Source of the image: http://thegg.net/general-news/life-is-strange-a-supernatural-point-and-click-adventure/
If you can turn back time and change everything for the
better, what would you do? Change every mistake and remake some of the choices
you had? Sometimes that could have worked out for the better, but remember…
there will always be a butterfly watching you change the flow of destiny and
she isn’t going to let that happen so easily. In the end destiny is certain, an
uncontrollable fate that is about to come…
"I wish I could stay in this moment forever. I guess I
actually can now, but then it wouldn’t be a moment." (Quote by Max
Caulfield)
Source of the video: Uploaded by GameSpot
Official trailer of Life Is Strange
Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Publisher(s): Square Enix, Feral Interactive, Black
Wing Foundation
Director(s): Raoul Barbet, Michel Koch
Platform(s): PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Microsoft
Windows, Android, iOS, Linus, OS X
Release dates: EP 1 - 30 January, 2015
EP 2 - 24 March, 2015
EP 3 - 19 May, 2015
EP 4 - 28 July, 2015
EP 5 - 20 October, 2015
Genre: Graphic adventure
Mode: Single-player
Source of the image: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/chloe-and-max-lis2-main-char
Max and Chloe walking together in the train tracks
Synopsis (with
no spoilers):
The game’s
story situates during the autumn of 2013 in Arcadia Bay, a fictive town of
Oregon where Max (Maxine) Caulfield, an 18-year-old photography student,
currently lives. She studies at Blackwell Academy and lives a normal life.
Until one
day, while in one of her classes, some very strange phenomenon decides to develop.
Max has a sort of premonitory dream where a big tornado, that hits a lighthouse
near her, is almost reaching for Arcadia’s town.
After waking
up and talking with professor Jefferson, she leaves class and goes to the restroom
to wash the stress left by her vision. Upon seeing a rare butterfly and taking
a picture of it, Max hears someone suddenly entering the bathroom.
She then
discovers that it’s Nathan Prescott arguing together with a girl to the point
of suddenly shooting her and leaving straight away.
Max, stressed out by the situation, gains the
ability of rewinding time to save the stranger. She ends up noticing that the
respective victim is Chloe Price, an old best friend from childhood. Reunited
by destiny, they talk about their past, the dangerous situation from earlier
and later Max’s reveals her superpowers.
From the
point where Max has the ability to rewind time, she also starts to notice that
a lot of bad things start to happen around her and tries to prevent them at all
costs, but with every choice, comes a sacrifice, seemingly caused by a
butterfly effect.
The
protagonist, with the advantage of her new power, decides to help Chloe resolve
the mysterious disappearance of her old friend, Rachel. During her journey, Max
also ends up knowing some obscure secrets behind the good image of Blackwell
Academy and after messing up with time a lot, can she really change things for
the better and prevent a chaotic fate for everyone?
Source of the video: Uploaded by GameSpot
Launch trailer from the game
Review:
Environment:
The initial surroundings of the game are very warm with colours of autumn splatted
everywhere we go, it almost looks like some sort of animated painting. Players
can travel to many locations, but once deciding to leave, they cannot turn back
to that scenario. Life is strange has a very unique art style to its
surroundings, filled with cosy vibes; great music and, as I like to say, cool teen
years atmosphere. Everything that we encounter transmits kind of a nostalgic
feeling, because many times we can relate to various things that we are seeing.
However, when the games starts progressing close to the end, the environment
begins to turn colder and more turbulent, with strange occurrences happening
all of the time.
Gameplay:
Life Is Strange is a third person game that is essentially based on time
travelling, players can redo any action that has been performed and choose
the best path to their actions, but every decision comes with a consequence that
later can scale a lot between being good or bad. When time travel is done, it
can be very limited to one peculiar scene and if the player wants to use the
power to turn back actions done more previously, sometimes that can’t be
possible. Players can interact and examine their surroundings, this sometimes
brings certain side quests to do that can be a little complex, as they can
change dramatically the story’s or other character’s narrative. Some objects in
the environment can also be picked to prove useful later on and can be kept in
the protagonist’s inventory. Besides the interactive locations, players can
interact with NPC’S too, which permits to gain some knowledge about certain things
and occasionally change some events related to those characters. These
dialogues can be done in many different ways with many different choices
available. Close to the end of the game, the player can also gain the ability
to rewind time by using photographs.
Source of the image: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/life-is-strange-story-so-far
The warm atmospheric vibes of Life Is Strange
Characters:
During the game, we can encounter various characters that contribute
significantly to the many possibilities of the story, such as Max
Caulfield (a.K.a Max, protagonist of Life Is Strange and an ambitious photography
student); Chloe Price (Max’s childhood friend and previous best friend of
Rachel); Rachel Amber (a popular student at Blackwell that went missing and
Chloe’s best friend); Kate Marsh (a close friend of Max that seems to be
bullied because of a viral video); Warren Graham (Max's close friend, he always supports her during the narrative); Nathan Prescott (son of the owners of the
Academy, he is seen as bad guy and a drug dealer); Victoria Chase (one of the
best students at Blackwell, she usually gives a snobby and arrogant attitude in
front of many characters); Mark Jefferson (a photography teacher in the Academy
that is admired by lots of students).
Choices
do matter: Sometimes when we play a game based on choices, we get the
feeling that our decisions, besides being different, end up directing us to the
exact same direction, but Life Is Strange presents us a world where our
decisions really make an impact. All the decisions, especially the smaller ones,
are meaningful. It’s true that the game only has two endings, but the route to
be taken until reaching one of those can be very distinct. As the story
continues to adjust to our choices, we have also our morals always being
questioned and there are times that we can’t even distinguish between what a
right or wrong decision is,
Source of the image: https://guides.gamepressure.com/lifeisstrange/guide.asp?ID=29490
The interactive environment of the game (PC)
Max’s
Diary: During the game, we can also access Max’s personal diary and be
updated of everything that happens in the story so far, in this journal we can
equally learn more about her past and her deep thoughts of all the things that
are happening in the present. This diary also modifies depending on the choices
that are made along the narrative.
Final
analyses in some lines: This is definitely a game that I won’t ever forget,
as it shows that all things in life happen for a reason, because they are meant
to be and we mustn’t try and change the impossible for our selfish needs. Time
is a precious thing and very limited, we only got one shot in life, so why
waste it? Like the title suggests, Life can be Strange, but it wouldn’t be fun
if it weren’t that way… So live everyday
as it were your last and enjoy every moment with the ones that really care
about you, because, in the end, we all know that we won’t have Max’s ability to
rewind life anytime soon.
My Final
Score: 8/10
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Strange
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Life_Is_Strange
http://life-is-strange.wikia.com
My Gaming Experience
A.K.
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