Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Disclaimer:  This blog contains major spoilers for both “Life is Strange” (LiS) and “Life is Strange: Before the Storm” (BtS).

So let's start with my usual unrelated rambling...

I've been waiting for a series like LiS for a long time.  I've never really cared about my actual skills as a gamer, but as I get older I'm favoring story over gameplay even more.  There are so many games out there with an interesting story, but where the actual "game" gets in the way.  One of the reasons I like Skyrim so much is because it's relatively easy, so I can get immersed in the world without worrying too much about my reflexes.

Not long ago I bought "The Last of Us Remastered" because it was on sale.  The opening was fantastic.  Honestly it was better than most actual theatrical zombie apocalypse movies.  There was a real sense of urgency as you looked out the car windows and watched the chaos developing around you.  When you have to get out and run on foot, there's a sequence where you can see the shadows of the infected people chasing you at the bottom of the screen, showing you just how close they are, and the effect is terrifying.

But once the intro was over, things went downhill. I found the game itself to be dull.  The combat wasn't fun, and the stealth parts were just tedious.  I know the game has received fantastic reviews, so I know it's just me.  And that's okay, y'all enjoy your games, and I'll enjoy mine.  I would love to watch someone else play "The Last of Us", because the story was pretty cool, but I have no interest in slogging through it myself.  Maybe I'll look it up on YouTube sometime.

So the LiS series is good for me.  I can appreciate a good story, without having to worry about my gamer skillz.  In fact, I've gone ahead and added to my list of all time favorite games.  I've also checked out the fan-made "Love is Strange" visual novel, and I've been reading the comic book series.  And finally, I've finished the prequel, "Life is Strange: Before the Storm".  When I get into something, I really go all out.

The visual novel is kind of odd.  First off, a visual novel seems like a step backwards anyway, since LiS is one of the reasons I feel like VNs should be obsolete.  But I suppose it's the easiest medium for dating simulators, especially low budget ones.  "Love is Strange" is not a sequel or a prequel, but a "what if" interactive fan fiction.  "If all the characters from Life is Strange had survived and managed to attend Blackwell at the same time, who would date who?"  I don't have the patience to finish it, but the strangest thing I've come across so far is that their teacher is Hawt Dawg Man.  The artwork is nice, and I can tell it was made by true fans.

The comic book series is interesting.  It takes place one year after the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending.  Max starts to experience odd shifts in the present timeline, like Worf's dimensional shifts in the ST:TNG episode "Parallels".  Chloe and Max decide to return to Arcadia Bay to find out what's going on.  I'm only two issues into the four-issue limited series, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Now, back to "Life is Strange: Before the Storm."

Episode 1:

It opens with 16 year old Chloe breaking curfew, defacing people’s property, throwing unprovoked insults at almost everyone she meets, drinking alcohol, trying to score some pot, damaging somebody’s car so she can steal a T-shirt (and/or some cash), and getting into a bar fight.  Granted, a few of those are optional.  Still, why are we supposed to like her again?  I mean, I grew to like her over the course of LiS, but anyone who starts with BtS might be a bit put off. 

One of the minor criticisms of the first game was the outdated slang.  There's even a YouTube clip that compiles all the uses of "hella".  Personally I never thought it was supposed to represent current slang, but rather intentional personality quirks.  Chloe and Max hadn't seen each other for five years, so they reverted to the way they used to talk to each other.  And besides, small towns often have their own common slang that's behind the rest of the world.

So I was amused when BtS addresses this by having Chloe remark, "Hella?  Who says that?" after hearing it from California-born Rachel.  The LiS series seems to do this a lot - listen to fan reactions then respond to them in later episodes.  It's a good retcon.

And yay, Rachel started a forest fire.  Rachel's connection to fire is an interesting theme.  Later in Episode 3, the fire goes out at the same time Rachel is stabbed, giving the impression that there could be a supernatural connection.  LiS centers around a tornado, and LiS2 has a kid who possibly makes tornadoes, so the writers really love their elements.  I wonder if some future sequel will tie it all together.

Episode 2:
Chloe's family dynamic is all too real for me.  After my parents divorced, my mom started dating a total asshole (also ex-military).  Of course, that was nearly 30 years ago and they're still together, so I've learned to put up with him.  But unlike Chloe, I never had to live with him.  I was never rebellious like Chloe, but I might have turned out very differently if I'd gone to live with them instead of my dad.

I usually don't even notice the game's Hammerspace inventory system.  When Max carried five bottles around in LiS, it didn't even occur to me to wonder where she'd stashed them.  But in this chapter, when Chloe picks up a car battery then makes a movement like she's stuffing it in her back pocket... well, I just had to laugh.  I liked the bit of customization within the car.  For the record, I used the blue light bulb from the robot, the welcome mat on the floorboard, the pirate flag for a seat cover, I did put the bobble head on the dash, and I wrote "You are about to die" on the back wall.

The toughest choice this chapter was whether to stay with Mikey when Damon attacks Drew.  For me, it was actually harder than the game's final choice.  I stayed with Mikey to keep him out of harm's way, but it was really tough to listen to Drew getting his ass kicked outside.  Even if Drew is a jerk.

Performing Shakespeare made me nostalgic for one of my favorite scenes in an RPG, the "Aria di Mezzo Carattere" opera in Final Fantasy VI.  Afterward, watching Chloe and Rachel celebrating in the streets was touching.  They really captured that energizing euphoria actors often experience after a good show.

When I reached the end of the chapter and saw the big reveal, I almost had to laugh.  The stakes are so much lower in this game than in the first one.   I’m so used to seeing Chloe get shot or made paraplegic that “OMG Rachel’s mom isn’t her mom” barely gets a reaction out of me.  But being a prequel, there really was only so much they could do.  These characters are confined to their destinies, and the writers only had so much wiggle room for extra drama.  Maybe I should have played through the prequel first, just to see how things escalate.

Episode 3:

Chloe's reaction to finding her mom's sex drawer was priceless.

I enjoyed working on the car, even though I hate cars.  Chloe's names for engine parts (like "Fuckamajig") match my own, but she clearly knows more about engines than I do.  

I didn't really like that Frank had to save Chloe at the end.  I was hoping Chloe would find her own way to stop Damon.  Frank could still kill Damon later off screen, but would it have been so hard to write a scenario where Chloe knocks Damon out?  Let the protagonist be the hero, dammit!  Chloe's life is hard, she needs a win.

The final sadistic choice was another “laughably low stakes” moment, at least when compared to LiS.  Do I tell Rachel everything, or protect her from the truth?  Bland as it was, I still spent some time considering it.  Rachel’s going to die next year anyway, why not let her die believing her dad's a nice guy?  But her future death is "out of character" knowledge.  In situations like this I tend to favor honesty, even if the truth hurts.  In my experience, the truth always comes out eventually, so lying just delays the inevitable.  Besides, Chloe wants to blow this town with Rachel anyway, so might as well let Rachel be angry at her dad. 

A lot of reviewers complained about the end of the first “Life is Strange”, because no matter what choices you make during the game, you’re always presented with the same two choices at the end:  Sacrifice Chloe or Sacrifice Arcadia Bay.  It renders all your previous choices pointless.  Why agonize over saving Kate when either (A) she’ll die anyway when the town is destroyed, or (B) she’ll be reset when I reset the week later?

But (as you can tell by my previous blogs), I agonized over them anyway.  I get into games more than most people.  Whether my choices really matter or not, I still want to roleplay a good person.  That's why I could never play a Dark Side character in KotOR. 

So yeah, even though BtS has another binary ending, I don't feel my previous choices were meaningless.  This is not a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book where any choice could lead to a "The End" page.  This is a story with two endings, and lots of possible middles.  I can live with that.

The final stinger, where it shows Rachel's phone while she's in the dark room, was heartbreaking.

Bonus Episode:
Not much to really say here.  It was touching and poignant.  I liked seeing their childhood, and I kind of wish I'd played it first.  

Final Thoughts:
I found myself wondering at times if this story really needed to be told.  It's sort of like the criticism aimed at "Solo: A Star Wars Story" - Was this movie necessary?  Did we need to be shown how Han met Chewie, found his blaster, got his last name, made the Kessel Run, etc?  Same with BtS; we didn't really need to see how Chloe found the junkyard, her truck, her beanie, when she decided on "stepdouche" as David's nickname, when she first dyed her hair, and so on. 

So again, the question.  Was this necessary?  And I have to give the same answer I gave the reviewers of Solo:  Of course it's not "necessary", it's entertainment.  Were any of the Star Wars films actually "necessary?"  How are we even defining necessary?  The first Star Wars movie was groundbreaking and may have changed (or at least accelerated) sci-fi forever, but it's not like it cured cancer or fixed the ozone layer.

Solo was fluffy and forgettable, but it was fun.  Life is Strange: Before the Storm was also fun.  I really liked learning more of Chloe's backstory, and seeing how close she was with Rachel.  Given their eventual fates, it adds a lot of emotional weight to the original Life is Strange.  Necessary?  No.  But damn enjoyable.

So, the big question:  If you haven’t played either one, which should you play first?  That’s a tough one.  I generally advocate consuming stories in release order.  With the Star Wars movies and the Forgotten Realms “Drizzt” novels, I think the original trilogies do a better job of making you care about the characters.  Once you care, you might be motivated to seek out the prequels so you can learn more about the universe.  In BtS, Chloe is so abrasive and raw that it’s hard to care about her until you find out everything life did to her to make her this way.  Some people who try BtS first might not stick with the game long enough to get attached to her.  

On the other hand, if one did stick with BtS and play all the way through it before starting LiS, I think it would make LiS all the more rewarding.  BtS is so much more low key than LiS, that playing them in story order means the dangers constantly get bigger.  The constant emotional gutpunches LiS throws at you would be all the more impactful now that you’ve seen what Chloe’s been through.  So yeah, if you’re going to stick with it, I would advocate playing BtS first, maybe even playing the bonus episode before the other three.  But if you try BtS and you just can’t empathize with the characters, try LiS and maybe come back to BtS later.  I honestly don’t think you can go wrong either way.  Both are excellent stories.

Coming up next: "The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit".

My Choices:

Star Wars Games I Want To See

I like Star Wars.  No, that’s not right.  It’s closer to say that Star Wars is a part of me.  For me, it’s not about the individual movies, books, and games.  To me, Star Wars is a genre.  It’s not sci-fi, it’s not fantasy, it’s just Star Wars.  And when I see a property in this way, I want to see it branch out in directions the creator didn’t necessarily intend. 

In other words, not everything with the “Star Wars” logo on it has to be an action-packed space opera.  I mean, zombie movies are mostly horror, but then we have movies like "Fido", "Shaun of the Dead", and "Warm Bodies".  A while back I read a "Lost Stars", which is basically a romance novel set in the Star Wars universe.  And I loved it.  Personally I’d like to see Star Wars sitcoms, Star Wars cooking shows, and whatever else fanatics can come up with. 

So when I look at Star Wars video games, I’m pretty happy.  There’s a huge amount of variety in there, from RPGs to squad combat to flight simulators.  Unfortunately, a lot of them suck.  But that’s the problem with licensed games; they’re driven more by the marketing department than the artistic vision of the programmers.  Still, they should keep trying.  Assuming a skilled team of programmers with the freedom to follow their artistic vision without executive meddling, here are some Star Wars themed video games I would like to see:

“Bushido Blade” Style Lightsaber Duels

Bushido Blade for the Playstation was a completely different kind of fighting game.  There were no health meters.  Instead, you concentrated on parrying.  If your opponent’s sword hit you in the arm, that arm would hang limply at your side for the rest of the match.  Hope that wasn’t your sword arm!  If you got hit in the leg, you would limp along slowly for the rest of the match.  Both legs injured?  You crawl, making it nearly impossible to win the match.  And if you got hit somewhere vital, the match was simply over.  As you can imagine, matches were usually quite short.  We would typically hit “Rematch” five or six times before switching characters.  I know that sounds annoying, but it was actually incredibly fun. 

I especially loved the arenas.  You weren’t confined to some squared-in tournament pit, you fought in natural-looking asymmetrical environments.  Some had multiple levels, or let you fight waist-deep in water.  My favorite had you fighting in a field of bamboo, where your wide sword swipes would cause the foliage to fall down around you as you dueled.  You could choose different types of swords, which effected the speed, reach, and power of your blows.  There was also a sledgehammer, and a rather unfair secret character who wielded a gun.

The entire time I played it, I kept thinking, “This would be awesome with lightsabers.”   Just think about, lightsaber duels where severing limbs is a constant possibility.  It only takes one hit to win, but first you have to get through their defenses.  It might still have some sort of a stamina meter, but running out of stamina would just make your blocking less effective.  At full stamina, blocking would be almost automatic, but you would lose stamina the more you swing and block.  You would also be able to use Force powers from this pool of stamina, making it a trade-off to use.  This stamina meter would gradually refill whenever you aren’t mashing buttons.  Maybe it wouldn’t be a visible meter, so much as your character would stand like they were running out of breath.  I don’t know, I’m mostly spitballing here.

One of Bushido Blade’s biggest problems was a lack of characters.  My Star Wars version would include pretty much everyone who has ever wielded a lightsaber in the movies.  Who cares if it doesn’t make any sense in the timeline?  Just throw in a line about it being a training simulator or something. 

I’ll admit the chances of this happening are pretty low.  With Disney owning Star Wars, a dismemberment-based fighting game is less likely than ever before.  But you can’t deny it would be pretty cool.

A Decent Tournament Fighting Game

I know I sound redundant, but this one would play nothing like Bushido Blade.  Playstation’s “Masters of Teräs Käsi” was not a great game.  But that doesn’t mean it was a bad idea.  I loved the concept.  You had a button that switched between fighting modes, just like later Mortal Kombat games.  With your weapon drawn, it controlled like SoulCalibur – three slash buttons and a kick button.  If you sheathed your weapon, it played like Tekken – each button controlled a limb.  That was awesome in itself because it catered to more players that way.  Hate Tekken?  Keep your rifle out.  It was pretty clever at the time.

Unfortunately the controls were sluggish, the combos were dull, the roster was small, and the graphics were primitive.  There is nothing about that list of flaws that a modern day sequel couldn’t fix.  A couple of the SoulCalibur games had Star Wars characters as guest stars, and they were fantastic.  I’d love a sequel to Teräs Käsi that actually plays well.  Some people thought concept was silly, but I don’t care.  Yeah, yeah, why would these characters be in a fighting tournament together?  Why would someone with a rifle be entering the ring with someone wielding a lightsaber?  But they’re overthinking it.  All I care about is that it mixes some of my favorite movies with one of my favorite genres of video games.  If Mortal Kombat X can let the Predator fight Leatherface, then what’s so weird about Han Solo fighting Darth Vader?

And yes, it’s silly that you can hit someone 15 times with a lightsaber before it knocks them out, but you could say the same thing about dozens of Star Wars games, from “Super Star Wars” to “Knights of the Old Republic”.  You could also say that about other powerful weapons in fighting games, such as the swords in Soul Calibur or the bazookas in Marvel Vs Capcom 2.  The X-Ray moves in the last few Mortal Kombat games are particularly fatal-looking, but the match goes on.  So don’t tell me a guns vs lightsaber tournament fighter is unrealistic, when realism isn’t exactly inherent to the genre.

“Need for Speed” Style Speeder Bike Racing

There are certain scenes I’ve always wanted to recreate in a video game.  The speeder bike scene on Endor has been done in video games several times, but never really well.  There were a couple of decent pod racing games, but I’d rather play something that doesn’t carry the stigma of Episode I.  The original "Return of the Jedi" arcade game was fun, but the isometric view doesn't really draw me in.  At least one of the Battlefront games has a speeder bike scene, but they just don’t capture the feel I’m looking for. 

I want something more along the lines of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.  You pick either the Imperial (cop) or Rebel (criminal), and you race through the forest, either fleeing the Imperial or trying to catch the Rebel.  The emphasis would be on the speed.  The forest may have to be more sparse than in the movie, to keep you from crashing every three seconds.  Other planets would be welcome, too.

It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the plot of Return of the Jedi.  On one planet you could be working as a courier, trying to deliver stolen plans to a Rebel outpost.  Another mission might see you breaking out of an Imperial prison camp, trying to return to the Rebels without leading the Imperials there.  Or, heck with it, just make it a racing game.  I just want to feel that kind of speed in a Star Wars environment, racing against other players.

Obviously multiplayer is a must.  I may be old fashioned, but I’d really want a split screen racing mode.  VR might also be nice.

“Kingdom Rush” Style Tower Defense

Now I’m really reaching.  But I love tower defense games, I can’t help it.  Obviously this would mostly be for tablets.   But picture the Death Star, with a long winding trench leading to the exhaust port, and hundreds of X-Wing fighters following the trench to the end.  You have to place various kinds of turbolaser turrets to destroy them before they reach the port.  Another level might have R2-D2 overriding the Death Star’s own internal defenses to keep an army of Stormtroopers from reaching the landing bay.  Another might have you defending a walled Tatooine town from a party of Tuskan Raiders.  Or how about a level where Imperial scouts are following a trail through the Endor forest, and the Ewoks set up a bunch of traps to slow them down?  Some levels would be Light Side, some Dark Side, and all would be lighthearted and comically animated.  Long shot?  Yes.  But they did a Star Wars version of Angry Birds, so who knows.

The Sims: Star Wars Edition

Well, now I'm just being silly.  You can already mod the Sims into just about anything you'd want.  Still, I'd love to see a Sims game that was completely Star Wars right out of the box.  Sims 4 comes with some Star Wars costumes, but the characters look out of place in the suburban neighborhoods.  I'd like to see neighborhoods themed after Star Wars locations, with objects and furniture to match.  With occupations like smuggler, bounty hunter, and Imperial agent.  I think it would be hilarious to control a guy going through his day to day life, only to have him don a Stormtrooper suit when it's time to go to work.  Maybe I'm the only one who wants to see that, but I doubt it.

Ugly Bags of Mostly Hit Points

Today I feel like complaining about overly long boss battles.

When I first tried my hand at running a D&D game, I had a tendency to make up my own monsters instead of using the ones from the monster manual.  I think I was actually pretty good at giving them interesting abilities, but I had a tendency to give the bosses too many hit points.  The battles just dragged on and became boring.  I remember one particularly long battle against a giant bug, where I realized my players were getting antsy, so I halved the monster’s hit points mid-battle.  I don’t think they caught on, but I certainly learned a lesson.

Video games, on the other hand, don’t care if you get bored.  It’s one thing if a boss battle is interesting, and has lots of different puzzle-type aspects, but even then I wouldn’t want it to take more than ten minutes.  It’s even worse if the battle is really difficult, far from a save point, or has an unskippable cut scene you have to watch before each attempt.  Endurance tests are flat-out boring.  If you see everything there is to see in the first three minutes, but the battle still continues for twenty, that’s just dull.  It’s also a cheap way to add fake difficulty.

Final Fantasy VII had a couple of optional boss battles that were just long for the sake of long.  Emerald Weapon was especially boring.  The fight had a 20 minute time limit, and you really were in greater danger of running out of time than getting killed.  One of the preferred methods for winning is to spam “Knights of the Round”, a powerful summon that unfortunately has a very long animation.  I can forgive FFVII since they were optional, though.

The Metroid series has some good examples bosses battles that overstay their welcome, but it also has some examples of bosses done right.  I think the problem is that programmers associate Metroid with the original 8-bit game, so they think, “Oh, only hardcore Nintendo fans love this series, we have to make sure the boss battles are as Nintendo Hard as possible!”  The problem with this logic is that, for the most part, older games were difficult because otherwise they’d be too short.  And while as kids we loved bragging about the games we’d beaten, we also despised the frustration of games that expected godlike reflexes (I’m looking at you, Ninja Gaiden).  I hear people my age wax nostalgic about how stupidly difficult the hoverbike level was in Battletoads, but I’ve never heard any of us say, “Hey, let’s dig it out and play it again now!”  Because while they are fond memories, the level simply isn’t fun.

I have no doubt that Metroid fans enjoy a good challenge, but at the same time, GameFAQs is full of posts complaining about the length of certain boss fights.  So I know I’m not the only one.  I’ve put off finishing “Samus Returns” on 3DS because I’ve seen the final boss fight.  It looks dreadfully long.  

Bottom line, some programmers need to learn the difference between challenging and tedious.  There’s more to a memorable boss fight than a big bag of hit points.

Rant over.

Waiting For The Endgame

Okay, I’m calling it.  The wait between “Infinity War” and “Endgame” is officially too long.  I haven’t been so anxious for a resolution since “The Empire Strikes Back.”   I was only 6 when ESB came out and I can still recall arguing with my friends about how Luke was going to get Han out of the carbonite.  

Right now I’m suffering from what I’ll call “Speculation Fatigue”.  My brain is tired of wondering what is going to happen in Endgame.  Yeah, sure, there’s less wait between Avengers 3 & 4 than there was between Star Wars 5 & 6, but the stakes are higher.  Frozen Han Solo?  Ha!  Try, “Half the universe has been disintegrated.” 

I’ve watched dozens of Youtube videos with fan theories, videos that will be obsolete in just a few months.  It reminds me of all the books that came out before “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was released.  We still own some of the fan-made books that give their predictions for book 7.  Most of their theories were dead wrong, of course, and I’m hoping Endgame surprises me just as much.  But I’m not really sure that’s possible any more.  I’ve heard just about every possible sequence of events, so whatever happens it won’t be “Wow, that’s unexpected!” so much as “Wow, that’s fan theory #347!”  But I’m just so exhausted by all the speculation that I’m losing my excitement for the movie.  By the time it actually comes out, I might be like, “Let’s get this over with.”

I’m not sure they should have released the trailer for “Spider-Man: Far From Home” until after Endgame.  In the Endgame trailer, they were so careful not to show any scenes with people who had been dusted, so it’s weird that they would be okay releasing the Spider-Man trailer at this time.  At the very least, they shouldn’t have shown Nick Fury in the trailer; that’s one more person we now know survives.  Sure, showing Spidey means that the dusted people come back, but Fury still could have been killed later in Endgame by other means. 

But the fact that Fury’s in the mentor role instead of Tony Stark could also be a spoiler.  Yes, everyone knows that RDJ is quitting after Endgame, but we don’t “know it” know it, you know?  In D&D terms, that’s “out of character knowledge.”   I kind of miss the days when I didn’t know much about a movie before seeing it; Stark’s departure would have so much more shock value.  Now I’m going to spend the entire movie wondering if this is the scene where he gets killed. 

Anyway, “Far From Home” looks okay.  I laughed here and there, but nothing about the trailer really stood out.  With Stark gone, I guess Happy Hogan’s going to be a Spider-Man character now?  Mysterio and Hydro-Man (or whatever that is, possibly an illusion) looked great, but the MCU is starting to look more cartoonish.  I guess I’m okay with that.  I’m glad this series has maintained such consistent quality for so many movies, and after Endgame it might well be time to start getting really wacky. 

My hopes for Endgame and beyond:

I hope Tony sacrifices himself to save Steve; it would be a perfect apology for Civil War.

I hope (as some have speculated) that Steve is sent back in time, and lives out his days with Peggy Carter.  It would be the kindest possible way to retire the character.

I hope time travel isn’t overused in saving the day.  The last thing I want is a “Ta-da!  The first movie never happened!” victory.  

I hope we get another Thor movie.  I know four movies is a lot for one character, but Ragnarok felt like such a reboot in both content and tone, that I really want to see another Thor done in that style.

I hope they don’t gloss over the Asgardian refugees this time.  Other than Thor’s line about how Thanos “killed half my crew”, Infinity War was maddeningly silent on the fates of Korg, Valkyrie, and the other survivors.  If they don’t mention it in Endgame and don’t make another Thor movie, then the question will bug me forever.  You know (lots of “ifs” coming), if Drax dies in Endgame (since Dave Bautista is angry about the firing of James Gunn), and if Gamora doesn’t come back to life, and if there isn’t going to be another Thor movie, then Valkyrie and Korg could make decent members of the Guardians.

I hope that future movies feel more self-contained.  I’m afraid that the minute Endgame is over, they’ll jump right into the build-up for the next major crossover event.  

I hope General Ross gets fired, and has his career so totally ruined that he spends the rest of his life collecting discarded soda bottles to buy Ramen noodles.

Beyond that, anything goes.

Life Is Strange: Chapter 5 and Afterthoughts (Spoilers)

Warning: This blog entry contains spoilers for Life is Strange.

So, when we left off, Chloe was dead (again), and I had been drugged by my teacher.  

I wake up strapped to a chair, in Mark's "Dark Room" (which is more well-lit than it sounds).  I manage to look at some nearby photos, and use them to time travel to a few hours earlier, when I was still captive and having my picture taken.  As crazed photographer Mark tries to capture my innocence in film, he tells me all about his evil plans.  Jeez, he monologues worse than Syndrome.

I manage to get him to show me the first selfie I took in Episode 1, and use it to travel back to the beginning of the game.  While there I send a text to David, telling him where to find Mark's Dark Room.  Then I go forward in time to see the results.  Chloe lives!  Mark arrested!  I've won the photography contest, and am on a plane to San Francisco to have my work shown in a gallery!  Life is Perfect (TM), roll credits!

Um... roll credits?

Whoops, I forgot there's still a superstorm headed for Arcadia Bay.  Well, I can't very well be in San Francisco when that happens, what will happen to Chloe?  So I focus on my winning photograph to go back in time to when I took it, then destroy the photo while I'm there... Whoops, I think I broke Time.

Back to the present, and I'm back in Mark's chair.  Wait, so I had to win the contest for him to be arrested?  Oh, because after I destroyed my own work, Mark burned my other photos, which I had previously used to go back in time, so now I never went back in time to get him arrested... MY BRAIN HURTS!

David to the rescue; I never thought I'd be happy to see him.  Of course, I have to give him six or seven warnings to let him survive the encounter.  Then I steal Mark's car and book it to the diner to meet Warren, so I can use a photo of his to go back in time again.  Maneuvering through the storm was intense, like last episode's party scene, it was full of sensory overload.  

I meet Warren and use the photograph, warn Chloe in the past, and do my best to fix everything in the past, present, and future.  But all my time traveling catches up with me, and I end up in a psychedelic nightmare world.  

If you ever played through "The Park", you might remember the final area where you walk through increasingly maddening versions of your own house.  Walking through Max's endless dorm halls had a similar feel (note, "The Park" and Episode 5 of "Life is Strange" were both released in the same month, so I doubt either one actually copied the other).  

Several mindscrews later, I get to walk past the game's events like they were scenes in a museum, until I finally catch up with real time.  Chloe and I have a good talk, and we realize that all the weather problems started when I began messing with time.  The only way to keep everything bad from happening was to go back to the beginning and let Chloe die.

I swear I stared at this screen for 10 minutes.

And then the big moment came.  Now, I’ve known about this game’s ending for a couple of years now.  It was spoiled for me a long time ago, probably by some YouTube video about video game endings.  I might have been more careful about avoiding spoilers, but at the time I had no idea I’d ever play the game.  Come to think of it, the ending of LiS is actually one of the first things I learned about the game, just like the first thing I heard about Metroid is that you turn out to be a woman.

So I knew what was coming, but that didn't make the choice any easier.  I was so ready to say "Screw Arcadia Falls" and skip town with Chloe.  But I couldn't do it.  "The needs of the many..." and all that crap.  I couldn't live with an entire town on my conscience.  Damn it.  I have since viewed the "Chloe Lives" ending on YouTube, and I think I made the right choice.  Leaving the town in that condition would have made me feel like a monster.

Anyway... now that I've finally finished the game, I thought I’d throw out some final thoughts.

After a while, I actually found the time-rewinding aspect to be a little annoying.  I was enjoying the story so much that the rewind puzzles felt intrusive.  Which is weird, because that’s the one gimmick that’s supposed to make the game so unique.  Remember the later episodes of Herman’s Head, when they didn’t show his inner thoughts as often, and when they did it felt forced?  No?  Wait, am I the only one who remembers that show existed?  Okay, remember the second season of Bosom Buddies, when the writers realized that Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari were funny enough without the cross-dressing joke, so they deemphasized the show’s entire concept?  Still no?  Wait, am I getting old, or do I just have obscure tastes?

Anyway, the time-rewinding thing is probably the game’s biggest draw, assuming you’re on the game’s marketing team.  But I found myself so engrossed by the story, the visuals, the music, and the characterization that I didn’t want the story interrupted by rewind puzzles. 

With that in mind, maybe I'll end up enjoying "Before the Storm" even more than LiS.  I doubt it, though.  It's hard to really enjoy a story when I know both main characters are walking corpses.  I've blogged before about my dislike for downer endings, though sometimes they are necessary. 

Come to think of it, Life is Strange combines two of my least favorite things - downer endings, and plots where the conflict was caused by the protagonist.  The latter is annoying because it makes the entire story pointless - the outcome would have been the same if the hero had just sat on their hands.  It's one of the reasons I never enjoyed the Doctor Who spinoff "Torchwood" - not only was it full of downer endings, but several conflicts only happened because the "heroes" decided to play around with the alien tech they'd acquired.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and I can put up with the above tropes if the story is well written.  Chloe was fated to die from the beginning.  Yeah, fate's a bitch, and Chloe doesn't deserve living under such a curse.  But the story works.  Life is Strange was enjoyable from beginning to end, and a megahappy ending would have just felt trite.  

Excellent game.

My choices:

Life Is Strange - Chapter 4 (Spoilers)

Warning: This blog entry contains spoilers for episode 4 of Life is Strange.

It’s hard to find time to play this game.  With most games, I’m content to play for about an hour now and then.  With LiS, I would rather play an entire chapter at once, so I don’t break the dramatic tension.  I’ve read that each episode is supposed to take about two hours, but for me it’s taking almost four.  I just want to go everywhere and read everything, and I take tons of screenshots.

When we left off, I had gone back in time to save Chloe's father.  When I got back to the present, her dad was alive... but now Chloe was was in a wheelchair.  Sometime in the intervening years, Chloe had been in a bad car accident, and was now paralyzed from the neck down.  That family really needs to take more cabs.

I watched Blade Runner with her, during which she fell asleep.  In real life, I've tried to watch Blade Runner twice, and fell asleep both times.  Girl after my own heart.  Later, Chloe told me that she wasn't going to live much longer, and that she wanted to today to be her final memory... and she asked me euthanize her.

It wasn't an easy choice, but ultimately I refused.  I do think someone in Chloe's position has the right to die on her own terms, but I just can't be the one to do it.  Ethics aside, could I live with myself afterwards?  Would the memory of watching her last breath haunt me forever, especially knowing I flipped the switch?  Would people know it was me?  Would I get arrested for murder? 

It didn't matter anyway.  Pull the plug or don't, I knew my next action was going to be more time travel.  I wish there was a way to save both Chloe and her father, but it doesn't look like that's in the cards.  Jaunt back, jaunt forward, and Chloe's dad is dead again.

I swear, this game could be used in ethics classes.  You’re constantly given variations of the Trolley Problem, and even though there are no “correct” answers, I still feel like I lose every time.  

But it was good to see Chloe in full health again, and ready for some mischief.  We broke into the boy's dorms to steal Nathan's phone.  We ran into Nathan on the way out, but Warren protected us.  Warren really went to town punching Nathan.  I was given the option to stop him, but... hmm hmm hmmm... I was enjoying seeing Nathan get his ass handed to him. 

Back at Chloe's house, we got serious about assembling all the clues we'd found.  It's so nice seeing Chloe get excited about something, instead of just getting angry at everything.  She's like a different person when her life has a purpose.  

Yes, Chloe has grown on me.  I said earlier that she’s hard to like, but the more I see of her history (both versions), the more I like her.  Before, I saw her as  a jerk who reacts to adversity in the most self-destructive ways.  Now I see her as more of a tragic survivor desperately trying anything to feel alive again. 

The specifics (drug use, stealing guns, open hostility, etc) initially turned me off.  I’m not against recreational drug use per se; it’s one of those things that’s fine for some people, but not for me.  But allowing herself to get into so much debt to a scuzzy dealer like Frank?  There’s no way she ever needed drugs that badly, unless…  unless...

...well, unless she didn’t care how much debt she got into, because she wouldn't be around long enough for it to matter.  Before Rachel went missing, she and Chloe had been planning to skip town together.  Come to think of it, I’ve been there.  Some of my credit card debt was accumulated during the darkest days of my depression, when getting little things in the mail gave me tiny moments of happiness that kept me going.  I didn’t think about having to pay it off because on some level I didn’t expect to live to see the end of the year.

…huh.  Maybe I owe Chloe an apology.

Anyway, putting the clues together was a little tedious.  I didn't want to try every number in Nathan's notes to unlock his phone, so I made a quick trip to GameFAQs.  It turned out to be his birth date, which I suppose should have been my first guess. 

Our clues led us to a barn in a remote location, where we found the hidden bunker where someone - we assumed Nathan - had been taking drugged women.  It was very disturbing.   Then we found clues to the location of Chloe's friend Rachel.  We raced to the junkyard and found Rachel's grave.  Chloe was devastated, then enraged.  She dragged us to a school party so we could find Nathan.

The party was a noisy reminder of why I don't go to parties.  But that just shows how good this game's programmers are - I actually felt social anxiety walking around all the students.  I saved Alyssa from yet another minor accident, and nearly embarrassed myself sneaking into the VIP area. 

After asking everyone at the party about Nathan, we received a text saying that the evidence was about to be destroyed, and we rushed back to the scrapyard. 

Okay, here's another one of those times when the game doesn't give you a choice, when I very much would have chosen something else.  I get that a game can't give you infinite choices (which is why Dungeons & Dragons will always be superior to video games), but yeesh.  It's weird to have my character act one way when I control her decisions, then make irrational choices when the cut scenes take control.

So, yeah, I would not have chosen to return to the junk yard.  It felt like such an obvious trap.  I realize that normal humans have emotions and all, and don't always think things through, but rushing to the junk yard at this time felt like running straight into a crocodile's mouth.  And I was right.   A mysterious figure stepped up and drugged me, then shot Chloe.

Jeez, she dies a lot.  She's the Rory Williams of video games.  As I blacked out, I saw the face of our attacker.  M... M... Mr. Jefferson?  Well, suddenly I don't feel as guilty about throwing him under the bus at the end of episode 2.  I can't say it was a total surprise.  When the game kept pushing Nathan, David, and Frank as the villains, I wondered if the real baddie would be someone less suspicious. 

Okay, fine, I had no clue.

Nice cliffhanger.  How will I get out of this one?  Pretty sure the answer will involve rewinding time, but I can't wait to see it play out.  It pains me that I probably won't get to play again for a week.  

Btw, earlier this week I watched the Black Mirror episode “Bandersnatch” on Netflix, and I highly recommend it for people who like LiS type games.

Life Is Strange - Chapter 3 (Spoilers)

Warning: This blog entry contains spoilers for episode 3 of Life is Strange.

I find Max's use of time travel to teleport to be a little inconsistent.  So she blew the lock to enter the principal's office.  Once inside, she rewound time to restore the lock, while remaining in the room.  So does she always stay in the same place while using her powers?  I can think of several instances where something bad happened, then I moved a bit before rewinding.  People should notice Max teleporting all the time.

It was cool sneaking around school at night, looking for evidence.  But taking a midnight swim seemed unnecessarily risky.  It's so weird what things you get a choice about, and what things your character just does on her own.  I'm in control when I convince Chloe not to steal the school's charity money, but then Max just agrees on her own when Chloe suggests visiting the pool.  It was a great scene, but I'm just astounded that Max agreed to something that put them in such a vulnerable position.

Hiding from David in the locker room made me feel like I was playing Metal Gear for a second.  It was fun, but I'm glad they didn't draw it out any longer.  It would have been too much of a genre shift.

The kissing scene was a cute tease.  At the moment, all I really know about the game's ending is the final choice, but I don't know what leads up to it.  So while I would like to see Max and Chloe become more than just friends, I also know we're only a couple of days away from the superstorm, so I don't know how much time the game will devote to their relationship.  But if I do get to choose between a romance with Chloe or Warren, I will definitely choose Chloe.  Poor Warren, he seems like a nice guy.

I'm starting to wonder about the "once per episode" saving Alyssa from getting hit by random objects.  Is it just a running gag, or will it be important later?  Is she going to figure out I have some sort of power?  Is the extra waste of my power going to drain me prematurely at a critical time?

I love how it gave me a choice when distracting Frank's dog with a treat - "Throw it in the parking lot" or "Throw it in the street".  Sometimes I intentionally pick the less desirable choice first, just so I can see it before rewinding and picking the one I want to stay with.  But there was no way I was going risk getting a dog run over, not even if I intended to rewind.  What if I get the poor pup killed, and then find my powers stop working again?  He's not a bad dog, he's just doing his job.

The cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 3... just wow.  I saved Chloe's dad but now Chloe's in poor health.  It reminds me of that "Butterfly Effect" movie.  I can't wait to find out what happened.