Game of the Month: Life
is Strange: Before the Storm
I get the feeling
that when I look back in time on my gaming experiences in 2018, one thing I’ll
remember very strongly will be that this year, I fell in love with the Life
is Strange franchise. I played the main game twice after picking it up for
pennies in the January sale; played The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
when it released in June; and though I’m not quite ready to start Life is
Strange 2 just yet, it will almost certainly be one of my first gaming
purchases of 2019. In the meantime, though, I have the Deluxe Edition of Life
is Strange: Before the Storm to keep me hooked on this wonderful, wistful
world.
Before the Storm takes place, as the name would
suggest, three years before the first game and its central environmental
catastrophe. It’s 2010, main game protagonist Max has been gone from the town
of Arcadia Bay for two years, and Max’s childhood best friend Chloe is starting
to realise that Max seems to be dodging her calls and texts. Chloe’s dad
William died shortly before Max moved away, and it’s fair to say Chloe hasn’t
been the same since these twin traumas befell her: in two years she’s gone from
a seemingly happy and well-adjusted tween to a classic bad girl in the making,
complete with underage consumption of beer and cigarettes, petty theft, and
failing grades. All of this is not helped by the fact that her mother is dating
a man she can’t stand, an unemployed veteran who seems to be stealthily moving
in with them, and is aggressive in his assertions that he will be taking
William’s place as Chloe’s father-figure. For anyone who played Life is
Strange first, this is predictable enough: it reaffirms canon and explores
Chloe’s history without adding a bunch of new details that feel like they
should have come up in the original (a major pitfall for prequels in my
experience).
The central event of
the game is Chloe’s burgeoning relationship with Rachel Amber, the Laura Palmer
figure of the heavily Twin Peaks-inspired Life is Strange
universe, whose disappearance creates much of the driving force for the first
game’s plot. Chloe and Rachel both attend Blackwell Academy and are known to
each other, but only begin to bond after meeting at an illicit underground
music gig that they both sneak into despite being underage. Chloe, at this
point, exists halfway between her own personality and Max’s from Life is
Strange. She already has her interest in alternative music and general air
of rebellion, but is also far more insecure: repeatedly insisting that she has
no friends to share her passions with, and finding herself far more easily
intimidated by anger and threats of violence than she will be in time. Her
appearance is even reminiscent of Max’s: she hasn’t yet adopted her iconic
blue-and-pink dye job and ever-present beanie hat, leaving her with short mousy
blonde hair a lot like her friend’s; and her dress style is a more conservative
jeans-and-tee look that has still to evolve into fully-fledged punk. Rachel,
meanwhile, is very much to Chloe what Chloe will later become to Max: the
effortlessly cool and confident friend who gives the illusion of being powerful
and in control of her own destiny, even though this is far from the reality of
her situation.
Since Rachel never
directly appears in Life is Strange, she’s one of the few characters Before
the Storm is able to build more or less from the ground up. Another is
Eliot, a guy who seems to believe that he’s Chloe’s boyfriend, who wasn’t even
mentioned in the original game (no prizes for guessing whether that
relationship works out or not). While the first game left the details slightly
hazy, the implication that Chloe is either actually gay, or else bi with a
strong preference for women, is made even more obvious here. Chloe’s diary,
framed as a series of letters to Max that she will never send, talks directly
about her sexual interest in women, which combined with her use of romantic
terms to describe her attachment to Rachel leaves little room for doubt as to
who she’s really interested in. Unlike Life is Strange, which limited
you to a little ambiguous flirting and one kiss “on a dare” between Max and
Chloe, it’s possible to play Chloe’s relationship with Rachel as a full-blown
love affair, and the stats reveal that this is what at least 75% of players
chose to do. As someone who was never Max’s biggest fan but loved Chloe, I was
shipping Chloe/Rachel since I played the first game; and my squeals of girlish
delight whenever Rachel shows interest in me… um… that is, in Chloe,
have to be heard to be believed. Theirs is a beautiful love story in Before
the Storm. Even the knowledge that the events of Life is Strange are
only three years away, and will end with Rachel betraying Chloe before coming
to her own tragic end, surprisingly don’t take the shine off of their budding
romance for me. It’s an incredibly teenaged relationship that probably wouldn’t
have lasted in the real world, and so its eventual breakdown feels authentic;
but it’s a very well-written example of its kind, and furthermore captures the
feeling of a romance between two young women incredibly well.
Before the Storm is the only game in the Life is
Strange franchise (to date) not developed by Dontnod, though the
environments and character models are copied across directly, so it’s a pretty
seamless change from a visual perspective. There’s an audible difference,
however, because due to a union strike none of the original voice actors return
in the main three episodes; though Hannah Telle and Ashly Burch voice Max and
Chloe again in the bonus episode, a prequel to the prequel set in 2008. (The
latter also contributed to the writing of BtS, ensuring that Chloe’s
character was handled with love and understanding.) While many fan reactions
ranged from disappointment to plain distraction at the change, I actually found
it helped to enhance some aspects of the game; principally, the unreliable
narrator status that must be attributed to both Max and Chloe after seeing the
setting and characters from their differing points of view. One of the most
surprising differences between their interpretations was in Chloe’s mother
Joyce. Max sees her as a perfect mother, filled with limitless compassion and
only tested by Chloe’s extremities of misbehaviour; while Chloe sees a woman
with a sharper tongue and shorter patience, who has a tendency to make poor
decisions that impact on her daughter more than she is willing to admit. What’s
wonderful is that neither interpretation needs to cancel out the other: the
fact that Joyce’s relationship with David had a genuinely bad impact on Chloe
can be inferred in the first game, and is just made more explicit by Chloe’s
refusal to see Joyce as a victim to the degree that Max does. The slightly
different intonations given to Joyce by Cissy Jones (LiS) and Bootsie
Park (BtS) help to emphasise this subtle shift in perspective. The game
is full of clever little hints like these, without ever bashing you over the
head with them, leaving you to decide for yourself whether Max, Chloe, both, or
neither were ultimately “right” in their ideas about Arcadia Bay and its
denizens.
Because November was
another busy month in my life, I only managed to play the first two episodes of
Before the Storm, leaving me with the finale and the bonus still to go.
I simultaneously can’t wait to play the rest and want to put it off for as long
as possible, because at the two-thirds mark the story feels as happy as it’s
going to get: Chloe and Rachel just had their first kiss and vowed to run away
from their unhappy homes together, which obviously I know can’t happen in a
prequel, but seeing it all derailed is going to be a painful process. Maybe
it’s just my aforementioned preference for Chloe over Max, but I’m actually
enjoying Before the Storm even more than the original Life is Strange,
despite its poorer critical performance and the fact that no-one has any
superpowers. (Or do they? Rachel seems pretty witchy, and I’ve always had my
pet theory about who really caused the storm in the original… But that’s
a digression for another time.) There’s something achingly beautiful about the
earnest but immature Chloe stumbling ever closer to disaster without realising
it; an unselfconsciousness that Max’s awkwardness always got in the way of when
she was driving the narrative. Maybe it’s just that I’m a sucker for a
well-done prequel to bring on the doomed-love feels; producing one that is both
canonically consistent and not too self-indulgent is a rare talent, but one
that the makers of this game possess in abundance.
Hallentineoween!
I’ve heard Halloween
referred to as “Goth Christmas”, but I think there’s an argument for calling it
“Goth Valentine’s” instead. While most countercultural geeks of my acquaintance
embrace Christmas with enthusiasm, not many of us bother with Valentine’s Day
in my experience. However, you’d be forgiven for suspecting that Halloween is
the holiday that gets us in a romantic mood, judging by the fact that
alternative dating simulators Monster Prom and Dream Daddy both
came out with an update in the final week of October 2018.
The announcement of Monster
Prom’s “That October Holiday” Update didn’t come as much of a surprise: the
game was released back in April and has enjoyed near-constant support and
community engagement since, including the “F*ckin’ Hot” Summer Update back in
June; and, as the devs themselves put it, how could a supernatural-themed
dating sim not do something big to celebrate their first Halloween? New
content includes a time-limited Halloween-themed home screen for the game;
temporary Halloween outfits for all the characters (who, since they’re all
monsters already, have just come dressed as each other); and a new secret
ending which is creepy and grim in the extreme, and immediately became one of
my favourites because I am a sick, twisted individual. The new path also
includes a significant amount of voiceover work by Arin Hanson and Sarah Williams,
who play Scott and Polly, including a new end credits song that replaces Mike
Krol’s now-iconic “Fifteen Minutes” if you manage to trigger this Very Special
Halloween Ending.
More surprising was
the announcement of Dream Daddy: The Dadrector’s Cut. After last year’s
rumoured Halloween DLC for the game never materialised, most players had
written off the idea of the game continuing to evolve, especially as the
developers had announced console ports as their immediate priority. However, on
October 30th the Dadrector’s Cut launched on PS4, as well as being added
to the Steam version as a free update to the base game.
All well and good,
you might ask, but what makes this Halloween-y? Well: the press release
promises “new sidequests, previously cut content, and a brand new minigame” -
and for anyone who’s been following Dream Daddy for a while, that “cut
content” comment seems like a pretty clear reference to the infamous “cult
ending”. Despite the nightmarish “Escape from Margaritaville” ending to
Joseph’s route being a visible presence - both in the Steam achievements and
within the game’s code - since it launched last summer, there was no way to get
the ending or unlock the achievement legitimately in-game. One school of
thought held that it was the outline for an upcoming Halloween DLC, while
others thought that it was merely a creepy Easter Egg for anyone poking about
in the game’s files. However, the trailer for the Dadrector’s Cut
included a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frame at the very end, with Joseph standing
in the sinister dungeon environment from those same hidden files, which is hard
to interpret as anything other than a knowing nod to the fans who’d been
anticipating its release. Whether this equates to the ending being made
officially available in the game remains to be seen - the internet is keeping
remarkably quiet about it - but I’ve started a new game to sample the updated
content anyway, and plan to see what I can uncover.
To complete the
trinity of spooky dating simulators, I also finally started playing Doki-Doki
Literature Club! this month. A much truer example of the visual novel genre
than either Dream Daddy or Monster Prom, DDLC! is 90%
clicking through a story on the screen and 10% deciding which girl you want to
date, and how to go about winning her affections. It’s also allegedly one of
the most disturbing psychological horror games in years; I haven’t actually got
to the point where the scares kick in yet, but knowing it’s going to happen at
some point ratchets up the tension in what appears to be a cutesy and generic
tale of high school romance to an unbelievable level. (In case you’re wondering
- my character is dating Yuri, the cripplingly shy purple-haired bookworm who
keeps writing me poems about ghosts. What could possibly go wrong?!)
RIP Stan Lee
As a Marvel geek I
was saddened this month to learn of the passing of Stan Lee, the creative mind
behind much of the Marvel multiverse and arguably the face of the brand, who
died at the impressive age of 95. The end of a life that was both so long and
so well lived is as much a time for reflection and celebration as mourning, and
as a fan I could think of nothing more fitting than to turn to one of my
favourite Marvel creations - LEGO Marvel Superheroes (the original and 2)
- and systematically work my way through the map, saving LEGO Stan Lee (a
character voiced by the man himself) from every wacky peril the little sprite
finds himself in. Excelsior!
The Steampunkiest
Time of the Year
Christmas may seem
right around the corner, but there’s one tradition that keeps the festive
season from encroaching into my orbit too early: Steampunks in Space, an annual
steampunk/sci-fi convention held every last weekend in November at the National
Space Centre in Leicester, my original stomping ground. Its whimsical
Victoriana combined with a Doctor Who fixation makes it perfect for
getting you into the Christmas spirit, and it’s such a fun event that I usually
spent most of November getting excited for it, so my festive spirit doesn’t
peak before its time.
In that vein, I was
determined to play something at least tangentially steampunky this month, which
is why I once again picked up The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve
been replaying this one on-and-off since last Christmas with the hope of
earning its Platinum trophy (which I am happy to say I finally achieved, with
two days of November to spare). The game in itself isn’t especially
steampunk-themed, but Sherlock Holmes stories are a huge influence on the
steampunk genre (plus a major obsession of mine). That being said, the game’s
finale takes place in an abandoned circus that’s been converted into a factory
producing poisoned soup to generate an epidemic among the poor in a move to
undermine Queen Victoria and stage a coup… which is a plot so cracked surely
only a steampunk author could have come up with it.
I also used this
Platinum run to boost my hype for The Sinking City, another Frogwares
game (this one inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft) that’s coming out in
March and is the top of my 2019 to-play list. Other than that, I gush about the
Frogwares Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series so much there’s not
really much to add here, except to plug the article I wrote about it earlier
this year on Blanket Den, as well as my own flash reviews of the franchise.
The Sims Corner
Last month, I left
the Goth family all attempting to seduce their respective vampiric paramours
(save for young Alexander, who was too busy trying to negotiate with the
monster under the bed). November continued along the same lines: Mortimer,
Bella, and Cassandra would build up a relationship with Caleb, Lilith, or
Vadislav; flirt outrageously; do all the required reading (yes, really); and
then asked to be turned into a vampire… and be roundly rejected. It looks like
the acceptance stats for the “Ask to Turn” interaction must be super high.
Luckily, I’ve turned ageing off, so they’ve got as long as they want to work on
it.
Meanwhile, the Black
Friday sales saw some pretty generous deals on Expansion Packs and Game Packs
(but not Stuff Packs) for The Sims 4 on the Origin store. I was
intrigued when Jungle Adventure came out earlier this year, so I treated
myself amidst all the Christmas shopping. After spending too long in
Create-A-Sim like always, I had a passable Sim Lara Croft heading out into the
unknown wilds of Selvadorada, a new vacation destination that comes with the
pack. Jungle Adventure has been accused of feeling empty compared to
some of the other game packs, and I can certainly see where those reviewers
were coming from. Huge and intriguing and beautiful environments in the early
stages of the Selvadorada jungle end up having only a few interactable spots,
with the (presumably) more exciting stuff locked behind new skill checks that
can only be beaten through an amount of grinding. But nevertheless, I’m
enjoying myself: playing archaeologist and tourist at once, without leaving the
comfort of my living room or retraining for years, is a pleasant novelty; and
avoiding game guides for the jungle locations means that I can enjoy the
exploration with no more idea than my character as to what’s around the corner.
Plus it’s hilarious when she gets covered in bugs, though presumably still a
lot more pleasant than anything her official counterpart has experienced in the
last three entries in her franchise.
Lara Croft: Relic Run: Oh, F**k, An Update Has Broken The
Game
Speaking of my
favourite tomb raider: the section title on this one says it all, really. Early
on in November Lara Croft: Relic Run received an update that has not
played well with my 11-month-old phone. Everything from the thumbnail to the
colour saturation on the in-game graphics is now slightly off, with the
added dissatisfaction that it now crashes if I’m in a level for more than a
couple of minutes (which I sort of have to be to finish them…). Even the
tried-and-trusted method of switching it off and on again a few times has
failed to yield results, so for now I guess it’s back to regular old non-mobile
gaming for me.
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