Life is Strange is an adventure game about a girl named Max who finds out she can rewind time, if only for a few minutes. The game is an episodic adventure created by the developer DONTNOD, and currently only has it’s first episode, Chrysalis, available to play. The second episode is scheduled to come out on March 24 over PSN, Xbox Live, as well as it’s PC release. The game is very similar to the adventure games made by TellTale such as the Walking Dead Episodes 1 and 2, and Tales from the Borderlands. This style of adventure game is part point and click adventure, but without as many puzzles, and focusing on its characters and their relationships to each other as well as the story and world they live in. Pretty much everything in this game is done fantastically and its definitely one you need to play.
The Characters are one of the shining parts about this game. They all fill certain roles like the mean girl, or the skater dudes, but they all feel genuine. In one of the opening segments you walk Max down the hall way. If you pay attention to what the other teens are saying, it sounded just like the hallways at my old high school. Keep in mind that we still don’t know much about any of these guys yet, but they all seem to have secrets about them and I’m ready for the remaining episodes to come out so i can see if they live up to the potential the development team has set.
The story also has a ton of promise. Episode 1: Chrysalis didn’t delve too deep into what the actual story really is, but it did a phenomenal job setting it up. I won’t mention just what exactly the story seems to be about, mainly to avoid spoilers, but it just got better the more the teased. First it was just finding out that Max can rewind her life, much like a VHS tape, and change the things that happened in the last couple of minutes, but it quickly is known that it will be much, much more than that. At the end of the episode they give you a choices list of the important, and not so important, choices you made. Lets just say that I really want to know why watering your plant was an important choice…. and the at should be reason enough to play this. Will the plant save the world? Only time will tell