Re: The Ooooh Shiny Gamer - Gone Home
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 10:45 amShadowman wrote:carytheone wrote:It's that time again when I play yet another game without finishing any of my other games. Bah! I'm a PS+ member so that doesn't help my easily distracted issues any.
So there is a game that I've wanted to play since I've heard about it. I'm kind of a cheap ass and most indie games either become one of the "free" PS+ games are get severe discounts. Guess what I got this month:
Paint me excited!
If you don't know anything about this game, then stay that way, go find a copy for your gaming system of choice and play it. If you want to know more then I'll give you just a bit more. It's what the kids would "a walking simulator" (goddammit CoD). Think MYST if you're old enough. All I will tell you is that you explore a house and there is a mystery to be solved. I finished it about 5 hours (probably cause I like to take my time and enjoy a game). And if you want just more than my seal of approval, my wife applauded as the credits rolled
seriously
Click here to be taken to the game's website and find you a copy! DO IT! PLAY IT! Then come back and thank me later.
The problem is that there's nothing to the game outside of walking around and picking up stuff to get a tidbit of the story. And that the story itself isn't even that good, spoiler alert: The family went out and the little sister stole everything of value to elope with her girlfriend. Nothing you do matters. There is no mystery to solve, you don't impact the plot. It's worth nothing I utterly despise stories that can be solved by the protagonist not being present.
And the atmosphere is a lie! Unlike, say Amnesia, which also uses the fear that something might happen, until it eventually does and all subsequent feelings of paranoia are then justified, Gone Home doesn't have that. It pretends to be a horror game just for marketing, and then fails to deliver. It's like Five Nights at Freddy's but all the animatronics stay right where they are and all you do is find out what Phone Guy was doing.
But the worst thing, the absolutely worst thing is the people with dramatically low standards who praise this games because of this "Games as art" mentality, and think it's just the "CoD generation" bashing the game. It's like the biggest "**** you." Because apparently I have standards and I don't want to play a trash walking simulator because a bunch of reviewers were paid off to love it, apparently that must mean I have no standards at all.
It's not a good game. There is nothing anyone, anywhere, could possibly say to convince me otherwise. It's a half-assed piece of crap and they only got away with it by duping people into it by invoking "games as art."
You know what I finished the other night? Fallout 4: Far Harbor. The Island itself is legitimately creepy, covered in a rad-heavy fog and populated with angry abominations. (Not helped by the fact that I was in my 50s, so the game sent the really nasty stuff after me) You actions have proper impact and determine how the story plays out and concludes, and there's a serious ambiguity about everything. (Is Kasumi really a synth? Is the Sole Survivor really human? Is DiMA good or is he has bad as Tektus? Is Far Harbor itself worth saving or should you just burn it to the ground? That's up to you to decide) All this from a $25 DLC that took me a monumental 18 hours to complete. (Some full games don't last that long, no DLC is expected to last that long, but Bethesda delivers) You know, everything Gone Home wanted to be, but without lying or half-assing it, and for a mere $5 more.
I got Gone Home on the Xbox One and it's pretty boring IMHO.
I guess I would be let down after playing the vastly superior Life is Strange: Season 1 first. Which has a great story, characters, tons of different choices that can affect various outcomes, setting, and a heartbreaking ending that actually works.
Gone Home feels like it's trying to sell me the house that it takes place in and I don't feel invested or even care for the character. While I want to see what happens to not only the main characters in Life is Strange but all the supporting characters and the residents of the town of Arcadia Bay as well.
Fallout 4: Far Harbor is as Shadowman pointed out very creepy and morally grey and is really Bethesda's best story they ever done.
Gone Home is a curiosity that got a lot press because they wanted something different and because it dealt with some controversial subject matter in a way that if you didn't know the sister was a lesbian then you're the wrong person to play it. Life is Strange: Season 1 dealt with depression, suicide, harassment, bulling, drugs, and the morality of time travel in a frank and honest way.
