Tender Loving Care

This is a difficult one to rate. On the plus side: it is different. It is quite relaxing to play. I enjoyed the cheesy acting and revelations. In fact, my girlfriend does not like computer games, but she played this through to the end with me, as we both contributed ideas as to what was going on, and she said she even preferred it to Her Story. This is the kind of game I'd like to see more of, so we can play them together. I would have maybe given it 5 stars, BUT ... A major part of it is broken. You are asked questions throughout the game, which the help says will build up a psychological profile. My girlfriend was really interested in that, so spent ages choosing her answers to the hundred or so questions. We played the game over a few evenings. Last night we finally completed it and looked for this "profile" that was one of the selling points ... but it is broken. It only had a few lines, all relating to the final chapter. It looks like, instead of putting them all together into a single profile, it just does short ones then deletes them as soon as you move on to the next chapter. We hadn't realised that, expecting the promised full profile at the end. As a result all the questions she'd answered were lost. There was no profile, and she'd wasted her time. That was a terrible disappointment, and the kind of thing that would (understandably) put her off games again. GOG should have got this feature working before selling the game.

I am a long time fan of this title; so I'm going to give away my age when I say I bought this at a big box store when I was 18. Yes, I still have my copy and yes, it's mint. Don't diss the cred. TLC, and Aftermath's next title: POV, are not games but cinematic experiences with psychological twists and engaging profile assessments. You may wonder: 'Why in the heck were these made? They are not even games!" Well for a brief time in the 90s, some PC game devs were porting their games to DVD hybrid devices that you could play games on with a remote. Imagine the Nintendo Wii meets a DVD player meets Netflix. Since adults usually bought these weird players, game devs were more experimental with their writing process and psychological thrillers were still popular, Aftermath made titles like this with deep story, good acting and cinematic camera work. With that said, this is not a game, but an Adult 'Choose Your Own Adventure' title. Still, it's super good, fun and great to share. It has multiple endings to keep you coming back and who doesn't appreciate women in shoulder pads a stellar performance from the late Sir John Hurt! If you like Going Home, Edith Fitch and other games like that, this is the granddaddy of them all! I hope Aftermath/ Trilobyte releases POV next!

Tender Loving Care is an amazing experience, which subtly changes the story, depending on your choices during the psychoanalysis tests. It is a great medium of entertainment and it can give you a few good tips on how to better your life. Before playing, remember to check the "Help" section for all the explanation that you need. Those who are bothered by the lengthy travel animations can switch them off from the camera button. The game reveals a story before you, which is both emotional and relatable. It keeps you guessing and it always rewards those players who are taking their sweet time in exploring and learning more about the game's world and characters. I can honestly say that separating with this game broke my heart, hell it broke even my girlfriend's heart and she wasn't even playing the thing. It is an amazing experience and I highly recommend it to those people who are interested in FMV, slow paced games with a little to no action in them.

I haven't played "the original" so i don't know how it compares. The psychological profiles are based per-episode, which i didn't realize, and i expected one at the very end of the "game." (Spoiler: you don't get one at the very end.) My computer crashed (for an unrelated reason) at the ending scenes of the game, and it had not saved any of my progress up to that point). What i did notice is that, although the video did not change on my forced second playthrough, the questions did, so it actually does attempt to psyche eval you. However, some of my evals were in direct conflict with each other. Half of them were surprisingly accurate (and i asked myself, what questions could it possibly have asked to read me so well?), but then the other half were awfully wrong. So, i guess this game is better than a broken clock which is right twice a day, but not much better.

When I first saw this, I was so charmed by it that when I lost it, I bought a second one. Between the scenes the player gets to explore the house, digging into the personal lives of the inhabitants. There's also a series of questions, the goal of which is to figure out which of the endings would touch the viewer/player most. I remember being surprised when I got my first ending. It was very satisfying, but unexpected. I later got another from the same people, PoV (Point of View), it would be nice if that found its way to GOG as well.