Firewatch

Worst. Game. Ever. I agree with the guy who said wait for the $5 sale. Wasted $20 on this game. Playing games like Journey, Myst, Grim Fandango, and Obsidian I was looking forward to getting immersed in this game. Spent most of the time wandering while listening to Delilah whine and complain. While lost in the woods you come across things in which you think are clues but are meaningless artifacts. And just like everyone else says, the story just ends abruptly. Save your money.

So I picked this game up on sale after reading its little blurb thinking meh, it sounds interesting so why not.... I played it for about 10 minutes and remember thinking "this is not the game for me" turned it off and went back to the PS. A week or so later I gave it another shot, and I am so happy that I did. I went all in on this game and played until the end in one session, it is so refreshing and peacuful not having to shoot things or run from zombies or craft a whole bunch of crap thats ultimately useless anyway. This is a semi-interactive story, where not much changes based on your choices but the first playthrough was just beautiful, I loved it. The story itself had me guessing for quite some time as to what the main plot was, my mind went everywhere from aliens to insanity. I did not pick what was actually going on until it was right infront of me... The lack of other NPC's in this game other than Delilah on the Radio, or the two silhoutte scenes, gave this game a very "on you own" feel to it. To sum up, without looking into what this game "could" have been, what it is, in my opinion, is great. It is simple, great little story, beautifully done with a nice peaceful music score. This game definitely left me wanting more, though i believe Zakmckracken, below, has absolutlely nailed the review.

A game that could be completed within 2 hours without walking slowly, is not a game you pay more than 2 euro. And not to forget all the pseudo intelligent/mystery happening in the game, mostly left with an open ending, just because the writing was so poor, they wanted people to believe the game was much deeper than it actually was. It took me less than 4 hours but I'm a completionist. It's an adventure game not a crafting survival game as you'd be fooled to think from some footage.

Intrigue is built and then crushed. The story in this game is so promising, but it ultimately fails. I don't want to give anything away (which means I can't say much as the game is < three hours long); however, I will say you are presented with many events which could lead to any numerous, sinister outcomes. The problem is the game developers chose to go with the most mundane plot line each time. Voice acting and visuals are great, but that's all you will remember about this game/event after you are done with it. In the end, the game will leave you wishing there was more fire and less watching.

Firewatch has great stylised visuals and a world designed to feel like it could fit into ours. It also has two lovely personalities who interact well with each other. And if the entire game was a chill and casual interactive podcast-type thing with collect-a-thon-esque gameplay I'd probably like it a lot more. The begining days of Firewatch shows this could have made for a great game, where the player is sent on light-hearted trips around the forest to complete some innocent task, with playful banter between the two characters and occasional drops into their lives and personal problems. Towards the middle of the game Firewatch seems to lose focus, and becomes more of a mystery game. Missing teenagers, the past of former fire guards, wire-tapping, a locked off area of the forest controlled by the government. They all felt interesting when first experienced, but as a result of the games ending, which I felt did not make good use of those story elements, the mysteries only seemed to be a distraction from the calm hiking simulator the game set itself up to be. I don't think I can recommend Firewatch to people when there are many other games which did what Firewatch was trying to do in it's latter acts better and the greatest strength I thought the game had was half-abandoned towards the middle of the experience. Not every game needs to have a grand and action-packed story and I think Firewatch was one of them.