Α 'special' game!
It seems that the success of the recipe that Telltale used in its games greatly influenced the studio, which slowly began to adopt it and apply it to their games. Dontnod Entertainment is a French studio created in 2008 by members who worked at Ubisoft, EA and -ex- Criterion. In 2013 they released their first game, "Remember Me", which took a medium score by critics and audience. This obviously changed their strategy, so they decided to follow an interesting adventure model for their games. The result is an episodic-interactive drama graphic adventure called Life is Strange.
The story of the game is about Max Caulfield, a teenage girl who returned from Seattle where she lived with her family for the past five years, in her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, as a photography student at Blackwell Academy. Max is a typical eighteen-year-old girl where as a freshman she tries to acclimatize to her new world, with all the 'youthful' worries possessing her, such as making new friends, rebuilding relationships with old friends she left behind, choosing classes that suit her, trying to approach the popular children of the school etc. The game starts to get really interesting when the supernatural element makes its appearance.
Max experiences a vision while in class, where the city is attacked by a huge tornado and later she discovers that she has the power to manipulate time. This is exactly the touch that Dontnod Entertainment want us to experience and gives the gameplay of Life is Strange its own identity, making it stand out. Max has the ability to turn back in time so she can change the flow of dialogues, solve mini-puzzles, and prevent or trigger events.
Of course, every action of hers has a direct or long-term impact, which at that moment may seem ideal or insignificant, but later it may turn against her. Which puts us in very difficult and uncomfortable dilemmas. This is something I personally loved about the game as we are not just observers of a story unfolding on our screen but our actions seem to have a real impact on the future which we will obviously see in the next episodes.
Another interesting thing is the disappearance of a student that most characters seem to know, as she is an extremely beautiful and popular girl, but no one can explain why she disappeared. This makes us suspect everyone. It gives us the feeling that they are hiding something, maybe a secret that every town keeps for itself. The game has a light scent of Alan Wake and Twin Peaks, which personally makes my imagination rage about how the script could evolve.
Visuals have nothing special to offer. Life is Strange uses Unreal Engine 3 (pretty outdated), but I think in this kind of game graphics are not a major point. However, they should have paid a little more attention to the lip sync because at times it's not that good. The dialogues on the other hand are quite good. The selected actors have experience from previous games, such as Hannah Telle (Max Caulfield) in Murdered: Soul Suspect and Ashly Burch (Chloe Price) in Borderlands 2, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell.
In terms of sound, I would say that i really enjoyed the game in headphones. Composer Jonathan Morali has perfectly captured the mystery, the agony, the anxiety and the fear of the average American teenager through an amazing soundtrack!
Box Art
Tested on : PC
Developer : Dontnod Entertainment
Publisher : Square Enix
Available for : PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360
