Gone Home Review
Gone Home puts you in the role of Katie, the eldest daughter in a family of four. You have just returned from studying and adventuring abroad, and want nothing more than to see your family. You end up landing really late so you leave a message for your family telling them not to worry about picking you up, you'll find your own ride home. When you show up at the front door something strange is going on, there doesn't seem to be anyone home. Where is everyone? What happened to them? Should you be worried? You will have to play this game from The Fullbright Company.
Graphically this game looks pretty good for a first person mystery game, I really wish I could have pumped the graphics to the max, but apparently my computer wasn't going to allow me to do much more than stare at the well rendered scenes. I do have to say I liked the style they went with for the map, it would not reveal anything that you didn't already know about. So if you hadn't entered a room its not going to show up on your map. The other thing I liked is that for the most part you could kind of figure out, quickly, the fluff that was put into the game, and the stuff that you could pick up and hopefully gain clues from.
The music was an interesting thing about the game. Apparently your kid sister, in the game, was big into the indie girl band scene so you're going to hear quite a bit of their music, which I have to say for the most part was different but good to listen to while you're going through a room. As for voice acting it was pretty minimal, but I have to say that the parts that were voiced you could feel the emotion in them.
The controls of the game were pretty straight forward and when you first needed to use a control like pulling up the map, moving, picking up an object, etc. you got a helpful hint on the screen telling you how exactly to do it.
I have to say that this is one of those games that I enjoyed immensely, but at the same time I'm scared to review specific parts of the game simply because I will be potentially ruining the game for the next person. What I will tell you is that finding out about the house, what your family has been up to, the drama that all families have, and patching together all the clues of exactly why your family is not there was entertaining and I kind of wish there was more. This is one of those games that truly show you that you don't have to be toting a gun around to make a game good. The story itself definitely is not for everyone, but I really enjoyed the game, and I think there are many people who are looking for something a bit different, and this is exactly what they need to check out.
One of the really cool things in the game is that there's a couple of Easter Eggs in the game designed by other independent studio artists. Which I did find and was happy to see some love from other indie studios. So if you're looking for a game filled with mystery, life, love, drama, family, and more, then you are probably going to need to pick up this game. I did, and I'm glad I did. This game gets a 9.4 out of 10.
