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RttP: Life is Strange - This Action Will Have Consequences (Open Spoilers)
- Thread starter Uzzy
- Start date
Episode 1: Chrysalis - Monday 7th October Part 5
Chloe's room and the Price's house is a masterpiece of design, there's so many interactable objects that tell the story, revealing the insights and details of these people's lives, the mundane despair of circumstances. I love it. Good environmental storytelling can add so much to the overall story, showing you details rather than awkwardly telling you, prevening the writers from having to shoehorn in stuff like 'The Price's are broke.'
While Chloe gets high, I'm left to explore the house at my leisure, checking each room, ostensibly to get some tools to fix my camera, but really we're just gonna peak into the Price's lives. We learn a fair bit actually. Chloe Price and Rachel Amber were really good friends, Chloe's stepdad is David, the security guard at Blackwell, and David's got a lot of surveillance photographs of Kate Marsh hidden away for some reason. Seems very dodgy.
Even with the tools, the camera's cerealously broken, so Chloe, remembering Max's birthday, gives her her dad's old camera. This after realising that Max was responsible for saving her life earlier that day (Hella Count: 3).
We get to some thrashing, and Max drops her amazing dance moves. Shine on you crazy diamond, shine on.
At least until the step-fuhrer interrupts and finds Chloe's weed. Wanting to prove ourselves a good friend after all this time, we naturally take the blame for it. Which I'm sure won't have any impact on our record at Blackwell Academy. Urgh, David is awful.
It's time to blow this joint. We take a trip up to a great spot Chloe knows. The lighthouse.
I adore the lighting throughout this part of the chapter. Unsurprising for a game so focused on photography, the devs put some real attention into the lighting of each scene, and it really shows, bathing the shots in golden browns and yellows.
We tell Chloe that David's got surveillance cameras throughout the house (Hella Count: 4), and then Chloe drops the bombshell. Nathan drugged her and took her back to his apartment, but luckily Chloe escaped. Like bloody hell, this game is dealing with some stuff. But Chloe remains hopeful despite it all, and with Max back by her side, maybe the two of them can find Rachel and get out of this hell.
Destiny has other plans, it seems, as Max gets hit by the vision of the tornado once again. Chloe tries to reassure her (Hella Count: 5), but we discovered exactly when it'd hit. Friday, 11th October. Four days time. And we finish Episode 1 with an impromptu flurry of snowflakes. In October. In 80 degree heat. Hella normal day.
Episode 1 is a mostly wonderful introduction to the setting, characters and stakes at play. There's some dialogue that's very obviously written by a 30 year old writer, but if I could live with that in Buffy, I can more than live with it in this. The main cast all feel like actual characters, and the locations feel like actual locations people live in, rather than stages to wander around. It's a game that invites introspection, affording you the time to stop and think (the moments of calm are a fantastic addition to the game). Most importantly, it's not letting the sci-fi time travel stuff overshadow the far more grounded concerns of the characters. We'll see how that goes tomorrow with Episode 2: Out of Time.
While Chloe gets high, I'm left to explore the house at my leisure, checking each room, ostensibly to get some tools to fix my camera, but really we're just gonna peak into the Price's lives. We learn a fair bit actually. Chloe Price and Rachel Amber were really good friends, Chloe's stepdad is David, the security guard at Blackwell, and David's got a lot of surveillance photographs of Kate Marsh hidden away for some reason. Seems very dodgy.
Even with the tools, the camera's cerealously broken, so Chloe, remembering Max's birthday, gives her her dad's old camera. This after realising that Max was responsible for saving her life earlier that day (Hella Count: 3).
We get to some thrashing, and Max drops her amazing dance moves. Shine on you crazy diamond, shine on.
At least until the step-fuhrer interrupts and finds Chloe's weed. Wanting to prove ourselves a good friend after all this time, we naturally take the blame for it. Which I'm sure won't have any impact on our record at Blackwell Academy. Urgh, David is awful.
It's time to blow this joint. We take a trip up to a great spot Chloe knows. The lighthouse.
I adore the lighting throughout this part of the chapter. Unsurprising for a game so focused on photography, the devs put some real attention into the lighting of each scene, and it really shows, bathing the shots in golden browns and yellows.
We tell Chloe that David's got surveillance cameras throughout the house (Hella Count: 4), and then Chloe drops the bombshell. Nathan drugged her and took her back to his apartment, but luckily Chloe escaped. Like bloody hell, this game is dealing with some stuff. But Chloe remains hopeful despite it all, and with Max back by her side, maybe the two of them can find Rachel and get out of this hell.
Destiny has other plans, it seems, as Max gets hit by the vision of the tornado once again. Chloe tries to reassure her (Hella Count: 5), but we discovered exactly when it'd hit. Friday, 11th October. Four days time. And we finish Episode 1 with an impromptu flurry of snowflakes. In October. In 80 degree heat. Hella normal day.
Episode 1 is a mostly wonderful introduction to the setting, characters and stakes at play. There's some dialogue that's very obviously written by a 30 year old writer, but if I could live with that in Buffy, I can more than live with it in this. The main cast all feel like actual characters, and the locations feel like actual locations people live in, rather than stages to wander around. It's a game that invites introspection, affording you the time to stop and think (the moments of calm are a fantastic addition to the game). Most importantly, it's not letting the sci-fi time travel stuff overshadow the far more grounded concerns of the characters. We'll see how that goes tomorrow with Episode 2: Out of Time.
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Yeah, it's something really special that hasn't been replicated since. Not even by future LiS series. I think the last choice of Season 1 was the hardest I cried at any video game maybe (in competition with Nier Automata). It, uh...it broke me.
...Because I made the right choice (sorry bae folks). Max and Chloe had their kiss after a week of getting back together and then we stopped putting off her impending death. One life is not greater that thousands. Losing her destroyed me.
What a good game.
...Because I made the right choice (sorry bae folks). Max and Chloe had their kiss after a week of getting back together and then we stopped putting off her impending death. One life is not greater that thousands. Losing her destroyed me.
What a good game.
I didn't really get to like this game until Two Whales Diner. It just... felt like some place I know.
I adore the start of Episode 2: Out of Time. You're just laying in bed, listening to a great track, slowly willing yourself to wake up as the morning sun filters through the windows. Such a strong feeling. And then the nostalgia hit of the Two Whales Diner. As you say Aestivalis, it feels like a place you know, even though it's not real. The environments throughout the game feel ever so lived in, like actual places, not just stages.
I also love the use of diegetic sound throughout the game, music isn't just background music, it's music the characters are actually listening to.
I'm very happy we got this game, but to be completely honest about it, I think it's riddled with cheap, and just amateur, writing. The teen-speak dialogue is not corny the way it's intended, it feels like a 40-year-old weirdo's idea of what teens are like. The plot is full of un-developed events, not underdeveloped, they're simply not established first until suddenly a thing happens and it's as if all characters and the narrative itself assumes that "Oh yeah, this was totally a thing" (most notably when Max abruptly stares into a picture in Ep3 and very important world-changing things begin to happen.)
I think the biggest flaw it has is the focus on time-rewind as a design-flaw moreso than a plot issue. Right away I figured the second it introduced the method to rewind time and redo decisions it was going to work against its own ambitions, and it happens just in its vertical slice in Episode 1. You're never truly making decisions in dialogue so much as you're meddling around in win- and fail-states. If you just have a talk and call it a day, you've failed. If you talk, then rewind and use what you learned from the discussion to say the third "special" option, you win and it relies way too much on that, which makes the entire time-rewind process completely thoughtless. The second huge flaw of this design happens when a very dire situation occurs with one of the students on one of the buildings of the school. What happens? Well, naturally, Max apparently gets a nosebleed and can not use her powers. I figured shit like that would happen and they don't really attempt to explain it much either. It's obviously just conveinience because "REAL" moments can't rely on supernatural forces or they lose their dramatic impact... Well, then, perhaps time-powers was just a bad idea.
I like LiS; don't love it. I like that people like it more than I like it myself, probably, but I'm still glad I played it. I just think it has some really obvious errors.
I think the biggest flaw it has is the focus on time-rewind as a design-flaw moreso than a plot issue. Right away I figured the second it introduced the method to rewind time and redo decisions it was going to work against its own ambitions, and it happens just in its vertical slice in Episode 1. You're never truly making decisions in dialogue so much as you're meddling around in win- and fail-states. If you just have a talk and call it a day, you've failed. If you talk, then rewind and use what you learned from the discussion to say the third "special" option, you win and it relies way too much on that, which makes the entire time-rewind process completely thoughtless. The second huge flaw of this design happens when a very dire situation occurs with one of the students on one of the buildings of the school. What happens? Well, naturally, Max apparently gets a nosebleed and can not use her powers. I figured shit like that would happen and they don't really attempt to explain it much either. It's obviously just conveinience because "REAL" moments can't rely on supernatural forces or they lose their dramatic impact... Well, then, perhaps time-powers was just a bad idea.
I like LiS; don't love it. I like that people like it more than I like it myself, probably, but I'm still glad I played it. I just think it has some really obvious errors.
The soundtracks have been amazing and fit the games incredibly well. It's the only game soundtrack I've ever really cared about beyond thinking, "That's a cool theme-song/fight music".
Bae forever. The final scene of BtS is an absolute killer though, with the phone going unanswered while teacher takes his photos. Just after I'd seen the 'good' ending too.
Episode 2: Out of Time - Tuesday 8th October
I love the confidence of this opener. The first episode had to draw you straight in, and did so pretty effectively with the tornado and dream sequence and the whole Chloe getting shot scenario, but here we're left just lay in bed, listening to the music and let time pass by. The moments of calm throughout the games are some of the nicest parts, just leaving you alone to think and reflect and contemplate on what's gone on. It's nice to have a game feel confident enough in itself to not have to force the pace, but let you meander along to the next scene. Max's dorm room drags me right back to the dorm rooms I've stayed in too.
Anyway, we go to have a shower (French Devs, but thankfully not David Cage level), and bump into Kate Marsh, one of our classmates.
Kate's getting rather remorselessly bullied over a viral video that's been spread around by Victoria and the likes, even on it's own website, and she's not taking it well at all. We have a chat with her to try to reassure her and find out what happened, given that the video is very much at odds with her persona.
There's Nathan Prescott again. That cannot be good. Even though we're getting threatening text messages from the Prescott's, we convince Kate to go to the police. Not that she'll be listened to, of course. That's depressing enough in this game, let alone real life. This game deals with some hard stuff.
Anyway, leaving Kate with her copy of The October Country by Ray Bradbury, we head off to the Two Whales Diner, obstentiably for breakfast with Chloe. As Aestivalis has said, it feels like a place you know, the all American diner. There's people there who you just know have been coming to that spot for years, you can smell the coffee and crispy bacon, feel the grease. It's wonderful. The diner is run by Chloe's mother, Joyce, who's an equally wonderful character, who after chewing us out for smoking weed 'infront' of Chloe, gives us the hardest decision in all of Life is Strange. I chose the Bacon Omelette.
Joyce brings out another side to both David and Chloe. Joyce managed to move on after her husband, William, died, and met David who's a supportive, loving husband. But Chloe stayed angry, as teenagers are wont to do, and takes it out on David especially. It's one of those all too human character flaws, and I love how the conversation with Joyce brings those to light rather naturally. Chloe finally arrives, and Joyce basically berates her for being a bum with no job who can't buy her own breakfast. We offer to buy it for Chloe, and impress her with our time bending powers, convincing her that they're real. (Hella Count: 6) She, of course, comes up with a genius way to use those powers, and invites us to her 'home away from hell.'
I played LiS for the first time fairly recently and it made me almost angry that I had ignored this gem of a game for so long. It's exactly the kind of coming of age story I crave. All of the characters have so much depth, and I fell in love with Max and Chloe so hard.
As far as I'm concerned it's the pinnacle of the "Telltale"-genre. I still listen to the soundtrack on spotify on a regular basis.
As far as I'm concerned it's the pinnacle of the "Telltale"-genre. I still listen to the soundtrack on spotify on a regular basis.
Arcadia Bae is the only ending I accept and who ever greenlit the comic book agrees with me.
Episode 2: Out of Time - Tuesday 8th October Part 2
Chloe's 'home away from hell' turns out to be a junkyard. Because of course it does. Lots of cool junk lying around, like syringes, bullet casings and mostly empty beer bottles. Chloe decides it'll be great fun to drink and shoot the gun she brought along to show and tell, because we all know that guns and high school dropouts go together.
So begins what is undoubtedly the finest sequence in all of Life is Strange, the search for the five bottles. Marvel as you wander aimlessly around the junkyard to find them. Praise Kronus that DONTNOD added in verbal clues as to where they are. Enjoy the timed challenge to avoid getting crushed! On the brighter side, we find Chloe and Rachel's hideout, along with another clue as to Rachel's whereabouts, she attended a Vortex Club party. The parties that Nathan goes to.
Anyway, after finding the bottles, we work together to pull off some trickshots (Hella Count: 7) Which go about as well as you can imagine. But after all the drama and a celebratory fistbump, we're struck by another blackout and vision of the lighthouse and the tornado.
Waking up, we're threatened by Frank Bowers, who after we threaten to shoot him, gives Chloe till Friday to pay back what she owes. Knowing Chloe, that's going to be a lot and entirely unpayable. Chloe's rather more interested in the bracelet around Frank's wrist, which apparently belonged to Rachel and was a gift from her to him? Very strange.
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Episode 2: Out of Time - Tuesday 8th October Part 3
It's time for the Stand By Me homage. A walk with Chloe, hand in hand along the railroad tracks. We get to chatting about Rachel (Hella Count: 8) and finding her again. I find the 'had-has' line from Chloe to be very telling.
Anyway, after another brief blackout/vision of the lighthouse and the tornado, Chloe gets herself stuck in the tracks as a train is bearing down on her. She really is trying to get herself killed! But Chloe's death wish is no match for our COMPLETE MASTERY OVER TIME AND SPACE, and we're able to free her moments before disaster.
But as another time traveller once said, 'Time waits for no-one', and we have to get back to the actual hell that is highschool. Principle Wells is trying to deny anything happened yesterday, David is still being kinda intense in his surveillance, Warren's being his slightly too forward adorkable self, and the dreamy Mark Jefferson isn't being all that helpful about Kate Marsh.
What of Kate Marsh herself though? Oh Kate....
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Episode 2: Out of Time - Tuesday 8th October Part 4
Class begins, but Mr Jefferson can barely start talking about chiaroscuro before he's interrupted by Zachery, shouting that something's going down at the Girls Dorm. We get there just in time to see Kate Marsh on the ledge, and watch helplessly as she steps over.
Not even our rewind powers can get us up to the roof in time, but somehow, we manage to freeze time entirely, and force our way through spacetime to get there, only for our time powers to fizzle out entirely. So we're left on the roof, with no rewind, and just have to try to talk Kate Marsh down. If we say the wrong thing, we know what she'll do, because we've already seen it.
I've played all manner of games where the fate of the city, the nation, the world, even the whole galaxy was at stake. But all of those paled in comparison to this. Even with all the powers in the world, you're powerless in the face of Kate's emotional torment, and just have to desperately try to connect to her to try to save her. Did you actually care enough about Kate Marsh to get her down off the ledge, or were you just like everyone else, ignoring her nightmare to spend time with your friends. The first time I played this was like a gutpunch, and even now, knowing what was coming, I was still terrified of making the wrong decision, saying the wrong thing, knowing the consequences of my actions. Life is Strange wasn't going to be about magic time travelling adventures and weird murder mysteries, but all too human problems, with all too human consequences. It was at this moment I knew it was going to be something special, something that had something to say about the human condition.
Did I save Kate?
Yeah, I did. And it felt better than anything.
Afterwards, we're hauled into Principal Wells office to discuss what happened, and have the opportunity to blame Mr Jefferson, David or Nathan for what happened. Sure, David's kinda an arsehole, and Mark wasn't that supportive, but Nathan fucking drugged her! Principal Wells finally takes action and suspends him. And Episode 2 ends with us talking to Warren as an unscheduled solar eclipse occurs. Something is seriously wrong with the universe. We'll have to find out what tomorrow, in Episode 3: Chaos Theory.
Episode 3: Chaos Theory - Tuesday 8th October/Wednesday 9th October
Episode 3 starts with everyone still quite understandably shook up over Kate's attempted suicide. For some in the dorm, it's a time for reflection and thought about what they all did to drive her up to that roof. For Victoria, it's a chance to flirt with the dreamy Mark Jefferson (who thoroughly rebuffs her.)
For Max and Chloe, it's an opportunity to break into the school to dig up some details on what's being going on in Blackwell. I'm sure we've all had that weird, eerie feeling of wandering around an area we know intimately well, packed with people and life, but now peacefully drenched in dark and stone dead. It's a feeling I know I won't forget, the feeling of seeing the corridors of your school outside of school hours for the first time. I do love this sequence, it's quite creative with your time powers. You can't get into the Principal's office, despite Chloe lifting the school keys from her step-dad David, so you wind up texting Warren for advice on building a pipe bomb of all things. Then, once the door's thoroughly blown open and the police are on their way because you just blew up your school you crazy delinquents, you step into the principal's office and rewind time to before all of that, opening the door from the other side.
Digging through the personal files in the Principal's office turns up quite a few surprises, with Chloe's file being a particular delight. Empty rebellion sums up a big part of her pretty well. But rather more disturbing are the files we dig up on Nathan, especially the drawing of his that's nothing but 'Rachel in the dark room' scribbled over and over again. Whatever that is, it can't be good. Before leaving, we steal the money for the handicapped fund because we're awful people. We were going to be moral, but then Chloe promised a trip to Portland, so... yeah. First though, a slight detour to the swimming baths. Nothing like a midnight swim to ease our worries. (Hella Count: 9/10)
The midnight swim scene is really quite beautiful, especially the lighting. There's an otherworldly blue glow to everything, and the version of 'Max and Chloe' that plays over the whole scene is to die for. The girls chat for a while, Chloe brings up how she wishes Rachel was here again, but soon starts reassuring Max over her power, and how it's changing her for the better. Max even calls her 'girlfriend', which is... uh... whew.
Their antics don't go entirely unnoticed though, narrowly avoiding the step-fuhrer in chief David on his patrols, blasting back to Chloe's house to stay the night.
Episode 3: Chaos Theory - Wednesday 9th October Part 2
We spend the night at Chloe's place, the early morning sun filtering through the upturned American flag, Lua playing on the hi-fi. I could stay in this scene for ages, it's so peaceful and warm. But eventually Max gets up, and Chloe's being all very encouraging and daring us to take a chance on something.
PRICEFIELD FOR LIFE
Oh my heart.
Eventually we get around to trying on some of the clothes Rachel left, as our old outfit still stinks of chlorine for some reason. This leads to the single greatest line in video game history, as Chloe suggests she'll make a thrasher out of Max yet. There is a world before this line, and a world after. After Chloe recovers from the epoch making utterance from Max, we ask her if she had any boyfriends (emphasis on boyfriends) when we were gone, raising the Hella Count to 11
We leave Chloe to 'wake and bake' and get some breakfast of our own, ably cooked by the truly delightful and long suffering Joyce, who asks if we're jealous of Rachel (pfft, of course not. Why would we be?) She then gives us a photo of Max and Chloe together from five years ago, the last photo taken by her deceased husband William. Chloe comes downstairs and gives us cover to investigate David's computer by getting into a fight with Joyce, something she's very good at doing by now, and we dig up files on Rachel, Kate and ourselves. That's not good at all, and is all we need to get Joyce onside with kicking out David! Hurray, we totally did a good thing there, right?
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You hella should. It's really something special, I was extremely pleasantly surprised at how good it was.
Episode 3: Chaos Theory - Wednesday 9th October Part 3
With one of David's files pointing to a connection between Rachel and Frank Bowers, we drive off to meet the friendly neighbourhood drug dealer, busy eating his beans. Sure, he's mad about us almost shooting him yesterday, which is pretty understandable, but his anger is no match for our COMPLETE MASTERY OF TIME AND SPACE, and we magic the keys away from him. Once inside his rolling probable cause RV, we get to work investigating, avoiding distractions and hoping to find more evidence of the link between Rachel and Frank.
Which we do. Chloe takes this revelation in her characteristically calm and pleasant way. We're barely able to keep up as she drives off in a rage, blaming us, Rachel, Joyce, David for all her problems. Even William isn't spared from her scattergun anger. Which is obviously grotesquely unfair, but I'm sure better people than me have, in their darker moments, blamed loved ones for dying and leaving them behind.
Chloe drops us off at Blackwell without a word, and in the relative quiet of our dorm room, we reminisce about the last time Chloe was actually happy.
No, not that time!
The photo from five years ago, when Max and Chloe and William were together for the last time. Only, looking at it this time, something weird happens.
Which we do. Chloe takes this revelation in her characteristically calm and pleasant way. We're barely able to keep up as she drives off in a rage, blaming us, Rachel, Joyce, David for all her problems. Even William isn't spared from her scattergun anger. Which is obviously grotesquely unfair, but I'm sure better people than me have, in their darker moments, blamed loved ones for dying and leaving them behind.
Chloe drops us off at Blackwell without a word, and in the relative quiet of our dorm room, we reminisce about the last time Chloe was actually happy.
No, not that time!
The photo from five years ago, when Max and Chloe and William were together for the last time. Only, looking at it this time, something weird happens.
Thank you kindly!
Gah, will fix. Price on the mind.
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Episode 3: Chaos Theory - Sunday 28th September 2008/Wednesday 9th October - Part 4
Time is a fickle mistress, but a fortuitous one also.
We're back in 2008, on the day of the accident that took William from Chloe and Joyce's lives. We know that William's about to get a phone call from Joyce, asking him to come pick her up, driving him to his fate. But we have this opportunity now, we can set right what once went wrong. It doesn't take much, just throwing the keys away, and persuading William to catch the bus instead.
With our mission complete, we leap back into our own body in the current day.. and everything's changed. We're friends with Victoria and in the Vortex Club somehow? Warren's dating Stella? What else have we changed? Well, as long as William is still around, Chloe's going to be happy, and that's what counts.
We catch the bus to the Price house, spotting some beached whales along the way (that's normal right?), and find William there at the home! And Chloe's there too! We did it! William's alive, Chloe's happy!
OUR COMPLETE MASTERY OVER TIME AND SPACE IS ASSURED
Oh.
Yeah, this game was very special for me. I don't often get engrossed in stories and it totally blindsided me. While I enjoyed it from the very beginning, I think it was the
scenario that cemented my love for the game.
I actually just finished Before the Storm last week. Also very well done, and I consider it an essential companion. The feels just kept on coming. Chloe Price is an engaging, tragic figure. The whole sequence of events from the original game, then experiencing the prequel; it's really heartbreaking.
And yes, that soundtrack is on point. The main menu of Before the Storm is so damn good. Even the first time I booted it up, it evoked feelings of nostalgia that I couldn't really understand or place.
And of course, Vortex club soundtrack is banging.
euthanasia
I actually just finished Before the Storm last week. Also very well done, and I consider it an essential companion. The feels just kept on coming. Chloe Price is an engaging, tragic figure. The whole sequence of events from the original game, then experiencing the prequel; it's really heartbreaking.
And yes, that soundtrack is on point. The main menu of Before the Storm is so damn good. Even the first time I booted it up, it evoked feelings of nostalgia that I couldn't really understand or place.
And of course, Vortex club soundtrack is banging.
Enjoying keeping up with the thread (particularly the hella count), but I'm going to have to deduct points for not screenshoting the "I WAS EATING THOSE BEANS" =P
You can have those points back however with all the screenshots reminding me how many fantastic scenes there are.
And yeah, in all my years of gaming, I don't think I've felt such a feeling of just absolute relief as saving Kate.
You can have those points back however with all the screenshots reminding me how many fantastic scenes there are.
And yeah, in all my years of gaming, I don't think I've felt such a feeling of just absolute relief as saving Kate.
I've actually taken 572 screenshots so far! Sadly some excellent ones haven't made the cut.
Got me a nice book.
How is this? I've been meaning to get one for a while, but it just seems like a cash grab I'm not sure I need.
It's nice but fanservicey and doesn't really tell us anything we don't know (Chloe hates the place, shock horror). Good production values though, and it's the closest we're getting to a proper LiS art book! Don't regret picking it up for £20.
There's a gallery of some of the pages here. Taken from Reddit, might upload my own when I get time!
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Great thread! Thanks for letting my relive my love for this game. It's really something special. I've been reflecting on some of my top games from the last ten years and this absolutely charts high. I've got to get around to playing Before the Storm. I heard mixed things when the first episode came out, but it sounds like it really came together.
Small correction! The song playing in this scene is Lua by Bright Eyes. Santa Monica Dream is in Episode 1.
Thanks for the correction. You're right, though in my defence Santa Monica Dream does optionally appear in Episode 3 in Chloe's Room too!
So much good music in the game it's hard to keep track of it all.
Thank you kindly, it's a real treat to get to play through LiS again and share it with everyone as best I can.
Hmm, a LiS thread. Long overdue.
Btw, let's not spoil shit for (like in the titles) for those that haven't experienced it)
Not directed towards you OP, but rather there was a LiS 2 thread that spoiled a fairly big event in episode 3. Wasn't even planning to read the thread.
Anyway, I do love LiS. Bae>bay
Btw, let's not spoil shit for (like in the titles) for those that haven't experienced it)
Not directed towards you OP, but rather there was a LiS 2 thread that spoiled a fairly big event in episode 3. Wasn't even planning to read the thread.
Anyway, I do love LiS. Bae>bay
I love this game, obviously with this avatar lol. Any good lets players you would recommend? I've played it so much, I'd rather see someone else's reactions. Can't even talk my friends into playing it ;____;
I've heard good things about the geekremix one, but I've never watched it myself or actually heard of them outside of this recommendation, so I can't vouch for the quality of it myself.
Episode 4: Dark Room - Wednesday 9th October
We were warned there'd be a consequence to our actions.
We visit the beach with Chloe, during the golden hour. It's heartbreakingly beautiful just talking to her, taking in the sunset. We actually learn a lot here, none of it good. Rachel Amber went missing in this timeline, and the snow and eclipse occured just to add to the mystery. Whatever's causing these meteorological phenomenon is in both timelines. Chloe tells us about the accident, about how she remembers it all in slow motion, remembers her back snapping, remembers...
Max tries to be hopeful, saying that now she's back with Chloe she's not afraid, and thinks they can change things for the better. Chloe tells her she doesn't have a lot of hope left. Eventually the warmth of the sunset fades, and we head back to the Price house. (Hella Count 12/13)
Back home, Chloe berates Max a little over not coming around before. Max hasn't been a good friend, especially in this timeline, but it's the text message that finally broke me. Max has Chloe's number for months without doing anything about it, then messages her one day out of the blue, and Chloe responds in two minutes. This sucks. I have something in my heart.
Chloe reveals that the she's costing her parents at least a million dollars a year. Goddamn American healthcare. But at least Max and Chloe are back together again. Chloe suggests watching a movie, Blade Runner, together like they used to. She likes Pris' hair, apparently.
Episode 4: Dark Room - Thursday 10th October/Sunday 28th September 2008 - Part 2
We wake up, arguing over who fell asleep first, but Chloe quickly gets one of her regular head pains, and asks us to get the morphine injector for her. Walking through the house is bleak, William's trying to be optimistic in his quiet desperation, Joyce has taken a second job, the bills are piling up, there's not enough help available, and Chloe's respiratory system is on the verge of collapse. There's no background music throughout, except for the moment of calm in Chloe's old bedroom, which even then is muted and sorrowful.
Back in Chloe's room, we give her the morphine, then go over some old photos together, laughing and reminiscing over better times, when Chloe asks us to do the impossible. She knows about her respiratory condition, knows she doesn't have long left. All we have to do is turn the morphine injector up to 11, and she'll just drift off to sleep.
I do what she asks.
My mum died in early 2014, and I remember seeing her in the bed we moved downstairs for her just after. Seeing Chloe like this brought that all back. I just sat and stared at the screen crying for a while. But we push on because we have to.
We jump back to 2008, and burn the photograph William took, leaving him to his fate. And we leap back to...
Back in Chloe's room, we give her the morphine, then go over some old photos together, laughing and reminiscing over better times, when Chloe asks us to do the impossible. She knows about her respiratory condition, knows she doesn't have long left. All we have to do is turn the morphine injector up to 11, and she'll just drift off to sleep.
I do what she asks.
My mum died in early 2014, and I remember seeing her in the bed we moved downstairs for her just after. Seeing Chloe like this brought that all back. I just sat and stared at the screen crying for a while. But we push on because we have to.
We jump back to 2008, and burn the photograph William took, leaving him to his fate. And we leap back to...
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The decision whether to euthanize Chloe fucking broke me, man. My favorite touch is that they give you a third "I don't know" option before making the final call. It was the hardest choice I've ever had to make in a video game.
That scene still chokes me up when I watch it to this day.
What a wonderful game this is. It truly left a mark on me, and I doubt that I'll ever stop thinking about it.
That scene still chokes me up when I watch it to this day.
What a wonderful game this is. It truly left a mark on me, and I doubt that I'll ever stop thinking about it.
Episode 4: Dark Room - Thursday 10th October - Part 3
Thank you Amanda Palmer.
We've made it back to the main timeline, and Chloe's still here! Apparently we were up all night trying to piece together the mystery during our 'jump' to the alternate timeline, is time advancing in all timelines at once? Never mind that, we've got Rachel Amber to find and Nathan Prescott to take down. There's a few things we need to do to crack this case, though it looks like Step 3 is already partially there. Man, David looks beaten. I kinda feel bad for him.
But with him out of the way, we're able to break into his locker, and find the jackpot. His stash of files. He's been up to something, probably working with the Prescott's, but whatever it is can't be good. However, before we get on with that, there's a special someone we have to go visit.
Episode 4: Dark Room - Thursday 10th October - Part 4
I'm not wholly convinced as to the overall merits of the Episodic Game yet, but in situations like this, where the devs can adapt the later episodes in response to fan reaction, it certainly pays off. Getting to see Kate at the hospital is a real treat, a much needed one after the start of the episode. Even if it doesn't lead to a huge amount of plot development, it's still the sort of emotional payoff you want and need. Max actually can help someone!
For sure. Like I said earlier, I've played all manner of games that raise the stakes to enormous levels, but Life is Strange takes the stakes down to human levels, and is all the more devastating for it. It's gonna stick with me forever I hope.
I'm not wholly convinced as to the overall merits of the Episodic Game yet, but in situations like this, where the devs can adapt the later episodes in response to fan reaction, it certainly pays off. Getting to see Kate at the hospital is a real treat, a much needed one after the start of the episode. Even if it doesn't lead to a huge amount of plot development, it's still the sort of emotional payoff you want and need. Max actually can help someone!
Best of all girls. I was so happy to to see that scene when I got there.
I failed to save Kate on my play-through. Felt bad. I partly made up for it by saving everyone in the town at the end.