Here's to Being Weird!

Morality is Gray, Even in Games

By Zane Wetzel

It really can be at times. 

Ever since Telltale Games started making The Walking Dead games, it seems like there's been an upsurge of story-driven games with an emphasis on dialogue trees and player choices. While Telltale has certainly become proficient in giving players choices that they will mull over down the road, Life Is Strange capable of at least standing next to the best of what Telltale has done. 

I do really admire what Telltale was able to do with their games, but while they certainly seemed to be similar in terms of gameplay mechanics (dialogue tree, major plot changing moments), though the premise is different between the two. The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic story driven horror, and that was an influence on the choices that I ended up making: it was about survival and keeping my moral compass intact for the sake of the kid that I had chosen to look after. Also, I have a habit of looking up spoilers and I ended up finding out how each of my decisions would pan out in the end, so that was an influence on my choices. Regardless, I always tried to do what I thought is best, though if Game of Thrones has taught me anything about life, its that sometimes the best decision you can make isn't going to be black and white all the time.

Life is Strange, on the other hand, was more down to earth in its concept with the stakes not being as high as they are in The Walking Dead (at least not in the first episode). While it may not be as exciting as fighting the undead, I did appreciate the slightly more realistic setting of LIS; it reminded me of a slice-of-life anime mixed in with surrealism (one of the best anime movies I've ever seen involved time-travel, though it was nothing like this!). Also, I really appreciated the "Rewind" ability that Max gets. How many gamers over the years have had to sit and ask themselves what would happen if they had chosen to do something different. The "Rewind" power lets us do that. It's like a self-aware "restart from last checkpoint" trope that players can abuse as much as they want. Though, I never felt like I could ever "game the system"... mainly because I don't know what that means. Despite that, I honestly feel like LIS provided the more interesting moral choices for players, and I prefer that game for the emotional investment I can get from each character; while we are trying to stop the town from being destroyed, it's not about surviving to see another day, but about ordinary people dealing with normal problems and issues. I liked playing Life Is Strange and I can't wait to finish the rest of it.

Now that that's out of the way, who wants to see some of the photos I took in game?

I really liked the movie reference this has right here.

See, this stuff is why I have a huge phobia of tornadoes! ITS'S JUSTIFIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All right, why is the Eye of  Providence/Bill Cipher showing up repeatedly in the game?!?!?

Snow in October, huh? That's new.

Take out the trees and put this on a rock in the water and it would remind me of the Lighthouse from the Bioshock series.