episodic game. At the very least it's the best episodic adventure game since Sam and Max Season 3.
I feel like it's just particular conversations or maybe even particular writers on the project. When it's supposed to be super emotional they just repeat themselves over and over.
I'm wondering, is DONTNOD an English-first-language company? I wouldn't be surprised if they were French writeres writing teenage American dialogue. That sorta thing.
From what I understand, the story was outlined by the French developers at Dontnod, but the actual dialogue was written by an American, Christian Divine, who worked on Deus Ex some years ago. The devs even stated in an interview that they hired him because they were afraid of the script being "too French" and without proper teen talk.
As for the dialogue in emotional scenes, I kinda understand where you're coming from. I agree that from a writing standpoint, it definitely gets a little repetitive in places and the tone is inconsistent sometimes (like ending a very serious conversation with a bad pun or a silly joke).
These were minor flaws for me though. Most of the dialogue was pretty believable and the fantastic character and story development made me love this game to bits.
My only issue with the writing was with Chloe's "hip slang". Phrases like "I'm still trippin' on that" sound like things a middle aged dad thinks teens would say, so it doesn't surprise me to learn the American writer was a 48 year old man.
I kept waiting for her to lob an "ex-squeeze me" out there.
EDIT: As for the overall quality of Life is Strange, it's great but it's also hard to call it "GOTY" in the same year as Undertale, Ori and the Blind Forest, Pillars of Eternity, Monster Hunter 4, Splatoon, and Dark Souls II: Actually Good Enemy Placement Edition. I think it's a pretty solid 8/10, definitely good for an episode game. At the very least it's the best episodic adventure game since Sam and Max Season 3.
It's funny, I played none of those other games. Yet, I would say it's hard to call it GOTY behind Bloodborne, Witcher 3 and my expectations for Fallout 4. Still, it has the most emotional story by far and so many little things were so well done. I'm glad it can be a game that overlaps for gamers who have really different tastes.
I think what I appreciated most about LiS is how subtle things can be. How they took time to make the little things and moments matter. How you, as Max, are allowed to take a break once in a while to just chill. How characters that in most games who would be just "bad", (Frank) can be interpreted as broken and lonely. It's a game that is supremely confident in itself and what it is, and for a little publicized title that is essentially "Nancy Drew: The Twin Peaks Years" that speaks to DontNod's confidence in themselves. Can't wait to see what they do next.
My only issue with the writing was with Chloe's "hip slang". Phrases like "I'm still trippin' on that" sound like things a middle aged dad thinks teens would say, so it doesn't surprise me to learn the American writer was a 48 year old man.
I think Divine did a solid job, but a part of me still wonders what someone like Max Landis would've done with this. He totally nailed the "teens get powers they don't understand" part of Chronicle.
That final paragraph in the Eurogamer review sums up most of my thoughts perfectly. Great review. This and Witcher 3 are my two favorite games this year. Both are a tier above the usual in their respective genres.
After having a day to think about the game itself I found to me three reasons that make this game a GOTY contender for 2015, and one of if not the best interactive drama game.
First is the characters. The game has in it's beginning classic school students, like the jocks, nerds, cheerleaders that act like a bitch, bullies etc... but while LiS introduces them like that in the game, if you talk to them, give a little bit of your time to them, you can see that they are far more than just stupid school stereotypes. One big example in the game is Victoria to me. She acts like a bitch to everyone, but talking to her, seeing a bit of her life, you see that she's insecure about her place in the school itself, so she acts like a bitch in order to show her place/position at school. The characters in LiS feels to me that they are real people and I loved every interaction that I had with them.
Second is the choices in the game. I play videogame for it's ride rather that it's ending and LiS has one hell of a ride. Every choice that the game give out seems to have some weight, that something will happen if you make that choice. This game give some extremely heavy choices like in the end of chapter 2, and the game gives you mundane, simple choice like watering your plant Lisa ( in mine Lisa survived!!), and regardless of the weight of the choices that the game presents to you, all of them has a consequence. Some consequences are quite small, like you don't water Lisa, she will die, some consequences affect the world around you, like in the one that
you can blame David and have him kicked out of his house
, or consequences that are there to see how the player reacts, like the big choice in the beginning of chapter 4, that choice only affect the player, not the world around, only affect you and Max. Choices is what set apart LiS from other games like the ones from Telltale.
Third thing to me is chance to give the player a breather, to make Max sit down and let her think about has she has done or seen. Every time Max has a chance to sit down I do it, just so I can hear her thoughts about what she's going through. The nice thing is that this is completely optional, it won't affect your game if you don't want to hear what Max thinks, but for those that wants to know more about Max herself can get this little moments that it's just her and the players, and she can show to herself at least moments of weakness, try to regain her strength in order to keep going. I love those moments and I wish to see more it in future Dontnod games.
Life is Strange is the game that has the best story and the best art in 2015. Congratulations Dontnod for this fantastic game and hope to see more from you guys in the future.
My only issue with the writing was with Chloe's "hip slang". Phrases like "I'm still trippin' on that" sound like things a middle aged dad thinks teens would say, so it doesn't surprise me to learn the American writer was a 48 year old man.
I kept waiting for her to lob an "ex-squeeze me" out there.
I really didn't like the attempts at slang, which fortunately got progressively better throughout the game even if it never became perfect, but I gotta say I love it when Max says "wowser."
Has anyone had really bad crashing/freezing issues? I've been trying to play the new episode for an hour but can't get past the very first bit because it either stalls or crashes to desktop.
Has anyone had really bad crashing/freezing issues? I've been trying to play the new episode for an hour but can't get past the very first bit because it either stalls or crashes to desktop.
I've been playing this the past few hours or so at my friend's and I've beaten the first two episodes. It's....okay? None of the characters are particularly interesting (the vast majority seem to just be cardboard cutout archetypes) and the plot is absolutely glacial. I really hope that this picks up and gets a lot more interesting soon with the time rewinding and "spooky cult conspiracy" plotlines or else I'll feel my time has largely been wasted.
Episode 1 specific problems -
Why did it give me the option to comfort Victoria after Max dumped paint on her? Max could have just not dumped paint on her if she felt so inclined. She used her new superpowers to get back at the bullies, cool, everybody that gets superpowers has that moment, but what kind of psycho dumps paint on someone and then says "it really is a shame paint got dumped on you"? I get that we want choices, but that whole situation was incredibly contrived.
Chloe's stepdad is a horrible character. So he's the douchebag school security guard, and he's ex army, and he harrasses Kate, and he's a gun nut, and he's paranoid and rigged his house with cameras, and he hits his stepdaughter. I bet he also kicks puppies and is a holocaust denier. Like, I get it. At this point I became convinced that he was in reality a good guy trying to bust the conspiracy and that this was an incredibly hamfisted attempt at making me dislike him by throwing a bunch of asshole things at the wall and hoping one stuck for the player. in reality, I just felt nothing.
Chloe is someone that I couldn't tell if I liked or not during this episode. I wish she wasn't so...teenagery, with her rapid mood swings and dismissal of very sensible concerns for flippant reasons. I get why she acts this way, but it's not particularly entertaining. This is a nitpick, but they should have said like 2 or 3 years instead of 5. If you took 13 year old me, put him in a totally different environment, and made me reunite with my friends 5 years later, I'm pretty sure we would have extremely different interests and might not even be friends.
Episode 2 -
So, Kate kind of actually pissed me off. Every single scene with Kate revolved around her being a victim of this horrible thing, but it came at the expense of actually getting to know her character. She just sits around being Droopy Dog, a sad face that reminds you how bad those mean old bullies are. Nobody else shuts up about the movies/music/books they consume, why can't I get a window into her world? She's into jesus. That's it? Apparently so, considering to get her down from that ledge you have to demonstrate how much attention you paid to the layout of her room in a trivia contest. Like, take a step back and realize how terribly silly that is. It deflated what otherwise would have been a pretty good moment of max helping someone without her power.
In what is probably the single most frustrating problem I have encountered so far, I am being raked over the coals like 4 times because the photo I took of David harassing Droopy Dog has mysteriously disappeared, because even though physical objects persisting through time travel is something that has been emphasized on like 4 seperate occasions so far (let alone the fact that I have taken photos of things, gone back in time and still kept the photos) this photo magically disintegrates in order to force a choice that has a glaringly obvious work around with time travel abilities. This is ignoring the fact that even without time travel, Max could have just taken a picture and walked over to break the two up instead of just hiding.
Alright, so Chloe has convinced me at this point that she's a total shitheel. She gets mad at Max for choosing to talk to Droopy Dog instead of her, she doesn't believe Max when she gets 3/4 predictions right (I bet Max is totally full of shit because that was a cockroach on the vending machine and not a fly), she decided to play with guns for absolutely no reason (It sure is a great thing that ricochet hit her instead of Max! Boy, that would have been awkward/catastrophic!), and then she has the genius idea to play on the train tracks like 8 year olds know not to do. Maybe David's cameras are necessary because Chloe would otherwise be sticking forks in electrical outlets. This is capped off by Chloe declaring that her and Max will be best friends forever despite having been reunited for less than 24 hours and fighting multiple times.
I don't think it's outright bad or anything, I like the art design and music, and groundhog day-ing things with rewind is fun. The plot and characters just haven't really hooked me. I like it more so far than like, Tales from the Borderlands and Walking Dead Season 2, but I don't think very highly of those anyway. Far worse introduction than Walking Dead Season 1, and especially Wolf Among Us.
Thats some super high praise and rightfully so. I demand this game appear on various GOTY lists in many categories because it deserves it. Its whole is way more than its parts.
All those didn't do anything, I ended up reinstalling too. Now when it freezes (which is frequently), I have to control alt delete and then it seems to go on. Really inconvenient, but it works.
Those screenshots are good. Nothing spoiler-ish from what I've seen but I find taht LiS could appeal to Japanese gamers, unless it hasn't released there yet?
Yep. I LOVE the Witcher 3 and I am a huge Batman and Metal Gear fan and Life is Strange is by far my game of the year. No game has f'd with my emotions as much as LiS.
Makes me happy to hear. For me it's also definitely up there with The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne, still contemplating about the order. But I'm certain those will be my top 3 games come the end of the year. Such an exceptional year of games for me and Life is Strange was the brightest and biggest surprise.
When I hid from Chloe's stepfather, I had the choice of staying in the closet or revealing myself. I chose the latter, which I assume will have really bad consequences for Max. Now, generally I try to just stick with my decisions and see where they will take me, but in this case I'm really not sure. What do you say?
When I hid from Chloe's stepfather, I had the choice of staying in the closet or revealing myself. I chose the latter, which I assume will have really bad consequences for Max. Now, generally I try to just stick with my decisions and see where they will take me, but in this case I'm really not sure. What do you say?
You can always rewind and try a different choice, but I would not recommend ever reloading your save file or restarting an episode, at least until your first complete playthrough is done.
