Life is Strange
Episode 1: Chrysalis
Let's see how far this rabbit hole goes...
Life is strange is a take on the new wave of multiple choice adventure games that Telltale have become so well known for. Telltale has been dominating the gaming market over the past 4 years and you can't go very far anywhere in the gaming community without seeing a title of theirs advertised.
Que. Square enix who have decided to profit from this side of gaming. Life is strange is their title and it defiantly brings a new level to the multiple choice, multiple endings dynamic that Telltale established years ago.
Enter Max Caulfield and her bizarre journey
Our protagonist. A shy, nerdy, quirky and relatively innocent girl just turned 18 and accepted into the prestigious Blackwell Academy in her hometown of Arcadia, Oregon. The game begins with a dream sequence in which Max is wondering through Arcadia Bay towards a lighthouse in the middle of a storm. Well I call it a storm, it looks more like an extinction level tornado is tearing through Arcadia Bay. Max gets a front row seat to the destruction of her hometown and of course gets hit by the lighthouse falling on her and then she wakes up. A good start honestly.
After a weird ass dream, Max awakes in her photography class headed by a famous Photographer turned Professor, Mark Jefferson. This particular teacher reminded me of my own University tutor Richard Billingham and some of the questions I knew the answers to in real life. It made me tell Max the answers even though there wasn't an option to do so. Not at first anyway.
Once class is concluded you have the option to wander around the classroom looking at various things including work from other students. Max eventually decides to get herself together in the bathroom before her next class. Must be pretty stressful being a wall flower. Its only when you enter the bathroom that things get weird.
Butterfly effect
So long story short, A guy murders a girl in the bathroom and Max is witness to it. She tries to reach out and stop him but ends up reversing time. Max reawakens back in the classroom and is this time able to answer all of the questions correctly instead of looking foolish. Eventually she manages to get back to the bathroom and prevents the guy, Nathan Prescott, from murdering the girl.
Its at this point that you have your first major choice in the game pop up and these choices really do come home to roast later on. The choices you make even little insignificant ones have big ramifications down the line. As you wander around the campus there are various people you can talk to and decisions to make and thanks to your time powers if your not sure of an answer you can always go back to try a different response. This makes for an interesting mechanic as you can be extra bitchy and then go back and undo it.
For the purposes of spoiler prevention I won't go into full detail about it. Suffice to say stuff goes down and the game begins.
Its a wonderful life
Life is strange episode 1 does a lot of things right. It sets you up for the duration of the series, it quickly establishes who is suspicious and why, it delivers some hard hitting feelings immediately and has you empathising with most of the characters you meet and the choices you make while not apparent straight away carry enormous weight later on. Max is also a relatable character at least to me she was. She is not strong or stylised as being you typical main character, I always had a sense that she was like glass try to hard to bend it and it will break. The supporting characters are what make up Max as a character, how they interact with her and subsequently how she interacts with them shape the way she is represented. Be a bitch and you're a bitch, be nice and social and you're just that.
The numerous ways in which things are represented as well, the double meanings that get lost in translation are what make the game great. The butterfly that you see at the beginning for example, represents the butterfly effect in which decisions you make even seemingly normal effortless decisions have huge consequences. That is a juxtaposition between Max and her new time powers. Reading between the lines is a big thing in Life is strange as you can learn a whole lot from it.
Next time on Life is strange....
As is tradition each game gives you a small glimpse of what is to come. Again alluding to the whole time ability.
Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis. As far as game beginnings go it started off really well, with lots of different decisions to be made and despite the fact you can change those decisions it had me really thinking about my decisions. That is the mark of a good game, the ones that make you think.
This game also shows a lot of promise and charm that others don't and while the title is neutral and doesn't reveal a whole lot it covers up the darker tone that LIS can have. I love the Avant Garde way in which each thing is represented and the photography was a nice touch reminding me of my days as a student. My only regret is that I wish my life was a strange as Max's but I digress.
If your looking for a simple, fun, deep and interesting experience and somehow find yourself without anything to play recently I suggest giving Life is Strange a run for its money. I promise you want be disappointed.
Once class is concluded you have the option to wander around the classroom looking at various things including work from other students. Max eventually decides to get herself together in the bathroom before her next class. Must be pretty stressful being a wall flower. Its only when you enter the bathroom that things get weird.
Butterfly effect
So long story short, A guy murders a girl in the bathroom and Max is witness to it. She tries to reach out and stop him but ends up reversing time. Max reawakens back in the classroom and is this time able to answer all of the questions correctly instead of looking foolish. Eventually she manages to get back to the bathroom and prevents the guy, Nathan Prescott, from murdering the girl.
Its at this point that you have your first major choice in the game pop up and these choices really do come home to roast later on. The choices you make even little insignificant ones have big ramifications down the line. As you wander around the campus there are various people you can talk to and decisions to make and thanks to your time powers if your not sure of an answer you can always go back to try a different response. This makes for an interesting mechanic as you can be extra bitchy and then go back and undo it.
For the purposes of spoiler prevention I won't go into full detail about it. Suffice to say stuff goes down and the game begins.
Its a wonderful life
Life is strange episode 1 does a lot of things right. It sets you up for the duration of the series, it quickly establishes who is suspicious and why, it delivers some hard hitting feelings immediately and has you empathising with most of the characters you meet and the choices you make while not apparent straight away carry enormous weight later on. Max is also a relatable character at least to me she was. She is not strong or stylised as being you typical main character, I always had a sense that she was like glass try to hard to bend it and it will break. The supporting characters are what make up Max as a character, how they interact with her and subsequently how she interacts with them shape the way she is represented. Be a bitch and you're a bitch, be nice and social and you're just that.
The numerous ways in which things are represented as well, the double meanings that get lost in translation are what make the game great. The butterfly that you see at the beginning for example, represents the butterfly effect in which decisions you make even seemingly normal effortless decisions have huge consequences. That is a juxtaposition between Max and her new time powers. Reading between the lines is a big thing in Life is strange as you can learn a whole lot from it.
Next time on Life is strange....
As is tradition each game gives you a small glimpse of what is to come. Again alluding to the whole time ability.
Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis. As far as game beginnings go it started off really well, with lots of different decisions to be made and despite the fact you can change those decisions it had me really thinking about my decisions. That is the mark of a good game, the ones that make you think.
This game also shows a lot of promise and charm that others don't and while the title is neutral and doesn't reveal a whole lot it covers up the darker tone that LIS can have. I love the Avant Garde way in which each thing is represented and the photography was a nice touch reminding me of my days as a student. My only regret is that I wish my life was a strange as Max's but I digress.
If your looking for a simple, fun, deep and interesting experience and somehow find yourself without anything to play recently I suggest giving Life is Strange a run for its money. I promise you want be disappointed.
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