Gone Home was awesome
Well, this game needs no further accolades as it is quite the darling of most critics. However, I will still write my thoughts. I thought for sure that there would be no surprises for me as I had heard multiple podcasters discuss this game. I was wrong. What surprised me was, initially I admit I rolled my eyes at the premise of the story. One thing that I noticed throughout the game though was that I wanted to know how it ended. I felt like I knew something about the protagonist. And then I started to care about the characters. A lot has been said recently about the "Why should I care" in video games. I will say that while this story did not involve a bearded 40 something blowing the **** out of things, it evoked more feeling and involvement than most stories I experienced recently. This is not to say that it is superior, only that I feel that it is a legitimate game and story of its own.
When I heard all of the personalities talking about people debating whether Gone Home was a game, I prepared for the worst. I imagined existentialist garbage or political hand wringing. The fact is, it is a game to me. It take you through an experience and you act to construct the story. You interact to assemble the story. The story does not revolve around saving the world, instead it talks about life through the eyes of a normal person. The person has a dysfunctional family like all of us. This is why is rings true to me I suppose. That and I live in the Portland-Metro area so I had a laugh at all of the references.
Overall a great experience. I wish it had been longer and we could have dove into it a bit more, but then again I feel the same way when I read a good short story.
