Until Dawn

We should have played as Josh more, I think. His hallucinations could have added even more to the game, particularly before the player is informed of them.

Am I alone in thinking Emily's trip through the mines crossed the line twice into hilarity? I mean, she's a total b-word throughout the game, and then all of this gets thrown at her all at once.

Well I guess it can be found funny...

Until you make her drop into the rock grinder

As much as I hated Jess and Emily at the beginning I really felt bad for them because of the hell they go through.

I have to wonder why the stranger didn't bring someone in and show them his collection of Wendigo cages at some point before the games and why none of the survivors tell the police about the Wendigos despite telling them to head into the mines on the mountain.

The kids are clearly traumatized and not thinking clearly. I think they DID mention the Wendigos, but no one believed them anyway. Hence why the Police investigate. Which is why their arguments at the end of "No one should see the horror in the mines! Don't believe me? Look for yourself!" make no sense; they're not thinking clearly and sleep deprived and all sorts of messed up

I seriously doubt that the police would just completely ignore the group's explanation about what happened that injured/killed members of their group and forced them to detonate the lodge. At least they'll probably take the reports a bit more seriously in the endings where Josh is a Wendigo and kills a few of them.

So the best ending comes in 2 flavors for me. Everybody Lives except for Josh, and Sam being the Sole Survivor.

Josh living only results in the curse continuing with him, so he has to die. Everyone else living and picking the most sympathetic dialogue paths means they become better than the people whose prank led to Beth and Hanna's death, Sam being the only one to live works as well for me because she's the most heroic and had nothing to do with the prank. I suppose I can add Chris and Matt to this as well, since they were downstairs with Josh when the prank happened.

edited 11th Oct '15 1:09:59 PM by VeryMelon

Matt was actually the one recording the prank. Chris was the only one downstairs with Josh.

I was wondering who the camera man was. Okay then, Matt's death is acceptable as an ending.

I'm still trying to figure out of Mike and Emily actually were cheating. I haven't seen any undeniable proof besides the scene at the very beginning which we don't have undeniable context for. And, if you push a confrontation while on the tower, Em freaks out and never admits to it exactly and once could interpret it as being under duress and just saying what Matt wanted to here to get off the tower and to safety.

EDIT:

A few things bug me about the beginning too.

Ok, we see Sam get off the bus and we see the same guy with the machete that we saw outside during the prologue. We know it HAS to have been Flamethrower Guy because EVERYONE else was in the Lodge during the Prologue. And it can't be Josh because Josh is passed out in the prologue and, during the game proper, he's already up the mountain by that point.

So what is Flamethrower Guy doing at the bottom of the mountain by the road? And how did he get back up the mountain without anyone noticing? He couldn't have simply followed in the Cable Car because A) someone would notice and, from his perspective, Josh might know about him and thus call the cops for harassment or trespassing if he's seen, B) How would he be able to start the cable car anyway assuming it was shut off once everyone got on the mountain, and C) assuming he did use the Cable Car, Jess and Mike were at the station for awhile and should have noticed.

Another thing, Chris leaves a message on the gate saying 'Gate's broken, climb over'. But we later see Matt and Emily hauling luggage up the mountain after the cable car. How did they get their heavy suitcases (Why are there so many for just a weekend???) over the gate?

Last thing, we get to the Lodge and find that the door is locked and there's no way in, so Chris climbs in a window and goes to thaw the lock with an improvised flame thrower. However, we know later that Josh has probably been coming to the Lodge months in advance to set up the 'prank' and presumably has been up there for the last few days getting everything in order. So, how could the lock have frozen in only a short period of time instead of months like we're initially meant to believe?

I still question how the wolf got in (and, TBH, I noticed that Josh was shown coming out of the woods and up the stairs just seconds later so I totally through there'd be a werewolf plot twist coming), but I suppose it could have gotten in through the basement tunnels somehow??? Only logical explanation I can come up with. Kind of odd that no one else questioned it though.

edited 21st Sep '15 4:32:09 PM by InkDagger

I don't think any cheating was going on. Mike was comforting Emily, sure, but I can't say they actually had sex or something like that.

I just beat the game. Everyone lived.

I'm probably gonna do another playthrough with Ashley letting Chris die in chapter eight, Mike shooting Emily, and Matt abandoning Jessica then failing to get away from the door in time so I can feel totally fine with Sam blowing everyone the fuck up in the end.

I beat the game with everyone living on my first playthrough, mostly by accident. There were a couple mistakes that I had to quit to the PS 4 menu to fix, but that was well over halfway through the game and had realized that I was on my way to a perfect survival rate by then.

The first two were simple gameplay errors that I felt weren't particularly fair to punish me for (when Chris is on his way back from Flamethrower Man getting killed, I couldn't figure out where my reticle was on the last Wendigo before the house and ran out of time, and another that was a Don't Move segment with Emily where I was already moving (shifting position to get more comfortable) when the prompt came up). After that, it was mostly just little things that I realized too late would screw up my goal.

Next runthrough will be getting everyone killed, with Chris and Emily in specific ways, because of trophies. And then one where I get all the totems and clues (I somehow missed two in all three categories, as well as a whole bunch of totems).

Smosh delivers.

Ben gives his feelings on the game.

I thimk he's right that this could be the genre that choices work best in; They emerse you significantly more into the roles in having to make quick under pressure choices and the illusion of choice is significantly more flexible.

For example, while its true that the game doesn't have significantly more variation between the choices; the smaller things are fairly good which can even add depth to other parts. Sam runs into the same bed and carpet from the room Hannah was pranked in and choosing to hide under it gets you caught by the Psycho. In other cases, Matt might never even consider that Emily might be (still no absolute confirmation) cheating on him.

The minute differences are interesting and they don't ruin my suspence of disbelief since, logically, I shouldn't expect stabbing the Psycho with a pair of scissors to do all that much.

I would be really curious about a potential sequel that could refine things and explore the concepts deeper. Plus, you know, this time maybe playing with the tropes a bit more.

edited 12th Oct '15 11:58:38 AM by InkDagger

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/until-dawn-dlc-is-possible-but-dont-expect-vr-vers/1100-6431374/?ftag=YHRe6a6b70

Until Dawn: the game that advertised and hyped itself up as a bunch of different paths that, depending on your choices, branch off into ever-expanding paths of exploration when, in reality, it's more like a narrow corridor with a bunch of branching paths that are either dead ends or loop back around to the same corridor.

I'm a little disappointed.

edited 7th Nov '15 10:17:15 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

That is literally every adventure game that comes out. It still has to have a plot, it can't be like a "Give yourself Goosebumps" book where every other page is a Have a Nice Death.

It still was false advertising. That butterfly animation at the beginning of the game lied to me. The so-called '80-plus' endings it has are just different combinations of who lives at the end.

Yes, and those count as different endings.

What, did you expect the mountain to pull a St. Helens and explode? For aliens to come down and abduct everyone? For everything to be masterminded by a Shiba Inu in a control room?

Also, there was never a claim of 80+ endings. The actual butterfly graphic is just an illustration of what the Butterfly Effect actually means. The game is advertised as having approximately 10 endings, which, yes are mostly various combinations of who survives.

I feel like this is a common complaint about story-driven adventure games, and I find it incredibly disingenuous. The endings may not be significantly different, but how you got to it can be. Whining that the endings aren't significantly different enough for you ignores the journey you had while playing.

Plus the "choices don't matter" argument is just as stupid. The stories can't diverge wildly because that means more work for the development team. All of the stuff in this game and Telltale games mean what way the story will pan out in, and on occasions can determine who lives and who dies.

That's what I'm saying. Choices don't have to have tangible lasting effects to be meaningful for how you experience a game like this.

Until Dawn's choices mattered a lot more then most other Adventure game choices did because all they focused on was the life and death of the cast. It was very small in scope, so I really did like how it was pulled off.