Firewatch

Needed when you're sick with the concrete surrounding you! Beautiful outdoors. The story is quite sad. The gameplay is not the best part, so don't buy the game if that wat's you're looking for. This game is a little novel.

Overall, this is a wonderful game with a few key shortcomings. On the "plus" side, the game had a LOT of good things going for it: -- Beautiful graphics that set a wonderful tone and realistic world -- Some of the best, most natural voice acting in any game I've ever played. -- Nice, subtle score that sets the mood without being invasive -- Interesting plot with a lot of thought and detail packed in -- Isolationist feel is really atmospheric (you are in contact with a boss by radio, but barely see another person the entire time you play) However, it is not all perfect. -- The game is short, maybe 5 hours. Sometimes this is a plus, but just know going in you aren't buying a massive 80-hour adventure. This was a letdown for me because I enjoyed the world so musch. Some games I'd love to play, beat, and move on, but I WANTED to spend more time in this one so the short playtime hurt. -- It's dialogue driven, but dialogue doesn't matter. That is to say you have choices in each conversation, but none of them truly affect the plot or even the next radio interaction. It seems like a game that SHOULD have multiple endings, depending on how you answered certain questions, but it doesn't, which is a real shame. -- Speaking of ending (no spoilers), it just wasn't what I wanted. There are two "endings" in a way--one for the events in the game and one for the larger events of your life. The game events ending was fine, but I wish the larger ending could have turned out different. I felt like it was going to end like it did early on, but never wanted it to. -- Similar to dialogue, there were other items in the game that you wanted to have meaning or influence, that just didn't. --Finally, the controls can be a little wonky, but it does allow for button remapping, which helped. In the end, I think the experience of the game is DEFINITELY worth it, but I'd wait for a sale price given the short playtime. I still give it a well-earned 4-stars despite the shortcomings.

It is surely a game designed with a specific player in mind: one enjoying to watch a relationship develop and give some thought to touched upon life aspects. That would be me. It is by no means an action game, but a dialogue-driven walking simulator. I felt the ending was heartbreaking and very real, not a sugar-coated romaticized exaggerated one, perfectly fitting the theme of the game. The forest is gorgeous, the dialogue well-written and the pacing was perfect to make this game feel like time spent for yourself, without rush or chaos.

The gameplay mechanics in terms of both animations and controls have a very gritty and immersive feel. It is very effective at placing you in the environment and making you feel like you are experiencing the story rather than observing it. The story is very engaging and makes you root for the characters... up to a point. As many have pointed out, the central plot is a bit anti-climatic, and it left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for one of the central characters. Overall, it felt like the storywriters had written themselves into a plot that the dev team couldn't develop on time, and they had to wrap it up and cut it short. In the process, they ended up sabatoging the audience support for a character in order to justify some misguided notion about humans and our role in nature. Where I really found the game lacking was in it's graphics. The scenery and location of the story play a significant role in the plot and dialouge transcending the part of just background. Additionally, this is not an open-world game, rather the player character is limited to certain paths and playable area. These two things give a strong motivation and powerful ability to design a game that is visually stunning. Instead we got vistas comosed of cardboard cutouts painted with a limited color pallete.

I love this game. The graphic is amazing and relaxing, the game was really immersive. There is not a lot going on (or is there?) and you have to walk around a lot. There are no fights, altough there are mysteries. You do not level up, altough there is some emotional development for a character. The game is linear, but you can wander around as long as you like. the story, for me, has a lazy, hot summer afternnon vibe. My first playthrough last 5h30' and I will replay it one day.