Gone Home...

     I enter the game as Katie Greenbriar. I have just returned from studying abroad in Europe and am expecting to come home to a warm welcome from my family. Upon arriving it appears as if no one is home. It's raining cats and dogs and the door is locked. Where did everyone go? Why the hell is no one here for me? What's going on here?!?

    It is here that my adventure begins. Gone Home is a first person exploratory adventure game. It set in 1995 . You can tell by looking at all the pictures of everyone with their perms and big bangs. There is even a salon ticket that you find for Katie's mom that lists the charges for a perm, shampoo set, and manicure. The house is also littered with cassette tapes (do those even exist anymore?) You get free range of the Greenbriar home, which is a mansion that the family inherited from a dead uncle. The house is filled with secrets and family history that hides itself in scattered notes and messages. The object of the game is to explore the house and find out where everyone went.

    The game is a lot like Amnesia: The Dark Descent in the sense of exploring every object, nook, and cranny. Gone Home is even a little creepy. Not creepy in the sense that there are monsters stalking you but creepy in the sense of flickering lights and a thunderstorm happening outside. The house itself even creaks and moans and there are some areas that are a little unsettling when you find them. The story of Gone Home is not scary at all, just a little bittersweet.

    Notes and letters litter the house in every room. It would seem as if the family was a little untidy with all the trash laying around. On every single one of these notes the story unravels a little more and you start to find out what is really going on with the family, and lets just say this family has A LOT of secrets. What makes this personal however, is that these secrets are very real and could happen to anyone. 

    Along with these notes you also stumble upon the occasional tape of Riot Grrl music. It seemed like an odd choice for the game since it was so melancholy, but the music gives the game a sense of teenage rebellion and angst. I definitely listened to Bratmobile when I was a teenager and angsty. It was nice to have a change from the constant sound of rain and thunder for a while.

    I would highly recommend this game. Even though there isn't much action it keeps you locked in and motivated to keep playing. The game doesn't drag on or lag in any spots. The beauty of the home and the secrets of your family will keep you interested until the very end. It's a touching experience to uncover all the mysteries of the Greenbriar home. I'd say The Fullbright Company wins with this one!

Beyond Two Souls

So let's talk about Beyond Two Souls for a moment. I know that this game came out a few months ago and I bought it the second it came out on the shelves. I actually preordered it through Gamestop (who knows how much good that actually does.) I was extremely excited to play this game because I loved Heavy Rain. There isn't a game like Heavy Rain out there so when I heard the creators of that game were coming out with this, I was eager to play.
     I have to admit that the story was gripping in the beginning. You get to grow up with a girl, named Jodie, that has a very special gift, or some would say, a curse. She is tied to an entity that lives in the spirit realm. This makes her the subject of research to a paranormal lab. Now this isn't the whole story, but you have to play the game yourself to experience all that this story has to offer.
    The game jumps around a bit. One second you're Jodie as a little girl, the next you're young adult Jodie. The life of this girl is a terrible one and is plagued with so much heartbreak and abuse that you can't help but feel sorry for her. So many bad things happen to Jodie, at certain times it gets to the point where your screaming "For God's sake! Will someone give this girl a break??!" The game however, does give you some heartwarming moments that grant relief from all the suffering she goes through.
    As I said, the story itself was gripping, as for the gameplay, that's another story. The gameplay is almost non-existent. You do get some combat here and there, but as for the entire game it's more like watching a movie. Unlike Heavy Rain where you actually had some mystery solving to do, Beyond Two Souls does not really offer even a puzzle to solve. I found myself growing bored and not wanting to play. Honestly the only thing that kept me going was to see the ending.
    The ending is where I can say the game truly shined. It was haunting, and your choices weighed heavy as to who would live or die. The choices at the end were hard to make and it was a little unsettling to watch some of the events play out.  The cool part about the ending is that you have the option of getting one out of 11 endings. The endings are obviously based upon the choices you make throughout the game via Silent Hill style.
    Overall I would not recommend this game for someone who likes a lot of action. If you like an emotional story and choice based scenarios, then this is the game for you. Jodie's character is truly memorable as well as the entity that is bound to her. While this video game lacks in action and puzzle solving, it does make up for it in story-telling. Just be prepared in knowing that you are going to be watching cutscenes most of the time.

Happy gaming!

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