Orwell

Total time playing this was around 7-8 hrs which includes replaying the last chapter to get a different ending. If game length vs cost is a concern for you that might interest you. I found the cost for it fine, even better on sale. Pros: Engaging story, a nice immersive feel to the spying, nod to voyeuristic tendencies we all have to snoop into what the neighbors are doing and really saying about you, interesting characters to flesh out with lots of flavor text, emails and photos. Different endings depending on your choices regarding what is evidence and conjecture so some replayability, music was adequate, graphics were interesting-kinda washed out theme I guess to reflect a separation from reality vs being an Orwellian spy. Cons: Game froze at the most inopportune times twice, both during the big reveal, causing me to have to reload. It can be very difficult to know what to do next, especially during the end chapter, alot of times I was uploading data that I did not want to upload due to me trying to get the game to progress, many forced progress gating. I watched other players on utube and they had the same problem. Information uploaded sometimes had different reactions then intended, which seemed to me be more forced linear story telling. I hesitate to replay the entire game as I feel you will still end up with the same 3 endings regardless. The endings are very abrupt, there should have been more for the player to do at the end to get the full feeling of accomplishment/shock/awe/whatever. No way to hasten scripts during replays which causes unnecessary length to get to those major decisions in order to see diff endings. Music was a bit too bland and could have used different scores to break the monotony of it. Overall, the game was interesting, with some tweaks it could have been great. I did like how they showed all sides to the story, nothing was black or white in morality. Worth it to get on sale for an afternoon of immersion

The idea for this game sounds extremely interesting and intriguing on paper but ( and this is a big but) the execution is a bit problematic to say the least. -The game time is extremely short ( you might finish it in one playthrough) and the replaybility value is non existent. -There's no real choise in the game except in the final chapter. -The story starts out quite dull and uninteresting and although it does improve in the middle portion in unfortunately falls flat in the end. -Although it tries to be political the mediocre story does not allow you to get immersed in it and appreciate its political message.

Long time customer, first time reviewer (I couldn't pass up the opportunity). Very interesting concept for a game, enjoyable even if a bit short. I'm not too bothered by that fact since I'd gotten it during the post Thanksgiving sale. I got quite a bit into the story and began feeling for the characters, especially for a certain someone due to some of my "datachunk" choices. I've only clocked one playthrough; I'm going to go for another to hopefully make some other choices. I kind of ended Chapter 5 too quickly by accident, and couldn't reverse it. As for the title, I felt very dirty scrubbing through the digital lives of these characters. I made the "bad" choices, or added certain chunks just to see what would happen. Perhaps with another playthrough or another, I'll see if I can divert the attention of the system. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. May have given a lower rating if I'd bought it at full price, but with the lower price I'm quite pleased with the product. I can definitely see this being further fleshed out for a follow on title (not DLC). I hope this helps in your decision. I know many are upset with the linear and short playthrough, which I would've been had I paid full price.

A great game that offers relevant commentary on today's surveillance society. I understand how the game had to prevent us from making a better choice later when resolving data conflicts, to offer choice and consequence, however in an actual computer system this would have been an easy change.

Orwell is only getting more relevant in the years since it’s release given it’s subject matter of government surveillance. It is kind of a visual novel puzzle game where you navigate different platforms finding bits of info that you can tag to the database which in turn can find you more info. As you go on you start to unravel a story of who was behind the bombings. The bits of info are highlighted so you can’t miss them and you also don’t always have to tag them. This is because some info is out of context. For instance someone saying that they are being tortured by cupcakes is obviously not actual torture but you can still tag the person involved as a torturer. Having the discretion is nice but there are other times where you have to tag certain data to progress that I don’t feel was data that must have been tagged or as relevant as the game made it. I also don’t like how you can’t untag data. I also felt that at the end of the game there was supposed to be multiple ways to handle the outcome but I could only see one or possibly two. I don’t know why the other ways weren’t available to me as I can’t think of a story reason that I shouldn’t have been able to pull off what i wanted. The story was good but the twists near the end were simply fantastic. The UI for the game was easy to get used to and had a good design. I also liked how new parts of the software were revealed as they became needed. The game has no voice acting but that wasn’t an issue wand made sense given the fact that outside of recorded calls this was all just you at a computer. The puzzle aspect was that you have to scour the various blogs; calls; emails; etc to find info you can use to further the game as well as provide additional depth details and context.