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Life Is Strange is a video game about teens.  After five years of hanging out with bohos and practicing photography in Seattle, Max Caulfield returns to her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, to attend the prestigious seniors-only Blackwell Academy. While navigating the murky cliques and social circles of the Academy, she soon discovers, after experiencing a vivid hallucination, that she has somehow acquired the power to rewind time around her, retaining information and sometimes objects acquired from the future. As she begins to acclimate herself to her new powers (and struggles with how and when to best effectively use them,) she reunites with her estranged best friend, Chloe. Together, they tackle some of the social ills of the academy, and work to unravel the mystery of the missing girl Rachel Amber, who played a key role in the lives of all the students at the school. Life Is Strange (trademark) is an episodic adventure game made by French developer Dontnot Studios, best known for their 2013 game Remember Me. The game blends the decision making of many of Telltale's adventure games with a dialogue mechanic similar to the Mass Effect series. The ability to rewind time and redo any previous decision made in an area is an interesting mechanic for an adventure game; it allows the player to see the short-term effects of all possible decisions. It also enables some light puzzle-solving: not only does Max retain information from each possible decision, but she also doesn't physically move during the rewinding. For example, (very very mild spoiler): there is a puzzle late in Episode 1 that involves navigating a path where a tree has been felled. Max can rewind time to the point before the tree fell down, and cross the path before is collapses. That kinda stuff. The mechanic isn't infinite; as soon as Max leaves an area, all decisions made are final, and the player has to think about how the decision might play out in the long term. So far it seems like there is a very neutral quality to the decision making; there doesn't seem to be any good or bad decisions, only decisions that will cause the story to play out in different ways. It's a unique way of sorta simulating save-scumming while still forcing the player to accept their choices in the long-term. Episode 1, Chrysalis, is out now, and is $5 on Steam. Episode 2, Out of Time, will be out in March. The season pass, containing 5 episodes, is $20 (best deal!) http://store.steampowered.com/app/319630/ eta: The game is also out on on PS4/3 and Xbox One/360. I don't have any of those consoles, so, uh, consult your video games digital distribution service of choice Release schedule, thanks to forums user Accordian Man: Accordion Man posted:The Complete Season will not be available for Playstation users until February 3. I'll update this as more news is released. Also, be warned, this game has a lot of teen-talk and rich white kids and quirky references to famous photographers. A lot of the dialogue is really realistically awkward, the way douchey teens actually do talk, but some of it smells of "written by a 30-year-old French dude with a tenuous grasp on how American young people actually talk". It's sort of charming, sometimes grating. The larger mystery and setting though is really quality stuff, and personally the first episode hooked me pretty hard. quadrophrenic fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 04:54
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I still think that "Final Fantasy: Spirits Within" felt more like a futuristic "Resident Evil". Just with less zombies and more, uh, whatever the ghostly poo poo was in those movies. I don't remember much since right after leaving we turned around and watched Fast and the Furious and drained our brains out. e: As far as this game itself goes, at first I thought it seems a bit too pretentious, but people appear to like the story and twists. Never been sold on the episodic format though. If the devs keep up the quality I might have to keep an eye on this for a package deal when it's done. Then again, I still haven't finished the Walking Dead episodes I have. nftyw fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 04:56
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nftyw posted:I still think that "Final Fantasy: Spirits Within" felt more like a futuristic "Resident Evil". Just with less zombies and more, uh, whatever the ghostly poo poo was in those movies. I don't remember much since right after leaving we turned around and watched Fast and the Furious and drained our brains out. Spoiler alert: this game was published by Square-Enix
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Feb 1, 2015 04:59
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Make life poo poo for Victoria crew checking in. On the bone it said only 26% of the people do it and I ask myself why not?
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Feb 1, 2015 05:02
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Full Metal Jackass posted:Make life poo poo for Victoria crew checking in. On the bone it said only 26% of the people do it and I ask myself why not? Man, I really liked the make fun of decision, but I'm a twerp and I've decided I want my Max to be a good person. Also, I feel like the game is strongly hinting that the Vortex Club is actually full of decent human beings, and I wanna see how that plays out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLbo6LQwXlw&t=325s
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Feb 1, 2015 05:07
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Full Metal Jackass posted:Make life poo poo for Victoria crew checking in. On the bone it said only 26% of the people do it and I ask myself why not? Also if anyone was looking to pick up the complete season on PC, it's currently on nuuvem (Brazilian steam) for like $11. Seems to be the best deal around right now.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:08
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What I am wondering is if your decisions will carry over into future episodes. So far it seems like they will, because there's a whole lot of decisions whose ramifications don't fully play out in episode 1. I'm pretty sure they will, but in the small possibility that they don't, that would really suck.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:10
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Man, and I was just finishing up making my OP. Oh well. Great game, everyone buy it.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:10
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This is just Chrono trigger Dawson's Creek the Point and Click Adventure.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:12
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The Taint Reaper posted:This is just Chrono trigger Dawson's Creek the Point and Click Adventure.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:13
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quadrophrenic posted:Man, I really liked the make fun of decision, but I'm a twerp and I've decided I want my Max to be a good person. Also, I feel like the game is strongly hinting that the Vortex Club is actually full of decent human beings, and I wanna see how that plays out. Usually I do stuff like that but this time it felt too right. Also I lol'd at the small percentage of bone users who didn't help that girl who got hit in the head with the football. I couldn't live with my video game self letting that happen, even though it was pretty funny.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:13
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Accordion Man posted:Yeah, and its just as rad as that sounds. I'm waiting for the Vampires to show up so I can get the Dinosaur Ending.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:14
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Accordion Man posted:Man, and I was just finishing up making my OP. Oh well. You and me both goon buddy. Have to say that my only complaint is they really could do a lot more with the main mechanic than they have. One thing they really ought to do is have a couple of the 'choice' options have a more or less optimal solution if the player is clever enough to figure it out. The mutually exclusive option setup works for walking dead, but it works a hell of a lot less good here when you consider the fact that you really should be able to hunt down a better solution to some of these problems given enough time. But that is just my two cents. Caros fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 05:16
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Sorry guys! I feel bad  If you have any pertinent info or insight I'd be glad to add it to the OP
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Feb 1, 2015 05:17
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quadrophrenic posted:Sorry guys! I feel bad Nah, yours was better than mine anyways! You snooze you lose.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:20
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I was surprised that this is an actual game instead of a tech demo like Gone Home.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:21
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The Taint Reaper posted:I'm waiting for the Vampires to show up so I can get the Dinosaur Ending. quadrophrenic posted:Sorry guys! I feel bad Here's some important release stuff from my OP that should be added: The Complete Season will not be available for Playstation users until February 3. Demos are available for all platforms except PC. Episode 1- Chrysalis: Out Now Episode 2- Out of Time: March 2015 Episode 3- Chaos Theory: TBA Episode 4- Dark Room: TBA Episode 5- Polarized: TBA Projected release dates for new episodes will be around every six weeks. And have two more links: Offical Website Youtube Channel (Has trailers and Dev Diary videos)
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Feb 1, 2015 05:24
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I generally went for the nice options (made friends with the cheerleader) but yeah gently caress Victoria to hell and back. The ending seemed to hint at something like Mr Jefferson takes pictures of girls and then kills them or whatever. But that seems too pedestrian to go along with the whole "oh poo poo Donnie Darko world ending" stuff at the end so I dunno. I'm also a little worried about the time where you can get information then just rewind so you don't leave evidence but you get to keep the info. I'd like "fail runs" to be as fleshed out as the others. So what happens in the parking lot if you don't blab to the principal?
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Feb 1, 2015 06:25
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The script for Remember Me was a hilarious disaster so I don't have high hopes for this thing, especially since it appears to be running off similar concepts. Still time to prove me wrong, though.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:27
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precision posted:So what happens in the parking lot if you don't blab to the principal? What happens if you DO blab to the principal? I didn't blab, and the only thing that happened in the parking lot was preppy neurotic kid threatened me and then beat up Warren I will say that not blabbing enables you to tell Chloe later on that you didn't snitch without that being a lie, but I don't know if there are any actual story ramifications for that.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:34
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The Taint Reaper posted:I was surprised that this is an actual game instead of a tech demo like Gone Home. Oxxidation posted:The script for Remember Me was a hilarious disaster so I don't have high hopes for this thing, especially since it appears to be running off similar concepts. Still time to prove me wrong, though. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 06:38
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Accordion Man posted:It's got some awkwardness to it dialogue-wise, but its overall pretty good, especially when it comes to the characters already. It also feels really sincere which makes me look past any flaws that come up. It's probably got the worst case of ludonarrative dissonance of any game I've ever seen and totally fails to follow up on any aspect of its (actually pretty interesting and original) setting. It's an ambitious disaster, but a disaster nonetheless. I mean, Life is Strange probably won't have the main character blubber over scrambling someone's memories while whitewashing all the murders they were directly and indirectly responsible for up to that point (including a drat hospital bombing), so it has some wiggle room.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:41
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Oxxidation posted:It's probably got the worst case of ludonarrative dissonance of any game I've ever seen and totally fails to follow up on any aspect of its (actually pretty interesting and original) setting. It's an ambitious disaster, but a disaster nonetheless.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:41
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I just played through the first episode, this is extremely my poo poo. I love the decision making, and the time travel mechanic. I think the writing and dialogue feel pretty natural (for the most part. There are a couple lines where it's like... okay grandpa teens don't actually say that). The fact that they used swearing so freely helped make it feel way more natural as well. I feel like Max is an interesting protagonist. Good voice acting too. Though next episode I'll probably spend WAY more time on every single decision and get all the information I can. It didn't occur to me, although it should've been obvious, that Max retains the information of all the outcomes after she rewinds, until the very end of the game (when Max revealed to Chloe the contents of the folders I had her look at but then reversed so they weren't touched) I'm giving Victoria a chance, I did the screw with her option and then felt so bad I rewound and fixed it  I'll say I DO NOT regret taking a picture of the security stepdad being mean to whosits instead of intervening. I feel like having that actual evidence is gonna be more important than just the little bit it was used for near the end.Also, in the "choices you and everyone else made" section after the credits: where is this bird whose life is in my hands??
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Feb 1, 2015 06:42
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Macaluso posted:Also, in the "choices you and everyone else made" section after the credits: where is this bird whose life is in my hands??
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Feb 1, 2015 06:45
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The whole game is kind of an interesting test study in ludonarrative dissonance, I think. There are ludic elements that are taken for granted in a lot of adventure games (rifling through an NPC's personal belongings) that, because of the modern and realistic setting, just feel more wrong to do from a narrative standpoint. BUT, because of the time rewind mechanic, you can enjoy being gamey and amoral and still maintain your personal integrity from a narrative standpoint. That's, I think, kind of the hidden boon of the time travel mechanic: because at any point you can choose to make the experience more like a movie or a game or both, you can kind of have your cake and eat it too. Also, all of the conflict in this game seems to be mostly crouched firmly in after-school special territory, for what that's worth.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:46
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I can't get into this. I really want to, and I think the premise is pretty neat, but being unable to skip any of the dialogue and the fact that there's so much of it (I play with subtitles) just drags me down.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:48
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Macaluso posted:Good voice acting too. Chloe is actually voiced by Ashly Burch of HAWP and Tiny Tina fame. If you're familiar with Tiny Tina, you'll understand what a great job Ashly Burch actually did at sounding nothing like Ashly Burch.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:48
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The Taint Reaper posted:I was surprised that this is an actual game instead of a tech demo like Gone Home. tell me about your thoughts on the current state of ethics in games journalism
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Feb 1, 2015 06:48
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quadrophrenic posted:Also, all of the conflict in this game seems to be mostly crouched firmly in after-school special territory, for what that's worth.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:50
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quadrophrenic posted:Chloe is actually voiced by Ashly Burch of HAWP and Tiny Tina fame. If you're familiar with Tiny Tina, you'll understand what a great job Ashly Burch actually did at sounding nothing like Ashly Burch. I knew Chloe was Ashly Burch. I was gonna say, I was impressed cause I could barely recognize her. I'm actually only SOMEWHAT familiar with Tiny Tina, I couldn't really get into Borderlands' gameplay. Milky Moor posted:I can't get into this. I really want to, and I think the premise is pretty neat, but being unable to skip any of the dialogue and the fact that there's so much of it (I play with subtitles) just drags me down. I mean... you can skip dialogue if you rewind and retry a conversation, but it is a story/dialogue driven game. It'd kind of defeat the purpose to skip over it. Accordion Man posted:I don't think this is going to be only the case for too long, but I'm hoping they don't go full out supernatural. There's definitely something wackanuts going on. There's some weird graffiti you can see near the Lighthouse that Max is like "wtf is this" Macaluso fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 06:51
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Macaluso posted:There's definitely something wackanuts going on. There's some weird graffiti you can see near the Lighthouse that Max is like "wtf is this" Also noticed some weird illuminati-esque pyramid graffiti in the bathroom and in Chloe's truck. Don't know if its connected, but its in the same shape as the lighthouse graffiti. Also that one teacher mentions this being Native American land so there's probably some shenanigans happening with that.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:06
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quadrophrenic posted:What happens if you DO blab to the principal? I didn't blab, and the only thing that happened in the parking lot was preppy neurotic kid threatened me and then beat up Warren I guess the same thing happens either way, but what reason does he give for threatening you in that case?
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Feb 1, 2015 07:14
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precision posted:I guess the same thing happens either way, but what reason does he give for threatening you in that case?
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Feb 1, 2015 07:17
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The music is great too. Pleasantly surprised at the Sparkle Horse song. Liked the pop culture references (Warren has good taste). Nice touch that Chloe getting high was shown as a pretty normal thing since this is 2015 and you can buy weed legally in half the country. I wonder if the Spirits Within line was a joke or not.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:53
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Yeah the high school cliche poo poo is laid on a little bit really really thick, along with the witty current events commentary and stuff. I might just be a bitter old man though
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 08:45
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Maleficent posted:tell me about your thoughts on the current state of ethics in games journalism  Seriously, if you aren't just joking, then gently caress right off with that poo poo in this thread about a fun game.
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Feb 1, 2015 09:22
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Trolling success on page 1.
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Feb 1, 2015 09:39
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Kibayasu posted:Trolling success on page 1. 
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Feb 1, 2015 09:56
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Macaluso posted:I mean... you can skip dialogue if you rewind and retry a conversation, but it is a story/dialogue driven game. It'd kind of defeat the purpose to skip over it. Not if you read faster than listening to the characters. But whenever I try to press space to skip, I get a crossed out skip icon in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Basically, why spend what feels like five minutes on a conversation listening to two CGI characters talk to each other when I could read it and digest it in, like, one?
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Feb 1, 2015 11:08
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