1979 Revolution: Black Friday

I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game and learned a lot. I've always been skeptical of attempts to combine factual learning with gaming, but I felt this game really achieved something. Rather than conveying any biased political message or forced view, the game shows the complexity of the context it protrays, using an interesting story with interesting characters. The choice based game mechanic works perfectly for this game, as there are a lot of choices to make that really make you more invested in the game. However, there are some faults. Firstly the game is too short (Finished it in 3 hours and maybe could have been faster). Then, the game at times feels too simple, and one wishes for something more. Aside from making choices, some really basic action sequences and exploring there is not much more else to do.

The game is utterly short, as it was meant to be the first episode of a series, it gets sliced in half at a cliffhanger which is never sorted out. However, when it does cover the story, it excels at pushing your emotions and doubts the same way it apparently was happening to the people out there. The plot is as twisted as you'd expect from a complex political issue; little is certain as it develops. The graphics might be somewhat simple, but it shouldn't put off anyone. Worth a try in spite of its obvious drawbacks. Get thrown into the open mouth of revolution that - as we nowadays realise - finally ate its own children.

Similar to Telltale Games experience with an interesting story, based on a real life 1970's Iranian Revolution; here's my eperieince with the game: Good + Captivating story. with familar Telltale Games mechanics. based on the testimonies from the Iranian Revolution. + Historial Artifacts that adds to the immersion. + Excellent sound and voice acting. Bad - The story seems incompete and ended abruptly. - I'm not sure if my choices mattered in the end, since story seems incomplete. - Very short; it took about 3 hours to complete the game with "exploration." The game is dedicated to the victims of the Iranian Revolution, and what's present in the game does that satisfactorily; however, the game isn't for everyone. If you're an open minded gamer who enjoy's an in real life based story rich Telltale Games like experience, then this is a good buy!

(Owned and played on Nintendo Switch) While some may argue that this title isn't really a game per se, inasmuch as story-driven interactive experiences with dialogue choices can be considered games, I enjoyed my time with it. Graphically, I have no complaints, and the voice-acting performances from the Persian cast are fantastic. It's obviously a labour of love for them to be able to tell you about their culture in this enjoyable manner. The story takes place over a few days in Tehran, during the 1978 revolution. I learned a lot about the culture, background, and history of Iran from this game. If you view it as an educational and informative tool, then it's definitely worth the time and money invested. My only complaint is that it's rather short, overall.

1979 does some things very well and others not so much. It does a great job of presenting a relatively unbiased portrait of history, at least my research couldn’t find many holes. The QTE game play works well for the most part aside from one section. For all but one part you are having to pick options while on a timer but for that other part you must be patient and wait for the right moment. Not a huge issue but the game conditions you to act one way only to swap it on you for one section which made it annoying for me. The game also did a great job of explaining people; events and culture for those who may not be familiar with Iran or much of it’s history. You are placed at various points of history as a photographer and the photos you take populate a menu going into detail about them. I thought the voice acting was fairly strong overall and enjoyed the dialogue choices. I will say that there was at least one faux choice early on. You can choose to not repeat your captor’s name to him but if you choose not to more than a couple times he kills you. While realistic it also made me have to redo the whole part which was annoying. It could have been just as good as a cut scene rather than a faux choice. The graphics weren’t bad but also not mind blowing. Everything from object detail to clothing to faces to buildings were serviceable but not fantastic. My main gripe was with the end part. The game ends very abruptly with little in the way of closure to the story. It just didn’t feel right. There were also other types of game play such as having to work on injured NPC’s. Having to remove glass; shrapnel and then bandage them. It was a nice way to break up the QTE’s and dialogue choices but was also clunky and looked crude. The gentleman whose wound I bandaged probably should have died from my poor quality work. AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.0.3 | Linux Mint 20.3 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 5.4.0-96-generic | Wine 7.0 7/10