Life is Strange

It's not easy to make a choice-driven game starring a character whose personality and identity are already firmly established. Especially one who is so thoroughly defined by the awful, awful choices she makes. Chloe is a clusterf*ck of a human being; that was kind of the point of her character. Life hit her really hard and she's not dealing with it well. She's a ballistic missile on-course to self-destruct.

That made playing as her in "Before the Storm" something of an experience. There were a lot of times where I found myself torn between "This option is, I think, the right thing to do," and "That option, the bad option that will cause more harm than good, is absolutely what Chloe would do."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 23rd 2018 at 10:03:58 AM

Yeah, it's interesting that you can play her to be just as jerkass as she is introduced in the original game, or to be rather nice, yet still a jerkass. And both of them makes sense. In the former case, it's just how she is since the loss of her father and Max, and in the latter case, she still has some niceness in her, but losing Rachel is what really makes her lose control.

Recap.Life Is Strange 2 The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit is now live! ^_^

This is part 2 of the LP I linked to a few posts ago. It shows 30 minutes of footage, starting where the gameplay trailer left off.

EDIT: And another 45 minutes:

Edited by Bisected8 on Sep 25th 2018 at 9:56:15 AM

The rest of the first episode is out on their channel. I don't want to post all the videos here since they might clutter the thread.
One thing that I'm really interested in is new the inventory system, since I think the backpack's contents will be carried through all the episodes. Despite most of the items you can buy not being listed in the "important choices", I wonder how much impact they can have. Maybe letting Daniel have that Power Bear will allow him to team up with Captain Spirit to save the planet? And there'll probably some sort of important item that you can only buy if you save up as much money as possible. Or maybe a Joke Item.

Edited by HottoKenai on Sep 27th 2018 at 1:32:41 AM

Finished episode one a couple of hours ago. So far so good. Thoughts:

I never noticed what people meant when they said of season one that the dialogue was unrealistic for American teenagers; I did notice here. I'm pretty sure no-one ever offers someone to "take a hit" on a cigarette, and I also believe that teenagers don't skype. I could be wrong though.

Should have seen the death of their father coming. Didn't.

The only thing so far that really hasn't sat well with me is the characterisation of the shop owner as a really unambiguously horrible person. Not so much the stereotype, if that's the right word, it's just unusual for a game like this to have a character so one-dimensional. It's only a small part, but they could have framed him as less of an arsehole and just someone who thought they were doing the right thing by containing the boys and calling the authorities. As it was, once Sean was free, I felt no shame in kicking the shit out of him and stealing his stuff.

Nice nod to season one, in the brief stop near Arcadia Bay, though showing the sign as they left was overdoing it a little, I think; I recognised the town just from the view. I chose the Bay ending in season one, people who chose Bae, let me know if this scene is different in your game.

Speaking of nods to season one, there are weird swirly ants in the forest too

May edit with more thoughts.

Oh yeah. These feel like they might be important, but probably I'm reading too much into things. Season 3 teasing maybe? Probably way too soon for that.

Edited by artfulscruff on Sep 27th 2018 at 11:15:36 AM

As an ex smoker, nearly every other smoker not over 30, including me, defo offered them to other people we knew smoke.

I don't know anyone who skypes now but it wasn't quite as dead in 2016, during when this game takes place.

Edited by Ukokira on Sep 27th 2018 at 3:41:19 AM

Oh, no, I'm not saying people don't offer cigarettes, I just meant I'm pretty sure no-one uses the phrase "take a hit" to refer to smoking a cigarette.

“Take a hit” I’ve usually heard in reference to marijuana

Yeah. 'Take a hit' is a weed phrase.

x5

I watched a let's play where someone chose Chloe over the town and you visit a memorial for the town and having a meaningful conversation there if you choose not to sacrifice Chloe.

I didn't find the shopkeeper unusual, since he is basically Jefferson-lite. And I think choosing whether to steal from a horrible racist (and giving the police more reason to chase you down) or not is still a weighted choice.

Here's a video on how the game handles the themes, especially the racism, which seems to be better than anyone expected. Seeing the comments calling it "true to their experience", man...

Edited by HottoKenai on Sep 28th 2018 at 6:44:54 PM

Yeah, overall there seems to have been a pattern of people complaining that the shopkeeper is unrealistically racist and people with experience of such things saying his portrayal's right on point, especially in the run up to Trump's election (which, let's not forget, the Autumn/Winter of 2016 was).

I'm not saying he was unrealistic, I don't doubt that there are pieces of shit like that in the world; it just seemed unusual to me to have such an obviously shitty character in a game like this. I don't feel that comparisons to Jefferson are really apt though, the reveal that he was irredeemably awful had impact because he'd been built up as a decent guy, even the protagonist's idol, before that point. The shopkeeper just felt kinda throwaway, and like they tried to tick as many awful boxes as possible with him.

Well, he is a racist bigot. It helps remind you that the protagonists are Latino. They are wandering, homeless, in an extremely racist environment. Being caught by the cops for what happened in Seattle is only part of the danger: Sean and Daniel are seen as dangerous simply for being people of color.

And we know Hank has more to him then being a racist bastard. We know he enjoys carving bears, which humanized him to me even if it is just a hobby. But still, fuck him.

I fully expect to see more people like Hank in the future - even one who don't recognize the kids.

I've started drafting a synopsis for episode 1 on Sandbox.Life Is Strange 2 Ep 01 Roads

If anyone wants to contribute, feel free (I'm only going on LPs, since I'm getting it when episode 2 comes out).

There are little things I think are better. Facial animation, definitely. Leaving graffiti (nonsensical as it is by the time you're in James' office) is a little more entertaining than taking pictures. And I failed that talkback with Elliot horrendously.

I like the final choice - prequelitis aside - "keep your loved one happy with a lie, or tell them the truth and break their heart" isn't an easy question to answer.

I guess I never really expect the final choice to be all that significant. If the final choice does have a great deal of impact, doesn't that rob the impact of all the other choices? That seemed to be the main complaint with the first game's ending.

Captain Bluebeard and Long Max Silver ride again b-tches!

You can turn the image upside-down and see something◊ as well.

Edited by Soble on Oct 10th 2018 at 2:32:25 AM

That's a cool reflection there.

Comic is out. Not terribly long at 21 pages and mostly setup.

Annnnd the only comic book shop I know of shut down months ago. Great, now I actually have to go online and pay for shipping. That, or find another local shop.

I just got the ebook version from Google Play.

I've got my eyes on the first few pages of the comic.

<3 I am getting my fix. It's cheesy. It's fun. We actually meet Max's Seattle friends. I will be depressed if it doesn't continue or finish. I've known one comic too many to simply be cancelled due to lackluster sales.

A shame nothing ever came of that TV series, but for once I really appreciate having a comic book adaption of a video game. Maybe because the first game already has so many gaps and cliffhangers that a comic book could easily fill.

About... 10 seconds of new footage?

A little too self-indulgent for a teaser.

Edited by Soble on Jan 1st 2019 at 12:36:49 PM

The episode is out, and it seems there's a bit of Internet Backdraft, due to a) you can't buy a single episode, only the full season, b) some annoying bugs and c) the dog. People really love the dog.

A lot of people on the LIS Reddit seem to be suffering Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, particularly regarding the fact that you can't save the dog no matter what you choose.