Have you played Beyond: Two Souls?
It's Quantic Dream's post-Heavy Rain game, and was a bit more focused. There were entire sections of the game that you could miss out on if you didn't do certain things, and not only were there many different endings, your relationships with people (and their ultimate fates) could all be affected by how you played along the way.

Heck, there was one reviewer that criticized a portion of the game for having a random event happen that wasn't explained, but he obviously just rushed through it, since the event was not random, and in my playthrough, it was completely explained (and helped lead to some of my final choices, and the ending that I got).

Beyond is going to get a PS4 release at some point in the near future, and I want to pick it up, even if I rarely replay choice-driven games. But it stars my Queen, so I may be a tad biased...

That said, your standards for choice-driven narratives are entirely unrealistic at this point in game development. You want developers to take into account every single choice that you might make, and craft an entire branching story out of it, doing the exact same thing for every possible choice that might come as a result of it. A single game that did that would be bigger than all of the Mass Effect and Quantic Dream games combined. It's likely never going to happen., and honestly would probably lead to the financial ruin of any developer that did it. Some reviewers would think they got a lousy game, with a bad story, and others would think that it was the best narrative they ever played... Assuming the writers wrote consistently good story for each of your thousands of choices.

So I haven't played LiS (aside from the free demo chapter 1 that was underwhelming to me), but I'd like to point out that there is at least one very excellent game where your choices along the way absolutely influence the variable ending and can (depending on the ending) result in a wholly different thematic feel for the game.

I am, of course, talking about Silent Hill 2.

If you have not played it, do so. Know that, as you play, you're making choices which affect the ending of the game and you have NO IDEA how those choices will affect it, or IF they will affect it, or even which of your actions count as "choices" for the purpose of determining the ending that you get. It's quite remarkable. I really urge you to play without reading any spoilers. Also play it in a dark room with the volume up higher than you normally set it. Tell a friend to show up sometimes between midnight and 4 am (but not to tell you when) and to just open the door and come in when they get there, without knocking or anything. They should also be carrying a mannequin with them, and be dressed like an orderly. Don't worry about why.

if you have played the game, go look up the gamefaqs of it to see how your actions affect the possible endings. Then watch youtube vids of those endings. The fact that the final actions of your character are determined by the ending you receive leads to very different "conclusions" to the plot and the arc of the game. It's genius.

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

Yep. It was awful.

Cheapley and I arranged to not discuss the game until 10-26. I'm going to post then to give people a weekend to play it.

I wish I were further along but I was too tired / sick to even make it back through episode 1. It might even be the weekend before I make it through 5. As much as I'd love to talk about the story and end and everything I refuse to use whatever generic save point they offer just to skip ahead. Nothin' stopping me from discussing the more general issues though.

On story/decision based games never pulling it off:

I agree. And at risk of sounding too much like a know it all, I don't understand why it's so hard to do right. Ok, writing a story is hard. Coming up with a single scene can be really hard. Connecting scene after scene, motivation after motivation together in a flow that simply makes sense let alone has ongoing themes and likable or hateable characters and intriguing or shocking or inspiring story beats... Yep. It's hard. I saw a funny quote the other day. It went something like:

A writer is someone for whom the act of Writting is harder than it is for other people.

But, if you can pull off a compelling story, isn't pulling off a branching story mostly just... more writing? Change this or this and then see how your characters and world would play out? Write that down and repeat. I think maybe two things get in the way with games: Budget (which can be monetary or available time) and the inability to demote the best endings so that they exist simply as a few equal possibilities among many.

Budget, because if some decisions lead your characters to completely different places you might not have the resources to design new locations or hire quality voice actors for characters who did not come into the story until it took a substantially different turn. Things like that. Showing every possible branch with your available budget would see a huge drop in overall quality so you prioritize. And, of course, the more characters and decisions you have the more and more budget you need.

Inability to demote storylines, because even if you had the time and money to produce everything the story would need... you don't want to. Ending 1 & 2 are awesome, connect with all your themes, highlight and reveal all your characters or cleverness or twists. Ending 5? It sees your lead character give up the fight and hiding from the world in a scared and depressed state that doesn't even allow them to reach the brilliant struggles you had in store for them. You'll happily see ending 1 & 2 to the end, but ending 5? Instead of committing and following the character through the misery and cowardice of their once again ordinary life you throw up a Game Over. Continue? screen and direct the player back to the "real story."

What would be neat is if some studio had both the budget and fortitude to fully commit to everything.

On Life is Strange being better as a movie:

Didn't you enjoy the anticipation and speculation of seeing how decision x would affect the safety or friendship with character y? The thrill of not knowing if I'd made the "right choice" across any number of decisions will stay with me even if the ending can't fully live up to everything it should. And I value the chance to make those choices instead of watching one linear sequence play out over the course of a single movie. Movies absolutely have their place, but don't games have theirs too?

I think my biggest problem with either ending was that Chloe knew about your choice. Think of how much better the ending would have been if Chloe was oblivious. Both sacrificing her and saving her would be much more impactful. Sacrificing her would be so because she didn't ask for it so Max is letting her die without consent, and saving her would be so because she now has no idea what Max sacrificed to save her. The choice now becomes tough. The minute Chloe decides she needs to die is the minute that either choice loses poignancy.

Remember the Last of Us ending?