When I saw
the trailer for Life is Strange a long time ago, I had a feeling this would become a favorite game - despite knowing almost nothing about it. It said it was
Gone Home meets
The Walking Dead, which was already awesome, and there was a definite
Twin Peaks feel to it as well, so combining my favorite things is a good start. Then I saw it was being published by
Square Enix, and I am still a big Square fan. Finally, I do really enjoy the episodic games because they give me a unique playing experience. Each episode can be played in one sitting over a couple of hours - and then the wait ends up giving me time to process specific events and even to talk to other players about what happened. When you have games where choice affects outcome, too, this is great because you can see what you and a friend do differently and then talk about why.
The first episode was fantastic. I loved it from the opening, because the gameplay is straightforward, the graphics are beautiful, and the music is so fitting for the game. I was incredibly impressed by the storytelling, although I found some of the teen dialogue and slang odd (specifically the overuse of "hella"). In discussions, though, I have come to find out that people on the West Coast are still using that word a lot and so it's even better - because there are clear regionalisms being integrated into the game as well.
It's hard to write a review without spoilers and I am posting this a little late simply because there's no way to avoid spoiling it entirely. I will stay vague with the specifics, but it's still hard to be totally spoiler-free, especially in the second episode.
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