Choose Our Own Adventure!: 10/20/2015 (Life is Strange)

Wait, people voting in a way you disagree with is "defeating the purpose of weekly votes"?

I... what?

A big theme of the game is the concept of judging people based on initial impressions or limited impressions. I think that's kind of why they put you in a situation where you're playing as the "hipster" with a sort of douchey professor and a bunch of teenagers trying really hard to be cool or funny or cruel.

The game presents these people to you, and then sort of unfolds them over time. It's kind of showing you that, hey, yeah, you think this person is dorky because you don't like the stupid slang they use, but they're still a person, they're more than just your flash impression.

Obviously there's a lot more to the game than that (And it's awesome), but I think the idea is 100% for you to have an initial impression similar to yours, to help build empathy and understanding later in the episodes.

It's remarkable how vociferous people who don't like this game are about how much they don't like it. To the point of seeming offended by its existence.

@marblez3: Max is going through quite a lot and boys probably isn't high on her priorities, and she does say thank you. But I guess when it comes down to it it's not really Max whos an asshole it's GBE lol.

For the people who can't get any version to work.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/embed/8635/?allow_gb=yes

Hell yeah life is strange, more of this please.

@reflex: I wasn't talking about her dating him or any guys. I'm just saying she seemed quite nonchalant two minutes later after he nearly got himself killed or seriously injured saving her. Didn't even check to see if he was okay.

@deerokus: I have trouble understanding how someone could be opposed to a game like this. It's easy to ignore and its type isn't exactly making bank and saturating the market. Games like Life is Strange are so rare I'm shocked and thankful a team took a chance making something like this.

The way to get them to play something else is to vote for it if you think you won't win and don't vote then you are part of the problem. Now you may not win and the correct response if you don't win is not to grip but to realize you are not in the majority and deal with it. I never saw the purpose of this anywhere stated that it would be a different game every week and as such they don't have to be taken to your whims and saying they are going against the original concept when you don't know what the original concept was is rich.

I can't see why you don't like this game but it is certainly your right not to. But rather than simply attacking the people who like it maybe talk about why you don't? No game is perfect and debating what is good and what is bad is how we make better games. The process is iterative as vinny I think pointed out once.

Ditto.

"Boy, she really likes the F-bomb."

- Vinny Caravella, also the speaker of the quote:

"Oh, how’s your scripting work? FUCK IT. Oh, pick up the purse? FUCK IT. Oh, play this DLC? FUCK IT."

Please stick with this game! I just finished Episode 5, and god oh god do I need to see you guys see this through to the end.

How fucking awesome is it that they actually use Sparklehorse instead of some fake kinda-nineties-sounding-whatever-music? R.I.P. Mark Linkous.

@sod: Yup me too.

@jeffgoldblum: Try changing the quality to high or lower. Seems like the HD version isn't working atm.

Same, just want to flag this.

I hope they keep playing because at this point I've seen too much to actually play it myself and I want to see how it ends. Also these kind of slow paced adventure games seem perfectly suited for them to tackle. You have enough time for some banter between the crew, and 90% of the gameplay matters and isn't just filler between story beats.

Play the game to completion!

Loved this video. Please continue.

Dude, you are being a bit too harsh on poor Max. She had quite a day. Plus she was looking at Warren all worried until David rushed in, then she got distracted by reuniting with a long lost friend. Give the girl a break.

@xerseslives: Hey I'm not sure if you know this already, but Vinny actually already played through all of Phantasmagoria with Dave, it was awesome. http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/random-pc-game-phantasmagoria-part-01/2300-5406/

I'm really confused now, I was asking about the removal of the youtube video and my comment got deleted? I just prefer to watch GB on my ps4, as the PS4 browser wont play GB.com videos.

As far as I can tell, the Youtube vid is automatic after streaming on Youtube. Giant Bomb then take it down and replace it with their archived version, to reduce dead air at the beginning & any false starts they encountered while they were working out streaming issues.

The last LiS video was the same, just wait a while and it should be back on YT.

@johnymyko: Or it might have to do with the fact she's 19, and had told people she planned to leave for California, and if she's anything like Chloe she has a shitty relationship with her family. Those are all pretty good reasons to not report someone missing.

I kinda hope they move along to something else, especially after seeing how this ends.

Plus I love watching Vinny play Kerbal...

God, the guys bring a cool fan led feature to the site and the comments are full of "But IT'S ME who knows what the guys should be playing, not all THOSE idiots".

The feature pretty self explanatory. One day Life Is Strange won't win and then you guys can see something else voted in.

@flamingeyebrows: Not a good excuse at all.

I don't get the great concern over a missing gun..? I mean yeah it's not a good thing, but Vinny kept going on about it like it was the worst thing ever, even worse than forest fires or gerrymandering.

I am just here to say that who ever voted "Life is Strange" has a terrible, bland taste and I hope they enjoy their lifes working in the toll booths and data entry jobs. Note: I like LIS, I just think that it is terribly boring game to watch people trying to riff it.

I've watched tons of GB videos from PS4's browser, it should work fine. Maybe try switching streaming/progressive/html 5 setting?

Looking at the comments section, this game sure seems to get people angry as hell for some reason.

@marblez3Do you think Max owes Warren a date just because he stood up to Nathan ? Dude needs to get the hint that Max isn't interested in him the way he's interested in her. At this point she's just a friend that's all, she's grateful for what he did.

@jeffgoldblum: Yup, same problem here

Well, I mean usually when a gun is missing, that means someone took it. And usually when someone steals a gun, they have bad intentions like shooting someone.

From my personal experience, I don't think gun owners forget or misplace a gun. Though that step-dad did seem to have issues...

@napstar: Nice job misinterpreting my comment. I never once said she should/has to date him. It wasn't even about that.

I'm just gonna once again throw out my opinion that the winner of the vote should be disqaulified from the next week's voting, and then put back in the lineup the following week. That way people still get to see LiS finished, and everyone that doesn't like LiS doesn't have to wait 2+ months to see another game in this slot. Besides, imagine if enough people wanted them to play and finish something like Witcher 3 or MGSV? We'd never see another game on this feature again.

(And then Phantasmagoria 2 will win the next vote with no challenge like it should have done in the first place)

Huh anyone else failing to watch this on Roku?

@uniform said:

I guess by some legal definition Rachel Amber is probably a missing person, but by all accounts she was about as rebellious as Chloe, and frequently threatened to/talked about leaving their small town. With no evidence of foul play, the police would assume she voluntarily disappeared and moved to LA or something. She's 18, and they assume she voluntarily fled the town (and probably the state), so the police don't seem to be putting a high priority on tracking down this girl who ran off to model or act in LA or something. I think Vinny has already played through a scene where Max asks about Rachel's parents and Rachel's parents assume that Rachel ran off.

Chloe doesn't believe Rachel ran off because she thinks Rachel would never go to LA without her, but everyone else (police included) believes that Rachel either ran off without Chloe or maybe ran off with some new boyfriend people didn't really know a lot about.

We should probably keep the spoilers pretty light about what character details get revealed in episodes later than what Vinny has played, seeing as a lot of people watching this feature have only seen what Vinny has played.

It's not really explained outright but there are story reasons why this would occur and certain dialogue trees and found information will give you enough to put two and two together. It's not super important to the core plot of the game but I will say that legally missing requires a certain organization to make it official.

@bisonhero: See my above post. If you want to know specifically who or where to look for a clue as to why my hint is important I can PM you the info but I don't want to spoil anyone because you need to use crafty time powers to pull out the details.

People voting every week when there is a clear desire by fans and the people playing to finish the game to its end (making the result a foregone conclusion) is pointless. It has nothing to do with people voting in a way I disagree with. Grow up.

I said this would apply even if it was a game that I'd much rather see them play, like Phantasmagoria 2. At no point did I tell them to stop playing Life is Strange. At no point did I even really say I didn't like Life is Strange.

I was going to quote point by point here, but it's a lot of run-on sentences. I'll try though, because none of it is true.

1) I know "vote if you want your voice heard" is a beautiful platitude, but it has nothing to do with anything I've really said. People are going to continue to vote LiS. Awesome, enjoy. Don't need to vote every week then and maybe the format should be reconsidered, or change to a "vote after every completion".

2) No one was saying anything about what the original concept definitively was. A weekly vote would imply, by its very nature and design, there would be a different game every week. Otherwise, there is no purpose to the weekly vote. (Is there an echo in here?)

3) I actually like the game but have zero desire to watch people play it. That's irrelevant to my point, but a lot of people are making that assumption. I haven't attacked anyone. "But you called us a cult!" Dude, I have cultist fanboy devotion to a lot of games. It was a throwaway term.

4) It's an iterative process that I'm providing feedback for. That is the entire point of criticism. You can describe flaws in a process and provide ways for it to improve without attacking it.