14 DAY TRIAL // 
Life Is Strange is a game that aims to show, at least in this first episode, how weird it would be to actually have superpowers and how hard a normal person would find it to try and see how their gifts might be integrated into their daily existence.
The protagonist is a teenager named Max Caulfield (yes, the reference is a bit too obvious), who has some trouble fitting in at her local school and is finding an escape in photography.
She quickly discovers she has the power to rewind time and that she can use the ability in order to get through some difficult personal moments and smooth the edges of her existence, until she meets old friend Chloe.
Most of episode 1’s running time is dedicated to setting up the world that will be featured in the rest of the game, although some intriguing reveals take place towards the end.
Life Is Strange features a lot of writing, and unfortunately, the developers have failed to nail down the teen-filled society that the game navigates and many lines seem hollow and out of place, even if the big arcs of the story do hold promise for future episodes, especially considering the final few minutes of the episode.
Life Is Strange is a rather classic take on the adventure game genre, with players able to control their character using WASD and the movement of the mouse and with the time rewind power mapped to the right button.
“Dontnod has created a relatively interesting world to explore, with plenty of characters, some of them really interesting to interact with, and much of the game involves simply speaking with them, trying to see what’s important and what is not.”
There are some moments that are marked as important for the series as a whole and the game will announce you when one happens by explaining that the character will remember a particular choice.
There are also light puzzles that need to be completed in order to progress through areas or to get necessary items, none of them too difficult and with plenty of hints available.
The game allows players to interact with objects and people by shifting their gaze towards them before choosing the appropriate action with the mouse, which can feel a bit weird initially but becomes more natural as the game progresses.
The rewind power can be used at any moment, but in this episode its uses seem a bit limited given how transformative it could be, and I was a little frustrated that I was unable to use my mastery of time to remedy some of the most problematic events of the episode.
There’s a fight I wish I could have intervened in and at least one major character interaction I wanted to be able to explore in another way.
But the developers of Life Is Strange seem not to trust the player to use time rewind right and they set clear limits for it, which make it harder to inhabit the world of the game and create a connection with Max.
The game uses an interesting graphics style, aiming to deliver a realistic set of characters and environments, but with a few added accents here and there suggesting the fantastical elements imbued into the narrative and the gameplay.
Max herself is carefully animated and there are some superb moments when her attitude and her slight movements deliver more info about her state of mind and her thoughts than the narrative overlaid by the developers.
The other characters in Life Is Strange vary in quality, with the school’s principal being a low point, as he looks like an overinflated balloon at times. On the other hand, the environments do have enough details but the textures are too simple for a modern title.
It will be interesting to see how the Dontnod team uses the same areas and characters in future episodes.
The voice work is equally hit-or-miss, with Max getting some solid line reading, but other characters often sound shallow when they should be serious and the other way around.
For a game which spends so much time focused on the faces of its characters, even worse is that the voices and the movement of the mouths rarely match up in a natural way, which can become very annoying once a player notices the problem.
The Good
- Some solid story moments
- Max characterization
The Bad
- Limited time rewind mechanic
- Some weird conversations
Conclusion
The time rewind also seems like a great way to allow the player to explore each important situation from a variety of points of view.
But the gameplay seems too limited after one episode and the story has failed to deliver anything truly engaging, other than a vision of a tornado, which I still hope is metaphorical rather than real.
I do like Max as a main character and the way she interacts with the world, but Dontnod needs to deliver more absorbing moments in the coming episodes in order to keep gamers interested in Life Is Strange.
