Telling Lies

Essentially an expanded version of Her Story, so if you enjoyed that game you should find lots to like about this too. But while the narrative is intriguing, I enjoyed this less. Instead of following one character we now explore four, with a number of side characters too. The central mechanic works because of the enticing mystery, but it has some flaws. All you need to do here is watch videos and use them find keywords which you can use to search for more videos. Eventually this does outstay its welcome. Fortunately the acting is fantastic and as you uncover more of the plot it's genuinely involving. But your enjoyment really relies on you being able to find the right videos to piece things together. By the end of my playthrough, I didn't have enough to fully understand things and the ending left me unsatisfied. Watching the videos can be a chore. A video will start playing at the point the keyword you searched for appears - this might be right at the end of a clip. A massive flaw is that you can't jump to the start of them, instead you have to rewind. Some videos are up to 10 minutes long and this process is draining. I lost a lot of enthusiasm for the game thanks to this. Most videos also on show one side of a conversation, so you need to try and find the accompanying other half to make proper sense of things. That means you're watching long conversations twice, if you can even find them. And some long videos are so completely empty of anything eventful (a character sleeping). I expected more of an evolution from Her Story, which this isn't (for that, look at Sam Barlow's next game, Immortality). Great narrative with a mix of colourful characters, but a little difficult to fully recommend.

Story is great and uncovering it feels rewarding. However, severely limited video player controls makes the experience significantly worse. These three mechanics could have elevated it into the greatness: * Seeking bar (yes, a simple seeking bar... videos are digital, so VHS-like controls for seeking feel off) * Side-by-side player for videos that are paired as two sides of the same conversation (and so many of them are!). Of course you have to discover both sides first to pay them side by side, so "the challenge" won't be lessened. * Database overview after the credits roll to see, which files you have uncovered and which are missing ("Her Story" already had something like that, so it is a no brainer...)

I purchased this game based on the reviews and fond memories of similar styles of gameplay from my childhood. I loved the idea of uncovering what happened through investigation. On those merits, the game delivers. However, the success of a game like this will be on whether you, the player, enjoy the story and it's difficult to make that determination without a number of spoilers. (I won't give any here.) The one thing that I would have liked to know in advance is the game's rating. Even after searching a number of sites, including the game's home page and GOG, I'm still not sure. (We have a firm, no rated M games in our household.) Based on my in-game experient I'm guessing it's at least T for languange and mature themes but it may be M. However, I didn't witness any overt nudity or graphic violence. The story is fairly dark as the events you uncover go from neutral to bad to worse but the acting is first rate and the characters and the events live out are haunting. This makes it an amazing game for some but not everyone.

it was ok

Be warned, this isn't a game. This is a series of boring video clips that may eventually draw you into its plot, but more likely it will not....Either way, as another reviewer has already mentioned, you're going to be spending 99% of the time holding down the REWIND button in order to watch the video clip from the beginning. Real good design mechanism there developers (sarcastic thumbs-up). If there is any fun to be had in this game, I certainly couldn't find it...nor the game for that matter....