Recent reviews by Captain Acab

I'm a bit torn in that this game is rather short but I think it's shortness is what enticed me into playing it in the first place plus the ending seems to be setting up a larger game/franchise so if that comes to pass I think this can be considered a very successful chapter 1. The core game involves evidence finding a pointing out contradictions in suspects stories. Think Phoenix Wright or Contradiction Spot the Liar for very direct comparisons and it's a very solid version of that core concept with a unique world to it and a more open ended view of the statements as well as a smaller scope than Phoenix Wright. I quite liked it and I hope that whatever Age of Truth is going to be also comes out sometime and is good.

This game has many problems but will probably end up being one of my favorite games of the year.

Let's start with my issues which were mostly technical and had to do with the way the game was set up. It took me a few videos to figure out that all the video's started at the keyword you search which I guess is on me for not reading the instructions but I still wish there was a "go back to the beginning of the video" feature. Thankfully there are fast forward and rewind features that I suggest using liberally. There is a fair amount of video footage that is just of people listening as you get both parts of video conferences separately. I do think that that is a valuable thing seeing one side then searching something from that to see the other side. You really do feel like a detective sleuthing together this story, this was something that Her Story did well and it continues to be done well here.

I'm a huge sucker for FMV and I honestly don't thing the bizarre subgenre gets much better than this in terms of how it plays and in terms of the acting and writing. The acting in particular here is pretty top notch from basically everyone in the cast and the touches to make the person at the computer, ostensibly your player character, feel like a real person in particular was phenomenal.

I have yet to get all of the endings, so far I've gotten 2 endings and I'm pretty sure there are more. Normally I wouldn't review a game so soon after it's release and largely before I'm completely done with it but initial reaction to this game seems pretty negative, or at least "mixed" and I know when I see something with "mixed" scores that I know nothing about it makes me weary about purchasing it so I wanted to give it a positive review because I think that these Sam Barlow games are unique and interesting experiences and I'm very excited about the prospect of more of them.

I don't know why I waited so long to buy this game. I think I was waiting on a sale or something. That was wrong of me. This game couldn't possibly be more my thing between the FMV, the campy acting, and the detective gameplay I loved basically everything about it. My only real problems were some bugs making buttons unresponsive at times and some of the plot threads left hanging at the end but neither of those things are deal breakers for me and I will absolutely buy any sequel that gets released for this game as soon as I'm able too.