Life is Strange polarized me (Gaming)

by Jillybean, Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 15:54 (3120 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Just so everyone's aware - Cody and I have been really into this game and poring over it every episode.

Ultimately, I agree with you Cody, I'm just a lot more tolerant. I want to say up front that I loved the last episode and actually found it to be one of the most interesting of the lot.

I think 'Until Dawn' is a good starting point. The descriptions of what the developers wanted and even the in-game text emphasises that everything is variable, but the totem mechanic essentially pre-warns you about every single choice so you can 'game' the game to get the outcome you want. What's the point of a choice-game where you already know the outcome?

I initially felt that way about Life Is Strange - and so I started to play with minimal use of the rewind mechanic. I think I've talked about this before, certainly to you and maybe to the forum as a whole. But round about episode 2 I realised that the rewind mechanic was supposed to stir up the genre by giving you the chance to see the outcome of your choice, and asking how your behaviour would change if you were able to see the outcome of what you do. The old 'what if'. I thought giving that ability to a socially anxious teen was very interesting, but it also limited my ability to play in some strange ways. I didn't have the need to debate over every decision, and this game made me feel so very old by making it so hard to identify with a teen!

In some ways, I could have done with less choice in the series. Chloe's an excellent example of this. I shouldn't have been given the choice to not be romantically involved with Chloe. Those relationships should have been pre-ordained to make that final choice more impactful. There are also serious issues with Chloe's character, the girl's punk rock attitude comes off as downright abusive and in a game that is so deeply aware of the way men in power can frighten young women I'm amazed at some of the dialogue Chloe comes out with (unless the whole storm is a metaphor for abusive love). From my adult point of view, I was trying to distance Max from Chloe from the get go, making that final choice less important.

I wonder how much of this is the lack of technological ability (which I can forgive - we simply can't write games where all branches have equal content) and how much is market forces (not wanting to lock stupid players from content when you miss a choice). Life Is Strange could have done a lot, with its rewind mechanic, to combat that second possibility. But even then it didn't use its own mechanic enough. Every episode I had to re-remember the use of my powers, and I think I talked to you about the long conversation with David that I thought I was completely unable to rewind through because of an off-hand piece of dialogue. This is a game that could have benefited a little more from the Valve-tutorial play testing style.

A couple of other things I want to raise now the game's finished - I'd love to get a male perspective on the guys on this game, as I (and Yogscast Kim and Hannah's playthroughs) kept noticing the terrifying power imbalance in the game. It was almost too heavy handed I think, but in these days of Gamer Gate, who knows?

A related thought - I found it very interesting that Joyce, arguably the character with the most to lose, is one of the few who don't message Max through the dream sequence (with the exception of Chloe, is it predominantly the male cast?) And her grief in my ending was, I felt, remarkably restrained. This might be writing, might be more of the 'Chloe' character I just don't get.

But I don't think we should try and undermine Life Is Strange because as a new IP it fulfilled a lot of its promise, was a beauty and a joy to play, and at least for me very polished and bug free. Really looking forward to more from Dontnod