Gone Home

I am not opposed to walking sims. I am not opposed even to walking sims which fall flat at some point (looking at you Firewatch). But Gone Home never even builds up, the plot line is boring and evident some 20min into the game. I suppose it only caters to some people, who can identify themselves with the characters. If you like the genre, get "Home" ("a unique horror story") for a vastly better plot or Firewatch for better plot (at least for the first half of the game, then it is so so) and superb visuals and atmosphere.

It's a quite short game, but the story had a steel grip on me after just a few minutes. I really enjoyed the plot unfolding and I felt how it moved me quite a lot until the very end.

Just a very short walking simulator where you read notes that tell the "story". That's it, all style and no substance. Game initially feels creepy but very quickly it becomes monotonous. The reason why you are alone is that the parents are at a marriage counselling retreat and your sister has has ran away to be with her girlfriend. Not worth the money on sale and DEFINITELY not worth the full price.

First of all, I do enjoy walking-simulator and simple stories, I didn't play this looking for something it's not, like some people probably did. But it simply is not a good walking-simulator and it is not capable of tell something interesting. There are some positive things to be said about it, though. It has a great atmosphere, the scenarios are crafted with great details and it is relaxing to walk around searching for information about the story. It manages to make you intrigued and asking what is going on for the first minutes. Unfortunately, this positive impression doesn't last long. Once you are a bit into the story you already know everything that is coming next and it becomes a uninteresting road to the credits. That's a bad story telling. There's nothing at all that catches your attention back, no new characters, no new subplots... There are some topics about family relationships showing up later in the game, but even that is so bland that it adds nothing. Even for how short the game is, I feel like this story does not deserve so much time and detail on characters we never really care about. If you just want you play some relaxing story game at your own pace, this is not bad, but don't expect something great. Also, the full price is too much for what it offers.

So the whole game, which is most certainly a product of its time, can be completed in less than a minute (for a $20 price tag no less) (3-4 hours if you want to find every secret and side content the game has to offer) and it can be summarized as such... "walking simulator running off the amnesia engine." literally all you do is walk around an empty house collecting "mysterious clues" as to where everyone went. All while listening to voice overs of the clues and emo music. Now that said, here's the big plot "twist" Major spoilers ahead. You've been warned. Still with me? Okay. How does it end? Your parents went out for their anniversary and your 17 year old sister ran away from home to be with her secret *lesbian* lover. WHAT A TWIST RIGHT!? A CHARACTER IS GAY! *gaaaaaasp* But seriously, Undertale wrote a better "surprise, they're gay" story in one single boss fight than this entire game managed in its entirity. Avoid like the plague, not worth the price, only for pretentious "games are art and my feels should be catered to" people who want to kill the industry and talk about their hipster fan fiction. I love games with good stories, Spec Ops: The Line being a great example of a story that hits you deep. As with Bioshock (if you would kindly think back to that games story) As with Fallout (any of them though I think Fallout 1 and 3 stuck with me the hardest story-wise) Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect... All games with stories being talked about years after their release. But "Gone Home" stopped being a relevant story as of October 2015... Because in America, the whole "their love is forbidden", legally, stopped being forbidden. (And the game went 75% off and a bunch of people outside the hipster spectrum picked it up for $5 and saw what garbage it was.)