Hi, I'm Hamish Black and welcome to Writing on Games.
Look, I get it.
Between some downright painful dialogue and often wearing its influences uncomfortably
on its sleeve, the original Life is Strange is a tough sell to many.
There's a reason it ended up as one of my favourite games of 2015, however; that dialogue,
for all its high school melodrama and…
Spirits Within apologia, was less about what was being said; focusing more on what it said
about the characters.
Shoving TWIN PEAKS in the player's face is arguably some of the most on-the-nose referencing
you could see in a game but hey, this isn't the first piece of media to be set in a sleepy
town with a seedy underbelly.
No, it's what the game does with this influence that makes it its own thing; using its mechanics
to create a unique sense of place, then using this as a springboard to tell its heightened,
surprisingly dark, borderline magical-realist version of the coming-of-age story.
Time travel feels crucial to the game not as a means of giving the player more choice
in how they might affect the story, but in highlighting just how futile Max's choices
actually are.
It's not a game about time travel, it's not even really about high school drama; it
presents Max with every teenager's fantasy of being able to undo the consequences of
the dumb shit you will inevitably carry out as you coast through your existence, then
rewards that endeavour with death, destruction and the dismantling of the very fabric of
reality.
It's about highlighting Max's fear of the unknown, of consequence, her ignorance
of life outside the bubble of high school.
The conclusion it draws is grim, painting the real world as a cold, uncaring, often
unfair place, but there's a strange sense of hope running through it; both Max and Chloe
truly mature as people in their realisation of this (depending on if you picked what feels
like the one canonical ending here).
All in it was a neatly told story that used its heightened sense of reality and the mechanics
that resulted to explore two surprisingly well-rounded characters.
Now though, we have Before the Storm, a recently concluded prequel series with a new team,
doing away with the supernatural elements of the series to tell a more grounded story
as they see it.
Aaaaand…
Chloe is giving the middle finger to a fence.
Aaaand she apparently just won a conversation with a fully-grown adult by responding to
"isn't it past your bedtime" with "isn't it past yours."
Because apparently that's the main mechanic now.
Oh boy, we're in for a rough one here.
In all seriousness, my time with Before the Storm left me genuinely confused.
Why does this exist?
Why did it need to be episodic?
Why is this character doing what they're doing?
In what world do human beings act like this?
Moreover, why am I the only one who seems to think this way?
For every thinkpiece praising the character of Rachel and her believable relationship
with Chloe, I'd see barely more than a plot device.
For every review praising Chloe's acerbic wit and acute perception of the world around
her, I would see mechanics that seemed to celebrate the worst aspects of her character.
For every commentator commending the game's slower pace and eschewing a more typical plot
to focus on Chloe's day-to-day, I'd see the complete polar opposite; a bafflingly
rushed storyline reliant on contrivances, conveniences and underwritten characters.
In short, I may be in the minority here, and I genuinely hate to rag on people's work
like this, but I just do not understand the praise I keep seeing this game receive.
While it's clear that the new team behind this game had a great deal of respect for
the source material, that just didn't seem to translate into anywhere near as human a
tale as they wanted to deliver.
It feels like a slave to its influences; at once trying to say "me too" and simultaneously
completely missing the point of whatever it's referencing, throwing out what ounce of subtlety
the original had.
For one, while Life is Strange would often, perhaps smugly, nod its head towards its inspirations,
Before the Storm all but smacks its head into a goddamn mirror; going full-blown Fire Walk
With Me in its attempts to characterise the Laura Palmer stand-in of Rachel Amber; the
girl whose abduction acted as a vehicle for the larger plot of Life is Strange.
And while this isn't something that seemed necessary given how cohesive the original
felt as a package, I had no issue with a different team taking a stab at something ambitious
like this.
It's just that the relationship between Chloe and Rachel never feels as convincing
as that of Chloe and Max and that's partially because of the inconsistent nature of Rachel's
characterisation.
The game more than invites the Laura Palmer comparison, but where the darker side of Lynch's
troubled heroine originated from the horrendous abuse she suffered, Rachel Amber… just kinda
happens to be a dick.
She's a dick long before she discovers her father's apparent infidelity towards the
end of episode 1; the kind of entitled asshole to get pissy at you because she lost something
as insignificant as a quarter.
The game hints at the idea that Rachel isn't someone to be admired, as well as the idea
of performing one's identity for the sake of others, but never really follows through
on it, because the next minute we'll be expected to take whatever heartfelt realisation
about her feelings for Chloe that follows at face value.
Nothing is ever "realised" about Rachel across the three episodes; hell, they even
hint at some kind of supernatural shenanigans at play as she controls the wind with her
screams… and then just drops it.
She just is what she is; all things to all people.
The universally popular timid rational straight-A student who is talented at everything and
stays on the straight and narrow but is also a maverick with a hair trigger who loves punk
rock and isn't afraid to fight and ditch school, turning on people in a moment's
notice when the plot decides it needs something else to happen.
Far from being a likeable character, she's an asshole at best and her lack of consistency
makes her as much of a plot device as she was in the first game.
She sends you on missions, telling you to gather this or that for her, clumsily reminding
you that this is an adventure game after all.
And honestly, that was probably the point; it's clear the focus is Chloe here.
Exploring her character dealing with loss at its purest; not only having lost her dad
but having been abandoned by her friends too.
We, very occasionally, get to see her in moments of real vulnerability, peering into her mind
to witness her nightmares; those rare surreal scenarios where she just shuts up because
she's scared and doesn't understand the situation.
She can't sleep without recounting graphic images of her father's horrific death.
In these sequences, the game says more with less, making for some of the best moments
across the entirety of Life is Strange; telling us more about Chloe's character than her
pages of edgy teen comebacks ever could, even if these moments are unfortunately short lived
See, it's just a shame that mechanically, the game seems hellbent on saying less with
more; taking those edgy teen comebacks, no one's favourite part about the original,
and turning them into the game's defining mechanic.
I think it's maybe the worst move the series could have made.
At a few seemingly random points in the story, you'll get the opportunity to enter into
a kind of insult-'em-up where, by picking vague lines based on your opponent's last
verbal attack, you respond with such scathing takedowns as "you're stupid" and "you're
an asshole" or "doing homework is dumb."
There was potential for this to have a similar effect to that of Max's time travel; forcing
Chloe to confront the futility of her petulance.
Episode 2, for example, sees you ostensibly "win" the game of conversation, successfully
defending Rachel and, as a result, you get expelled.
It could have acted as a clever bait-and-switch; your idea of succeeding at a game gradually
being replaced with the notion that you're doing more harm than good; a mechanic conveying
Chloe's narrative arc in the same way it did Max's.
Unfortunately, the backtalk mechanic is used so haphazardly (from playing a game of D&D
to stealing a bottle of wine from the world's daftest couple), that it's difficult for
the system to tell a coherent story.
It more often than not puts Chloe on some kind of pedestal, celebrating what the writers
clearly see as her razor-sharp wit as she takes down bullies and get what she wants.
It's just that when you place that outcome against what she's actually saying to these
people, the writer's image of Chloe as some badass wordsmith and what we're presented
with feel like two very different things.
It's the worst of all worlds; a throwaway mechanic that says almost nothing about our
main character, while simultaneously painting her in the worst possible light.
That's not even to mention the game's main collectable, the graffiti.
Where Max would take photos, Chloe goes full punk rawk, scrawling horrendously unfunny
weed jokes on her wall at the best of times, and at worst being outrageously, uncannily
stupid; like when she infiltrates a certain, highly important person's office in which
it would do her well to keep a low profile, but she just can't help but write "SECRET
BOOZE STASH" on someone's furniture when she spots a wine bottle for some reason.
It's not a "this action will have consequences because it's perhaps the most confusingly
daft thing you could possibly do here" moment; it's just another collectable, a trophy,
a reward, one example of many of your interactions failing to line up with the kind of humanity
the writers were apparently striving for; and when you try to tell a human story and
fail, it's often the little details that stick out the most.
In Life is Strange, the writers clearly viewed it as weird that Max would just go around
looking at other people's stuff in video game fashion, and so they'd have characters
call her out for being nosy; it was written in as a character trait.
A small detail, sure, but one that makes the story better for having not been overlooked.
As groan-worthy and out of leftfield as it may initially seem, Max suddenly cutting to
how she thinks Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is an underrated movie when she's trying
to find secrets in Victoria's room at least makes sense as a stream of consciousness because,
crucially, she's thinking it; she isn't saying it.
As Virginia Woolf would tell you, thoughts are weird and tangential; our minds go to
unexpected places in tense situations.
It's when those internal ponderings turn external, as they so often do in Before the
Storm, that it becomes a problem.
Like when Chloe snarkily shouts at some animals as opposed to just shooing them away, or when
her backtalk mechanic has her referring to her "well of witticisms" that some people
might think about in an argument but no one would actually say, or when she writes SECRET
BOOZE STASH in a situation where it would only put her in danger, or when she climbs
a fence and gives it the middle finger.
Like, who's going to see that?
Who is that for?
Yes, it tells us that Chloe is an abrasive, edgy teen, but we knew that already.
We already had a whole game tell us that.
BtS was in a unique position to more fully explore Chloe's psyche as she deals with
loss and letting her guard down for someone who seems like she doesn't care, but little
moments like this only serve to detract from the game's attempts at sincerity; making
its characters feel lifeless, artificial, underwritten.
But it's not just a problem suffered by the game's characters; the larger plot's
attempts to pull at the heartstrings fall flat because of what I see to be glaring inconsistencies.
My friend Cagey Videos wrote what is still a great piece about how this game, for him,
nailed the feeling of abandonment that so often comes with loss, because in his eyes,
the game doesn't really have much of a plot; instead choosing to focus on Chloe just existing,
being left to her own devices as she is forced to deal with her pain alone.
And while I appreciate that sentiment, I would argue that the game actually does the opposite;
occasionally encouraging you to soak in the atmosphere, before remembering that it has
to get these characters to certain points in the story within a fairly short space of
time, resulting in, without hyperbole, one of the most rushed stories I've come across
in quite some time.
It's really odd; feeling like very little actually happens because it's on such a
relatively small scale, but that "very little" also seems to happen at a whiplash-inducing
pace.
For example, and here's where we'll get into spoilers, take something as seemingly
innocuous as the school play in episode 2.
Victoria will try to drug Rachel beforehand out of jealousy but Chloe finds out, and instead
of, ya know, informing someone, the pair think it'll be fun to force Victoria to drug herself
so that she collapses in front of the play's director and instead of, ya know, postponing
the play and informing someone, Rachel comes up with the genius solution of having Chloe
take over Victoria's role even though she's expelled and hasn't so much as glanced at
the script because "heehee let's put the punk kid in a funny costume," all while
Victoria is passed out on the ground in front of them.
Leading you to take to the stage and charmingly blag your way through the lines to rapturous
applause.
Even in normal circumstances this plot thread would be considered dramatically convenient
at best while perhaps painting every character as a fucking sociopath at worst, but then
you also remember that this whole encounter takes place over the course of a mere fifteen
minutes.
Questions of "why is this happening" were being constantly interrupted by questions
of "why is this happening."
I keep coming back to it but the writers said they wanted to craft a more human story here
and, well, human beings don't act like this.
If this was the one time this happened, though, it'd maybe be understandable as a means
of getting characters from situation A to emotional realisation B. But it's far from
the only example, and what's more, it's far from the worst.
That would come later, in episode 3 (and buckle up kids because this one gets wild).
This is where Rachel tells you to infiltrate her dad (the DA's) office in the Amber household
in order to get information, so you break in and find a burner phone seemingly mid-text
conversation with the friend of your drug dealer who it turns out is working with Rachel's
dad to keep a certain someone quiet but he might be going too far so you adopt the persona
of Rachel's dad to find out where this dude is before uncovering the fact her dad is being
blackmailed and so you end up playing a game of "burn the correct, conveniently-placed
evidence" and "pin the tail on the snitch" oh but not before the aforementioned SECRET
BOOZE STASH bit jesus christ and you find out where he is but before you can go…
Eliot shows up (a character so nothing-y and unimportant I genuinely forgot he existed)
after following you from the hospital and just waltzing into the house of a person he
doesn't know before suddenly exploding into a controlling asshole demanding "you need
to pay attention to ME now" and locking you in before you try to call the cops in
maybe the game's dumbest backtalk sequence which is of no consequence because you escape
anyway, all the while I'm thinking "who the hell is this prick," before you head
back to where it all began, the old mill, to conveniently find the drug dealer friend
about to give Rachel's mum an overdose of heroin but you get beaten up but then Frank
shows up and they start fighting but things fade to black and then you wake up and find
the mum sitting in a chair and she's apparently fine and solemnly tells you that…
Frank killed that other guy I guess and that "Rachel can't know the truth" even though
the whole reason any of this happened was because the mum came back looking for her
and the dad was a sack of shit about the whole thing and for a minute you think "oh maybe
they're going for a Black Lodge surrealist-type deal (just, ya know, without the dazzling
visual metaphors) where things aren't quite what they seem because none of this makes
any fucking sense" but then no because the ending shows that Frank did kill his pal and
the game just… didn't animate it or something?
All of this feels like it should occur over the course of an entire episode, hell maybe
two given the various threads and conspiracies being uncovered and characters at play here.
But no, this all happens in the last 40 minutes of the game.
My mouth was genuinely agape at what I was witnessing.
Combined with the almost universally awful voice acting (besides the new actor for Chloe
who does a genuinely fantastic job), these events brought to mind films like The Room
they were so farfetched.
Sure, the original Life is Strange rather quickly introduced Max's time travel powers,
but was surprisingly measured in establishing what they said about her character in episode
one, before exploring the larger context of the town in episode 2, then focusing on the
murder mystery in 3 and 4, then dealing with the repercussions of the twist in 5; it justified
its delivery as an episodic story because every episode had a distinct purpose.
Before the Storm, on the other hand, feels like it adopted that structure because that's
what the original did, then somewhere down the line forgot that it only had a certain
number of episodes with which to tell its story so had to cram everything in at the
last second.
And the thing is, I can imagine what they were likely going for.
The whole scenario with the play gets Chloe and Rachel to the point at which they truly
figure out the nature of their relationship.
The events of episode 3 get us to the final dilemma: how does Chloe, a person who knows
more about loss than anyone, navigate killing the image of someone close to Rachel?
These should be relatable, human moments and I truly believe the writers' intentions
were genuine, but because these brief occurrences arise from such wildly expedited and convenient
events, it all kept me coming back to the question: "in what world do human beings
act like this?"
The original Life is Strange had its fair share of convenient moments too, for sure;
where Max's powers would just so happen to give way at a point where it would provide
the most tension.
The difference is that Life is Strange was a game steeped in the supernatural; things
could be a little absurd at times because at almost every point, the state of the universe
as we knew it was being brought into question.
Perhaps ironically, the heightened reality of Life is Strange, establishing the baseline
of "things will be weird," is precisely what allowed it to cut more directly to the
core of the characters; examining more closely how they deal with these occurrences.
The writers of Before the Storm, however, place their story firmly in the realms of
reality.
And when you make that claim, the standards to which the resulting story will be held
should be higher as a result.
I genuinely don't like making videos like this; it was the same with the MGS video.
Even what you might think of as bad games often take a lot of work and it doesn't
feel good shitting on that.
I also understand that I'm in the minority here; it's the kind of story that rarely
gets told in games and perhaps people want to celebrate that fact alone, but I don't
think that means we should settle for that kind of story being told badly.
And sure, there are a few moments here that rank up there as the best things Life is Strange
has ever done; it just so happens that they always get drowned out by what immediately
follows.
A useless verbal tug-of-war here, a casual drugging there; all events carrying about
as much humanity and emotional weight as giving the middle finger to a goddamn fence.
So I hope you enjoyed my piece on Before the Storm.
Like I say, I might be in the minority here, but hey, ya gotta be honest about how ya feel.
If you're into what I'm doing here, why not hit subscribe, click the little bell thingy
and check out the podcast in the description.
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Patreon like these wonderful folks currently on the screen.
I have a lot of plans for how I can bring more content to the channel in 2018 and that
simply would not be possible without your generous pledges.
In particular I'd like to thank Mark B. Writing, Michael Wolf, Artjom Vitsjuk, Spike
Jones, Vasili Hrebinka, Chris Wright, Dr. Motorcycle, Harry Fuertes, Ham Migas, Travis
Bennett, Zach Casserly, Samuel Pickens, Tom Nash, Shardfire, Filip Lange, Rob, Rusty Shackleford,
Ana Pimentel, Jessie Rine, Brandon Robinson, Iago Foxo Bouza, Justins Holderness, Biggy
Smith, Peter, Christian Konemann, Nico Bleackley, Cameltraffic, Nicolas Ross and Charlie Yang.
And with that I'm Hamish Black and this has been Writing on Games.
Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time.
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