(Written Jul 28, 2015, Day of Release)
Just out is the next long awaited installment of Square Enix‘s hot new sensation Life is Strange, a massively successful graphic adventure game, playing with the concepts of time travel, both the positives of day to day rewind abuse and the terribly consequences when the course of history itself is changed. Episode 4, known as the “Dark Room” is a must play chapter in the story of Maxine Caulfield’s life, with many a dark twist and turn to be found!
This episode left myself with rather conflicting emotions, mainly due to wasted potential. The end of episode 3 left us in an alternate timeline, where while she had saved her best friend’s father from an untimely demise she has inadvertently led her pal Chloe into a universe where she has lost all movement in her body in an awful car accident. The shy and fairly timid protagonist Max is also show in this alternate timeline to be one of the adversarial party brats, a brief glance through this continuity’s phone showing her contrasting rude and bratty responses to her family and friend’s alike.
However, this world is totally wasted as Max reverts to the “real” world within the first 50 minutes of this near 3 hour installment, with no return and little mention. This could have been such an interesting plot if explored, yet as my own play through of this series had led my Max to this party scene regardless so i was not devastated. Their handling of the Rachel Amber case is both exciting and underwhelming, while learning the nature of her disappearance the end result feels rather ordinary in the weird time bending world that has been established here.
Chloe, Max’s rebellious confident, is driving me to breaking point in this episode, her actions in almost every episode have continuously made me hate and despise the character; it’s clear to see that we are meant to relate to her rebel attitude in this town that is ruled by the rich and corrupt, but she is so rude and selfish in almost every instance available, insulting you, her family and anyone that would disagree with her. While this is rewarding in some instances for the most part it is direct hostility against people who generally seem fairly nice.
At first it seemed to be that the disabled Chloe would be presented in a much more positive light, as if to make the player wonder which timeline is the more favorable, however within minutes even this “Chloe 2″ begins to attempt to guilt trip you and goes as far as to force Max to make impossibly cruel choices. Even the drug dealer Frank is shown to be a much more relatable human character in all his appearances, making me much favor his well being in any presented choice between the two, something that is yet again occurring in this episode.
Regardless of the wasted ideas in the game’s initial hour, the large variety of areas in this episode are a nice escape from the sometimes confining Blackwell Acadamy. the extreme speed that the plot picks up in the last few scenes of the episode would in my own eyes place this as the most dramatic episode to date, the twist and cliffhanger, while not being totally unpredictable or out of no where, are well executed, with just enough foreshadowing to heighten the tension yet not spoil the end result.
Rating
Rating
Looks - 3.8/5
Sound -3.2/5
Plot - 2.4/5
Characters - 2/5
Gameplay - 3/5
Replayability - 3.7/5
Total - 18.1/30
