Firewatch

As far as “walking sim” games go Firewatch has been the undisputed king in my eyes for a while and still is. At it’s core it is dependant on the dialogue and interaction between Henry and Delilah and both voice actors blow it out of the water and are fantastic. If this key part were poor it would ruin a lot of the game in my opinion. The music is also well done, especially in that the developers knew when to use it and when to keep things silent. The game play itself is actually very fun. It is very linear and there isn’t much difficulty but there is some openness to it. For instance where you go is linear but how you get there is all up to you for the most part. If you want to explore the park feel free, and you really should as there is no time limit on any of the missions. The game is the epitome of “comfy”. I love the outdoors and this game includes great vistas; lots of nature; hiking, climbing; just a great time to be had. The one part that was a bit suspect was going down hills because sometimes just by walking up to a small drop it would just climb down the stone while other times it would force me to press a button. The story itself is also well done. There are times where it can get a bit of horror vibes, a bit of sci-fi vibes, and in the end choose a different approach all together. It kept me guessing in a good way. I played Firewatch on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any bugs. There are 6 graphics settings and a v-sync toggle. You can manually save whenever you want and there are also auto saves. There is only one save slot though so you keep overwriting the same file regardless. Alt-Tab didn’t work. The performance was great overall. Like many Unity games that use OpenGL though the GPU usage was all over the map and there were a few drops here and there but they didn’t last more than a few seconds each. RX 580; Ryzen 5 2600x; Manjaro; maxed out at 1080P; 53-144 FPS.

Firewatch as a whole isn't a bad game, not at all. But its shortcomings sit in the most crucial areas - gameplay and story. Especially the ending, which smashed my impression from the game from solid four stars down to three. Pros: The semi-comics style of the graphics is consistent and succeeds at creating a captivating atmosphere. Lighting is the key, providing different moods from sunrise to midnight. And as more fires break out in the woods, the air goes grey with smoke. Where the game really excels is the sound department. The voice actors are good and their dialogues well written. The music is just wonderful. It's the proverbial soundtrack that will outlast the work it accompanies. I've already uninstalled the game, but I'm going to buy the OST and keep it in my music player for some months. And now the cons: Unfortunately, the game doesn't reward exploration - no easter eggs or interesting events if you leave the strictly linear path the authors have prepared for you. If you try to just roam, you can get confused, as sometimes you pass by a group of trees, and a few game days later there's a passage to another game area, without any ingame reason why the map had changed. Also, there are bits which look like a puzzle, achievement or easter egg, but in fact aren't either. For example, there are 10 mystery books scattered all around the forest, and if you collect them all... nothing happens. The most problematic part, though, is the story. Evil corporations, corrupted governments, and secret societies with sinister agenda are fine. Deeply humane, moving stories are fine too. Firewatch could have been either, but instead, it builds the story - and very well! - along one line and then tries to hop to the other one. It doesn't work. If you prepare the players for an epic climax, you shouldn't serve them an intimate heartwrencher. The kind of ending the authors went for would have required a different story to tell before. This way, it felt just unsatisfactory.

Started off pretty well. Then the character started to sidestep left. After unistall/re-install problem persists... need a patch :(

You walk around, you talk to some chick. You get lost with no objective from time to time, because you don't know what to do to progress. You discover some "big" mystery, which is not very big or very interesting. I really don't see the point in this game. I wanted to enjoy it, but in the end - it was a big disappointment, but, i'm not mad.

filled with game breaking bugs. controls just dont work after you load a save file. just deal with it.