Posted on: February 19, 2022

agarthe

Spiele: 240 Rezensionen: 3

Lengthy and dissatisfying ending

First of all, I like games that are a bit like interactive movies so I do not criticise the genre in general. I played for more than 7 hours (spend about 1 hour on solitaire only and got no reward of any kind, in fact I noticed the king that has just been there in the final staple, suddenly disappeared - disturbing) and completed about 73% of the game. The videos that give you the hints can be very lengthy, especially when you are forced to watch people sleep or only smile/nod for 2 min as they are apparently listening. The background story itself is not too bad. And then all of a sudden it's over. I have nothing but open ties, no answers why all my relations are suddenly fucked up and Davids final action is just absurd. I assumed there was a time lapse and I was missing out on too many videos to understand. I searched the real internet a bit watching the possible endings and was nothing but disappointed. Really? Three stars for the making, the original idea and some of the acting but it is unlikely I'll give a second go. When the king is missing, the king is missing.

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Posted on: December 10, 2021

CharlieLima79

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: 639 Rezensionen: 149

Could have been great, but merely good

‘Telling Lies’ is touted as the spiritual sequel to ‘Her Story’. With a larger cast, a more elaborate story, and higher quality video clips, it’s a more ambitious project. It had the ingredients for a fine FMV game: great performances from its main cast, a multifaceted story, and carefully staged scenes. Sadly, the mismatched game mechanic made it merely good. In ‘TL’, the player -- again not knowing what brought them in front of the in-game computer -- has to search through a database of video clips using keywords. This might have worked well in ‘HS’, in which there was only one actor speaking in the same setting. Yet, it falls apart when there are many actors in different locations. With the story of ‘TL’ being more complex structurally, it’s easy to feel lost though the videos are timestamped. By using the game mechanic of ‘HS’ in ‘TL’, Barlow self-sabotaged his well-written character arcs. It’s hard to fully appreciate the characters’ descent or self-actualization when you had to decipher the story from disarranged video clips. Making heads or tails of the clips may be part of the fun, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of enjoying the narrative. Yet, it’s the in-game UI that made ‘TL’ less enjoyable than it could have been. Set in 2019, the in-game video player shockingly doesn’t have a scrub bar! Instead you rewind or fast-forward each clip like a VCR. It’s not so bad for short clips, but it’s tedious when reviewing ones that are close to 8 minutes long -- especially when the actors are just silently reacting to the people they’re video chatting with for several minutes! The mouse control for scrubbing isn’t that precise, too, making the task more frustrating. ‘TL’ is fun, but certainly not as captivating as the leaner ‘HS’. The game mechanic that worked so well in ‘HS’ simply doesn’t pair nicely with a game is more complex narratively and theatrically. Still, I think ‘TL’ is worth checking out when it goes on sale, especially if you're a fan of ‘HS’.

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Posted on: January 12, 2023

pwned11

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: 52 Rezensionen: 1

Not a game. It's reality. It's perfect.

This is not a game. I do not say this for the normal reasons. Most people will claim that this is more of an interactive movie than a game. But this is actually not the case, either. You see, when you watch the videos in this game, you're fast-forwarding and rewinding a lot. These videos are mostly halves of conversations. They are recordings of video chats. So, each recording only has one half of the video chat at a time. So, you are speeding through a lot of the downtime. And you are trying to fit halves of videos together in your head (though you can never merge them). And the main gameplay involves searching for videos and bookmarking them. You watch snippets of videos to get keywords that you then plug into the search function to find more videos. After bookmarking them, you click the date button to put them in the right order. And then you watch them all. So, this is definitely more game than movie. But I would not call this a game... not in the traditional sense. You see, games are curated to have the gameplay be engaging, exciting, and entertaining. Of course, a game doesn't have to be fun. But just like how literature covering a depressing subject is still well-written, a game must play well... aka be fun. You see, though... Telling Lies does not make an effort to "play well." The interactivity, though engaging, is work-filled. It is a sloth. And that is why this game gets controversial reviews. Let me give you a hint: Don't treat this game like a game. Don't treat this like a movie, either. Just let go of all notions about things needing to be fun and feel right. And let go of all notions of movie narrative structure and plot. When you do, you will realize that this is reality. You're witnessing the videos of real freaking people. Of course... they aren't actually real. But that's what it feels like. By forcing you to do work in this experience, everything feels like actual freaking reality. And that is why these characters will be with you forever.

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Posted on: August 26, 2019

whoismaat

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: 17 Rezensionen: 2

Simply awesome

I have't finished the game yet, though I've watched many-many videos and have a clue of what it's all about. "Her story" was ok for me, but this one is just fantastic. I'm not going to read the other reviews for now, but I hope I would never ever have to communicate to people who gave this game less than 5 stars. It's 10 out of 5, guys. It's fascinating, intricate, addictive, well-thought. The team! You are great, job well done. The thought that the game is going to end is devastating. Thank you very much for this pleasure and unbeliavable experience. Thank you to scripters and actors for outstanding job. Please, do more of these! It's one of a kind, be proud and don't listen to those who don't dig it.

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Posted on: July 13, 2022

mjsulik

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: Rezensionen: 1

So close to greatness...

The acting talent in this game is _incredible_, but somewhat limited by a story that has major gaps in the ending segments. The game also tries to waste a huge amount of your time by starting at the keyword that you search for instead of the beginning of a clip, having a really slow rewind speed, and limiting controls for navigating the videos. There is an easy-to-install mod that allows for skipping to the start of a clip and moving forward and backward 2 or 10 seconds. I'm splitting the difference in my rating: Without that mod, this game would be 2 stars due to lack of respect for player time. With it, I'd give it four stars. Overall, an interesting narrative experience. This game is much "sexier" (at least for players attracted to women) and has much higher production values than Her Story, but considerably less narrative coherence. Overall, I prefer Her Story, but would love to see more games made to fill this niche genre.

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