Video games today are taking different approaches to telling their stories. Developers like Dontnod Entertainment are crafting virtual adventures in episodes, each episode designed to put the player through agonizing choices that must be made at the drop of a hat. Their most recent addition, Life is Strange, is a coming of age story with a twist that is available on PC and console gaming systems.
The story follows Max Caulfield, an aspiring photographer and high school student that discovered that she has the ability to rewind time. Using her ability, Max and her friends try and solve the mystery behind the missing girls around town.
What makes this game so compelling is the agonizing choices that it gives you. Throughout the game, you are presented with numerous dialogue options, most of which have consequences that will affect the plot in the future, giving you the power over the story that is being told. Some of the options can be as trivial as a phone call home to your parents or the death of one of your friends.
Luckily, Max has the ability to rewind time and alter the choices that you made, if you don’t like the consequences. Of course there is a limit. You can’t rewind further than a minute of game play. And your time rewind is not always available. You will still be forced to make choices and deal with the consequences no matter what. This way, the choices you make never lack in excitement.
Between choices, you spend your time exploring the different areas and objects in Arcadia Bay, Max’s hometown. The game is largely a puzzle game. Sometimes you will have to gather evidence like a detective and solve certain issues, other times, there is an objective that must be completed in a specific way that makes you use your time rewind ability. These puzzles make for a unique game experience and make the game easy to come back to.
However, there are some drawbacks, like the ending. The plot is fantastic and contains loveable characters that you will remember long after the game is over, but some aspects of the plot are kind of predictable. The game ends with a single choice with only two options, but I could see the choice coming at the end of episode three. There were other smaller choices too that were predictable, though sometimes this works in helping to build the tension.
All in all, Life is Strange is a fantastic game with memorable characters and a good plot, but it flounders at being predictable on occasion. It’s definitely worth a play if you intend to pick it up.
