Life is Strange is an episodic adventure game created by DOTNOD Entertainment studio. It tells the story of an eighteen years old girl Maxine “Max” Caulfield. She’s seemingly a regular photography student. However, she finds out that she’s different than her peers. Max has the ability to control time. With this ability at her disposal the heroine attempts to solve the mystery of her missing teenage friend. And she tries to stop the inevitable.
How to Download Life is Strange
The game can be downloaded from Steam. Additionally, the first episode of Life Is Strange is completely free to download. Check out also our review of another game from the series Life Is Strange: Before the Storm.
A Revolutionary Adventure Game
The plot of the game takes place in a fictitious of Arcadia Bay in Oregon. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist has a vision in which she sees the town destroyed by a tornado. Very soon it is revealed that the cataclysm connects closely three people: Max, her old school friend Chloe Price and the missing friend of Chloe – Rachel Amber.
The production is an example of an adventure game in which the gameplay is based on the dialogue choices and decisions. What’s more, the calls made by the player strongly affect the plot which is not linear. As the short messages which the players see at the beginning of the game claims – Life Is Strange is a game where your choices change the present, the future, and the past. The game advises us to choose wisely.
In the dialogues, the classic dialogue tree has been implemented, In spite of this fact the dialogue mechanics should be considered innovative. Because of Max’s skill of time control the player can rewind each conversation and replay it in a different way. Thus the player, armed with the information of the outcome of the first run, can make a more informed decision the next time.
The game runs on Unreal Engine 3 and offers elaborate mechanics of interaction with the environment. The player can move in 3D locations. Sometimes the elements of the environment can be used to solve logical puzzles.
Life Is Strange – All the Episodes
Life Is Strange is sometimes compared to the games from Telltale Games such as The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us. This is not without reason as they seem similar in their mechanics. But contrary to these games in the production of DOTNOD Entertainment, the camera hovers behind the back of the main character. Thus, technically, we deal with a third-person perspective, which enables us to freely search the locations. Additionally, all the decisions made in Life Is Strange and all the interactions – both with the characters and with the items – are never made under pressure of time.
The game has been released in five episodes between 30 November and 20 October in 2015.
