Did you actually play the game? (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, February 16, 2015, 20:18 (3359 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Life is Strange was kind of interesting, and it proclaims that your choices matter. But then it undermines that constantly.

Does it? Because the things you say about this five part episodic game, of which you have played a single part, completely contradict what the game actually did. I'm left wondering if you just skimmed the game or if you gave it a real play through.

Yes, I finished the first episode.

Wrong. The choices are permanent. You can only rewind within a short period of time and once you choose to move past the indicated important choices you cannot rewind back and remake them. If you choose to water your plant, to use a (probably!) non-spoilerific choice, you can't three scenes later go back and reverse your decision. That is, you will have to live with the consequence. The reason you haven't seen the consequences yet is, as I noted above, you are playing part one of five... and the other four parts are not out yet.

But they aren't permanent from the moment you make them. That's the point I am making. The fact that you can change them at all ruins the idea of choices having weight, since you no longer have to deliberate beforehand knowing you get no opportunity to redo. Also watering the plant is a dumb "choice". Why would you NOT want to water it? The choices should have valid reasons for picking either way.

Incorrect. Max, the character you are playing as, doubts herself no matter what choice you make. At every single prominent decision point she will wonder to herself if she shouldn't use her powers to do things differently giving you the option to see what else you can do. A few of the choices, like watering the plant, seem clearly better than the alternate choice, but some other choices I am happily unsure if I did the right thing or what consequences might result from choosing "wrong."

Funny, I initially took a picture of the stepfather / security guard instead of intervening, got chastised, rewound, intervened, and everything seemed a-okay like that was the proper choice.

Erroneous. Not every choice is binary. For instance, when you're in your friend Chloe's room and her dad comes up the outcome can play out four different ways depending on what you do or don't do. I didn't even realize that half the choices were even possible the first time. And not every choice is marked. There are some choices that the game tells you it will remember if you choose to do A or B but will remain uncommented on if you choose C or if you choose not to go near those locations.

That's about the only section I really thought was cool. I got caught, and took the blame for the pot. Of course, the game told me I probably shouldn't have said the pot was mine to keep the scholarship, but whatever. My choice right?

Way to bury the lede.... but I agree. And while it is not a big budget game and does suffer some for it (I wished for better character animation, lip sync included, in places and higher resolution textures on Max... though that may have been a 360 issue) it had a surprisingly engaging first episode and a lovely "Oh crap, so that's where this is going..." hook at the end.

Played it on the PS4, and the graphics are decent but nothing to write home about. It has a more cartoony feel than anything by Quantic Dream, which helps in some places but hurts in others.

I also feel like an episodic approach is the worst way to do a game like this, rather than to have one big package where all the choices and story lines are already integrated and planned out.