BENGALURU:Do you know that intense feeling of regret and the nagging question of “what if” when you’re stuck in traffic? When you wonder how much better life would’ve been if you woke up only five minutes before you actually did? ‘Life is Strange’ is a very dramatised, fantastical realization of those ‘what ifs’.
Max is a troubled teenager, and she has a magical power (time reversal) to compensate for her sad high-school life. If it was me, I’d help the entire batch ace the board exams that year. But life in a very cliquey American high school isn’t that simple... Max must use her powers to prevent terrible things from happening (still not as historic as saving Sirius Black with Time Turner). Atleast in the first 15 minutes of gameplay, “Life is Strange” seems like the plot of a wannabe dark young-adult movie. But as you progress, you realise that it’s quite different. It is complex and has a great story, incredible character depth, and rightly won many awards etc. But there are some other real reasons why you should play the game.
For one, it’s free now for the mobile. It’s a click and explore game, and Square Enix has converted it quite nicely for the smaller screen format. We don’t need to worry about it being monetized anytime soon - the mobile game is probably just advertising for the sequel that’s coming out in September. Second — the game is very hipster. Arcadia Bay, the name of the town in which the story is set sounds like a alternate-rock band, like just about everything else in this game. Max also goes to a prep school, takes a photography class, and owns a polaroid. Finally — the game is not so obviously point-and-click that it’s like an episode of Dora the Explorer. You get to choose when you ‘rewind time’, and the plot changes based on your small choices and decisions (like Telltale’s games).
If you have over a GB’s worth of space in your phone and sufficiently fast internet, the game can entertain you for upto 15 hours. I give the experience 11/10 for teaching me cool new teenage slang.