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Life is Strange is a single-player game, developed by Dontnod Entertainment (Indie developers with only one other title before this), and published by Square Enix. It is best described as a single-player, third-person, episodic, graphic, adventure game. The game is considered an episodic game because it consists of five episodes which were originally released one episode at a time back in 2015 on Windows PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 & Xbox One. During Summer 2016, Feral Interactive released a port for Linux and OS X. Life is Strange is available for $19.99 through Steam as well as the Life is Strange website, or the game’s Square Enix page, all of these places will ask for your age since the game is Rated M for Mature. Life is Strange is played from a third-person point of view, and is quite unique in its core gameplay, which I assume is why it quickly became a success among gamers and critics alike. As seen on its Steam Store page, the game has won a number of awards, including Game Informer’s Silver & GamePro’s Gold among others. It currently has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating from Steam players.
The game takes place in Arcadia Bay and you play as Max (short for Maxine), a photography student with a very unique gift. Right off the bat, you know that you’re in for a wild ride as the game begins with Max walking toward a lighthouse in the middle of a raging storm. Suddenly, as a huge tornado is destroying everything in its path, including the lighthouse, and you’re about to be devoured and become the tornado’s next victim, Maxine awakes in photography class in the middle of a nice, sunny day. Mr. Jefferson goes on with his lecture while Max regains her composure and this is where things get pretty bizarre as Max figures out that she somehow has the power to reverse time. This is the main game-play mechanism that truly distinguishes the game from other titles.
Tripping out over her newly discovered gift, Max goes to the school restroom – where she witnesses a murder while hiding in one of the stalls. Knowing she’s got the power to change the outcome of this event by reversing time, Max goes back in time to Mr. Jefferson’s lecture where she then sets out on a similar path but which will afford her the opportunity to prevent the murder from taking place. Without giving too much away from this point on, now would be a good time to point out that preventing the murder is pretty much half of the first episode’s story. The first episode is currently available as a free download from Steam, so if you’re interested in playing this game, all you’ve got to do is download it from Steam and try out the first episode for free. If, like me, you happen to enjoy the first episode and would like to find out more about Maxine’s powers, and are curious about the happenings around the fictitious town of Arcadia, Oregon, then you can purchase the game and play the next four episodes. Each episode can be played in about 1-3 hours – depending on how much you like to explore. Replaying an episode but making different decisions can also be rather rewarding as the storyline can have mild changes, or be dramatically different, depending on which choices you’ve changed from your original play. I particularly like how the game allows you to replay individual episodes again if you so desire.
The game is a true delight to play. At first, I was playing the game with mouse/keyboard, but, after finishing Episode One, I noticed during the opening sequence that the game itself recommends you play with a game-pad controller – so I went ahead and tried that as well. This game is very well suited for both styles of playing, so whether you prefer mouse/keyboard or game-pad controller, both feel right at home with Life is Strange. Moving about and performing most actions is done very much like your typical third-person game, the main difference is the rewind-time feature. After a while, you get used to this mechanism and everything that it brings to the table such as the options to skip parts you’ve already played (in an alternate time), and the awkward experience of what the game calls “tele-porting” through the use of time. Once you get accustomed to the mechanics of the game, you will be immersed in the storyline, the characters, and the town of Arcadia – with all of its secrets and surprising reveals.
Although its graphics are not quite as impressive as other recent Square Enix titles (such as Tomb Raider, reviewed back in Full Circle Magazine issue 111), Life is Strange still manages to photograph a pretty picture. It’s visually impressive when you’re moving back in time, which is indicated on the screen by a spiral on the upper left corner, and various scenes you’ve previously seen are overlapping & rewinding in a very blurry fashion. The voice acting, the soundtrack, and overall sound, are often multi-layered and best experienced with either headphones or with a full surround-sound system. Inarguably, the game stands out most in the way it incorporates “social issues and everyday problems and how we see everyday life in a small town, the problems of unemployment, alcoholism, social bullying, violence,” as stated by its co-director Raoul Barbet. The game’s story will suck you in until you get to live through its full week – which should take you anywhere between 12-20 hours of dedicated playing time. I strongly recommend Life is Strange and honestly, I’ve struggled to find anything I don’t like about this game so it gets a solid rating from me.
Minimum Requirements OS: Ubuntu 16.04 / Steam OS 2.0 (64 bit) Processor: Intel i3 / AMD FX6300 RAM: 4GB Hard Disk: 16GB Graphics: 1GB NVIDIA 640, AMD R9 270, Intel Iris Pro 6200 or better
Exigences minimum OS : Ubuntu 16.04 / Steam OS 2.0 (64-bit) Processeur : Intel i3 / AMD FX6300 RAM : 4 Go Disque dur: 16 Go Affichage : NVIDIA 640, AMD R9 270, Intel Iris Pro 6200 or mieux, 1 Go mini