Firewatch

This was a fun little game, but it could've been so much more. The graphics are nice, the soundtrack is good and the voice acting is phenomenal, but all the different choices you make don't matter in the end. I wish they would've just focused on the chores per day instead of introducing a lame mystery halfway with a cop out ending. I knew the game was short, but you run through it in about 4 hours and that's with exploring every inch of the map! Also, where's all the wildlife? I saw a deer, some birds, a turtle, a bee, a raccoon, a dead elk... that's it. I paid a fiver for it and that's a good price, but I wouldn't recommend it if the price was any higher than that. Then you'd be better off with buying something like The Long Dark, which is a game with similar graphics, but with more focus on survival.

Just finished watching the credits and listening to the end song by Etta James, a bluesy number that perfectly suits this immersive game. 7.5 hrs of gameplay and most of it was pretty darn good adventuring, looking for clues, rappelling, hiking thru woods, trying to avoid bears and feeling out of control as the plot went for a wild juke off the beaten path. the good: immersive, minimalistic music score so you can hear the wind, creaks and rustle of the forest or the howling of wind in dank dark tunnels. Graphics simplistic. the story. what a wild ride. i had so many theories and guesses it was a hoot. lots of autosaves and you could also force a save at any time if you needed to step away. the bad: it wouldnt start. nothing worked. finally i followed the indepth guide in the customer service thread for the game and after updating directx and restarted it worked perfectly. the storyline is forced, you dont have much leeway to change things. I havent gone online to see if any dialogue choices affected the ending yet. i hope so. would like to replay it and go another way. the game starts off pretty weird and emo, i hate games that are full the 'struggle' to deal with dire life issues and thought id have to give the game a pass, then it finished and began the game proper. sometimes hotspots wouldnt show up after triggering events, so you had to go back and circle round till they did so you could advance the storyline. biggest disappointment was the cameral roll and not being able to look at your pictures or go back over all the notes you picked up along the way. oh, you could see your photos but only if you gave them your email and let them send you a link. that marketing and data grab was really subpar and left a bitter taste in my mouth. i skipped it. so get it on sale as its a short game but i found it very enjoyable.

Out of all walking simulators made this is the absolute #1. I've played tons of walking sims, and none of them matches this one. Some (like Suicide of Rachel Foster) try to imitate some of the formula, but fall short. The game is absolutely beautiful, the music wonderful, the pacing amazing, the story gripping. What sets the game apart are the voice actors. There are only 2 main characters, one of which are you, and the other a voice on a walkie talkie. These 2 have amazing chemistry, nailing it from the absolute start. On following playthroughs I always take my time to stretch this 4 hours game into 6 hours. I just don't want it to end. It's a perfect game on a sunny summer day. It's a perfect game on a rainy october night. It gets a hold of you, and never let go. I love the free roaming map. It has perfect size and you'll see it in both day and night. There are some hidden animals to find, and book covers to read. You can adjust the map to remove the marker so you have to actually navigate with the compass. I love this game. It's magical.

I liked the game and ws captured by the sotry for about half of playthrough. I feel like ending was very meh. Game is quite short (3h 10min for me) and I don't believe it has much replayability - maybe to check if I can do something differently. I liked the intro. hiking and the narration, but it wasn't on the same level for a whole game.

Firewatch had so much potential to be something really special and for the first 2 hours that exactly what you get. A truly beautiful and immersive sim that sets up a big mystery for the player to explore ... except ... there is no mystery after all. Just a mere 2 hours further the game is over and the story will resolve in the most mundane way possible. The writing is simply awful to the point where after playing it you wonder what the point of the game was to begin with. At least it looks nice and it's only 4 hours long.