BonsaiForest
(4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
04/04/2014 00:00:00
Thing is, Gone Home is interactive fiction that's actually interactive, giving you freedom to explore at your own pace, interact with stuff, and so on, without being a game or pretending to be one. Dear Esther merely doles out narration.
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maninahat
Since: Apr, 2009
04/05/2014 00:00:00
I find the "is this a game?" question to be an unhelpful thing in reviews and discussions about games. I'd sooner prefer to be told whether it was good; even if we could figure out whether this counts as a game, that doesn't really reflect on its quality.
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This is Not a Game
Now that that's out of the way, the biggest problem with Dear Esther is that it doesn't feel like it knows what it wants to be. Is it trying to be a game? Then it fails. Is it trying to be art? That's more complicated.
The thing is, unlike many other pieces of failed interactive fiction it doesn't pretend to be a game. There are no fake "choices" or cutscences masquerading as gameplay. There is literally nothing. It's a void filled only by the gameworld and narration. The flashing red beacon of the radio tower draws you relentlessly along a set path, and the story is meted out in a way so that it's clear but not clear by the end.
Personally, I immensely enjoy Dear Esther and do not regret paying extra to get the soundtrack. DE is beautiful, both visually and emotionally. However, as an interactive work I feel it falls short and it would have benefited from having some form of interactivity. As a story Dear Esther is very good—a bit muddled at times—but still beautiful and haunting. But as a "game" or even a work of interactive fiction it falls short.
Final score: 7.5/10.