Quick Look: Life is Strange - Before the Storm

I am really enjoying this first episode a lot. I think seeing Chloe 'on the edge' before she hit her lowest was more interesting that I would have thought. That argument mechanic was a great idea, if there is one power you could give Chloe it would be her mouth.

Things I have liked so far...

• FInding places to tag and having a choice is more than I expected
• Rachel Amber is actually interesting, LiS did a lot of telling but not showing why Rachel was cool. This prequel shows how she was with people and does make her seem important...sucks that she is dead.
• They really do have new characters which was not what I expected. It appears to be half old and have new students.
• Yikes! You get to see what Chloe might blame herself for her father's death.
• Playing the role playing game was fun
• The first encounter with Nathan made him far more three dimensional, as a character, than the first game's eps ever managed.

I have to say what really saddens me even from the start is you KNOW the Rachel Amber will end up in a bad place. And, given the choice I made Chloe dies as well...if somewhat more nobly

Damn, I really hope that Dontnod Entertainment switches between one 'Life Is Strange' and then another type of game like Vampyr. While on the off years Square-Enix can have a second developer do follow up games. I think Before the Storm proves LiS can be more than just a single mechanic, single character, or even a single development team.

Insult fighting is back!

Nothing says "horrible voice acting" like reading every line as though you are seeing it on a page for the first time.

~~~ Support Game Devs - Don't give attention to games made with scab labor ~~~

The writing with the bouncer ahhhhhhh

@xdeser2: So don't support game devs?

The first episode alone is already worth it imo. It's really not up and down - only the first part is slightly bad, and even then I'd say it's fine outside of that terrible bouncer backtalk part (which really is unfortunate). I wish they'd shown just like, 15 minutes past what they did, Chloe interactions with her mom and schoolmates are great. My main sentiment is if you liked the original at all, I can pretty much guarantee you'll like this one too.

Hey look it's a scab game

I didn't like Chloe in the first game, and her voice acting was the weakest as well.

@chicken008: Er, what? Are you trying to suggest that ALL developers regularly use strikebreakers?

lmao, strikebreakers damage the ability for workers to exercise their power

Characters with 2 first names are weird. George Michael, Rachel Amber. It sounds to me like a name someone would choose as a pornstar or singer.

Braced myself for the episode, and thought it was not that terrible. Not sure how much i enjoy Life is strange though. I enjoyed watching it with the beastcrew, but i'm not sure i would enjoy it playing by myself.

@dasakamov: No, union or not they are all game devs.

Was this written by high school kids who think they are cool?

Aside from the backtalk with the bouncer, I was actually pretty into that intro. Not bad at all, especially considering how concerned I was about this game since its announcement. Honestly, the cringiest part of this QL was Abyy saying "I wanna sell this game" (I may have misheard but that's what I picked up). Generally not a great angle to approach from as a new member of the games press, doubly so when the game it's said about used scab labor. Abby is great, I just want her to be mindful of stuff like this.

Original LiS was my GOTY, but even with this video putting my quality concerns to rest, I don't think I can bring myself to support those labor practices.

Cringe.....

But I felt the same way about the quick look for the original LiS and it turned out to be one of the best games of 2015

Also, hey let's not turn this comment section into a labor vs management argument, mmmkay?

@sharbok: Given that the protagonists are high schoolers, that sounds like it would fit perfectly. ;)

I loved the first Life is Strange and I'll definitely pick this up on XBL when there's a sale.

Hmm. On the one hand I liked the original game but I didn't really like Chloe much at all in that game. She was sort of an awful friend who constantly made terrible choices that the game didn't let you alter (eg. Please stop playing around with a gun/Smoking weed at home and blaming it on me). Does this game make her more likeable than she was in the original game or is this one a write off for me?

I REALLY don't like that you show bad parts of the game and end the quick look on "it's good, just trust us."

Yeah, no, SHOW me that it's really good. Isn't that the point of a quick look? The game looks terrible from what you've shown here.

You could've simply shown the first part as a contrast and then said "no really guys this is spoiler territory" and then shown the part of the game that IS good, leave it up to the audience to watch it or not.

On top of that, spoilers for games like this is silly, it's a story game, you're watching it play out, from the beginning no less. You're going to be doing the exact same thing when you "play" the game, bar some choices, but hey that's not really spoilers because then you have a different outcome.

Thank you Abby for covering this game before the onslaught up the fall season of games. I appreciated the restraint you had with this covering this game for the site's QL, you showed of teh new mechanics of tagging and 'backtalk' without revealing everything. . Moreover, Alex's and your discussed of what was on screen without revealing too much about last year's episodes was nice. If there is one game from last year, people should look into, it is Life Is Strange, so not going too deeply into how that left off or where it went was nice.

Eh, I thought the original VA for Chloe wasn't that great. Her and some of the other teens were kinda bad, regardless of writing. Also, I didn't like Life is Strange after finishing the first episode, it only started to get good in episode 2, so the bad start doesn't really bother me.

Now show me a Tre Flip.

Decrying people working during a strike: "They took our jerbs!"

Yes you can have Chloe opt out of drugs and weapons if that floats your boat. Just as you could with Max.

@len1444: Well its really hard to show off something thats "the sum of all parts" without an entire playthrough. A quicklook is never gonna give games like this justice.

Been there, saw'n that.

@alistercat: Of course people have different opinions. But bad quality still shows through. Someone's opinion that Taco Bell is the best Mexican food doesn't make it true. It just means they have questionable taste on that one thing.

I finally found a time where I was less stressed at work to play through Ep. 1 of Before The Storm.

When I first heard that this projects was happening I was slightly fearful that they would mess it up. Life Is Strange is a great game...if you don't like it on some level why are you even reading this...but it was something that typically cannot be recreated. So, I was actually surprised that after the first ten minuets that games opened up into a different but probably slightly better game than Life Is Strange. Or, perhaps, it has a more assured/confident tone behind the premise and the writing.

The other surprise is that while Life Is Strange was fairly straight forward with the story, it symbolism -even at the end with all the facts- was fuzzy. Players still argue what animals were symbols, manifestation of characters, or just red-herrings. Before the Storm is not blunt its hints or symbols are more subtle, but I think that once seen tend to be more definitive. I have a fair grasp of Shakespeare with my British Literature concentration at college, did not pick up on some aspects that were clearer to other players about how much The Tempest will be a key to understanding the themes. I needed to replay the first episode while try to consider themes, lines of dialogue, background interactions I might have been missing. because I think there was far more to see and consider.

Yet, even if you want to ignore that Shakespeare themes, I think that game has a compelling story just about how difficult, sad, joyful and confusing it is to be a teen. I kept thinking throughout the game, "Oh shit yeah! I've been there; I've felt that same emotion." or "Well, shit! I recall that how I acted when a similar thing happened to me....but, I was really stupid."

I hope is they tackle this game on GBeast that they wait until all the Eps are out. This seems like content that won't work unless they tackle one episode a week, for three weeks in a row. Moreover, it gives us all time to to play it first.