Life Is Strange

I wanted to share a very unique game I just finished playing. The game is called Life Is Strange, and it takes you on quite the incredible journey.

Set in a fictional coastal town in Oregon, you play as a 18 year old girl (Max) attending her senior year at a private school. Max is interested in photography and she hopes for her photos to one day become famous. While in a photography class, Max witnesses some bizarre events and discovers she has the power to rewind time. While struggling to understand what is happening she realizes she can use this power to save lives and help right wrongs. The game reminds me of the old point and click adventure games popular in the 90s, but instead is set in 3rd person view. The whole create your own adventure genre is rarely seen today (sandbox games don't really count as create your own story line). The game is played out over 5 Episodes, each Episode representing one day's time in the game.

It is essentially a coming of age story and many moments you experience while playing, might remind you of things you recall from your own past. Events that happened to you (or people you knew) growing up. The story and artwork really brings you in and you feel part of this immersive world. The soundtrack is also very well done. The characters and the relationships you experience with them make you relate to everything that is happening. I have played very few games that made me care about each character and how the consequences of your actions (or lack of action) have massive effects (good, bad, and grey areas). You go through some emotionally powerful sequences in the game which help bring you further and further into its world. For instance, the choices you make in one episode, will be impact later episodes. Chaos Theory and Cause/Effect are very prevalent in Life Is Strange.

While it has its cliche moments and the dialog options aren't anything to brag about, the game still holds up very well. Life Is Strange has plenty of Easter eggs and pop culture references so you get some laughs throughout playing. Strong foreshadowing is present and you begin to find yourself thinking ahead about what major event will occur due to your investigating and rewinding time. Some of the puzzles presented are quite thought provoking and difficult, even with the ability to time travel back to fix your mistakes. Sometimes it takes multiple tries to fix something as you may have missed a small detail. Plot twists happen unexpectedly as you change time, which have the tendency to bring more questions than answers. The first 4 Episodes are very good, but I do feel the game's ending could have been handled somewhat differently. I won't reveal any spoilers, but there are 2 (technically 3, which is a slight variation of another ending) endings. Some players were disappointed by the lack of endings but in my own experience, I subconsciously predicted what would have to be done to end the game. The choice is yours to make and the developers said all endings are considered canon. What people were upset about is that no good ending and no bad ending exist. They all fall in a grey area which definitely plays with your emotions. Nevertheless, given the journey you take from the game, and if you feel a connection to the story and its characters, you will probably respect the endings that were presented.

Steam has Episode 1 for free so I definitely recommend trying it out. Life Is Strange has a good story, strong plot, and some crazy unexpected twists. If you don't want to play the Windows version, there is a Linux, Mac, PlayStation 3/4, and Xbox360/Xbox One versions as well.

For those that have played the game, please do not post any spoilers. If you want to talk about the plot we can start a group PM.