Her Story

I had a lot of fun with Her Story. The whole idea is to watch clips of a woman's interactions with detectives during multiple sessions of questioning. I don't want to get into the story because it's an easy thing to ruin unless you go in without any knowledge about what they are investigating, but it's very interesting. You are going to watch these clips out of order, so everything comes together at different times and things said before will become something else with more context after another clip. The game play is very simple. You're screen is that of an old computer with an outdated OS. A couple .txt files give you an idea where to start. You must use keywords to not only sift through the videos but to actually find them on the drive. An example would be to use the word 'the'. You would expect that to be a good start. It is, but don't think that's going to be some sort of shortcut. You only get the top 5 results for each search. That could be tedious if not for the brilliant dialog that constantly gives you clues as to what new keywords you should research. I used a notepad and wrote every keyword I'd like to look into down, which kept the ball rolling. Graphics are not AAA by any means, but they are unique to this era of gaming. The Full Motion Video almost like that a modern day Sega CD game would be. The music and sound effects add to the creepy atmosphere without imposing. And this is not a horror game, but it will feel that way as you dig deeper. When you come to realize the what you are watching, things really snowball. Not 'scarey' but chilling. The ending is very brief and sudden, but it works to further impact how the game has made you feel to that point. I recommend this game to people that want a short, interesting experience without all the pretension BS that a lot of indie games try to push onto you.

This took me back to my Spycraft days :) Okay, maybe a bad comparison since this does not have the diversity of that game, but Her Story gave me the same chills. This actually isn't a review so much as it is a (possibly) helpful warning. DO NOT in the User Preferences box click "Delete Session Data" unless you want to clear your search term history and unmark/uncheck all previously viewed videos (effectively resetting the game). I thought clicking it would just clear the "Clips stored in this session" box, but no. Knowing which videos you've already watched is essential. DO NOT click the button unless you want to completely start over.

I "played" this with my wife. It was interesting, but not what we would call a game. We were disappointed in the lack of an ending. It had potential, but did not include enough game elements to make it fun, maybe interesting, but not really fun. There was no sense of accomplishment once we "finished" it either. I put that in quotes because you only finish it when you finally decide to stop searching for more video clips. Someone else mentioned it was artsy; I would agree with that assessment. I'll give it a star for being mildly interesting, although the storyline was not really ground breaking. I would give it another half star if I could, but I don't think it's worth a full 3 stars. If someone associated with the game reads this, please add some sort of ending and more game elements if you try a similar style game. That would have brought this up to a solid 4 stars.

Back when it came out (around 1999), I was completely blown away by the absolutely unique interactive fiction game "Aisle", which was also made by Sam Barlow. So it was a no-brainer for me to buy "Her Story" the second I heard about it. And what can I say? Sam just doesn't disappoint. "Her Story" really gives you the feeling of browsing through police files on an old computer from way back when. The reflection of the CRT monitor looks authentic, as well as the desktop and the interface, of course. The story that's being told might not be the most elaborate one, but the way it is presented and the way you're hunting for all of the clips makes it a unique experience. It took me about 3½ hours to complete the game with 12 of the 13 achievements and right now I feel like I got to know 'Her' quite well and yet there's still stuff that leaves me puzzled. Great game! Give it a shot, it's WELL worth the asking price!