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This game has some of the best and most immersive environments I’ve ever seen, I just wish there were more special locations/map variations

If a game lies to me mechanically it's gone too far. It is fundamentally how I interact with the game. If you tell me it's I for inventory but it's j, you're lying to me with the reality you're creating. That is never ok. This is why spec ops is condescending and hellblade does not work.

Great video, but it feels kinda too long. All this could've been said in 20 minutes rather than 50. Great game tho.

Life is Strange 1 is still the masterpiece for me, Not a single game to this day has lasting impact for me.

It's insane to me that finding a video of this quality can be from a TH-camr with over a million subs, a few hundred thousand subs, or barely a few thousand I can't wait to dig into your backlog

"Some of my best friends are AAA" brilliant Edit: the discussion of a bigger team and more financial backing making the game more difficult because it now must aim higher and subsequently experiences different difficulties is a very interesting one, but as you already expressed it so well there's nothing for me to add, so all I got for you is a small acknowledgment of a good throwaway joke

At the end fight I fought my PC instead of the enemies. The game throw more and more enemies at me as the time went by to the point I just had a square foot of moving basically relying on dodge and/or parry in order to survive. After more than 40 min the amount of lag overdone my PC and made me mistake one parry/dodge move so I finally lost. YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO LOOSE. I was sad as I did my fricking best, but I have to give it to the developer, the fight was epic, the music, the tense in my shoulders, my eyes watching carefully every inch of the screen, the fans going 120% blasting red hot air and my hopes getting smaller and smaller with every single new enemy added. I ... was crushed. In seconds after that I was just thinking that I need to redo all of that again, but better, I even thought my PC was not powerful enough to finish the game. ALL THAT TO SEE THAT IT WAS INTENTIONAL. The voices were right, "Die!" and I did NOT want to listen ...

i just found out that permadeath was a lie damn because of it i was always on my toes each fight it really elevated the experience

another lie Gears has is that the last few bullets in the magazine do more damage than usual, the intent being better odds at clutching a life-saving kill as you run dry. The interview where they talked about this coming from wanting to help low-skill players who weren't nailing the active reload like high-skill players (who didn't need the help of magic bullets) was a pretty nifty listen.

I'm pausing at the 15min mark to share something. I didn't play this game i did download and start the game and i wanted to enjoy epic story game but am not a skilled gamer despite playing games actively for 25 years and when i saw this message pop up i decided this asnt for me. I have poor reaction times and sometimes my health causes me to play poorly. I played many games like War zone, fornite and such where a death can waste 30 min though nothing of consequence is taken so I often play alone to not disappoint others. I have never played a dsrksouls game because I know the permanent loss of things after a death like souls (assuming you can not reclaim them) would make me never pick up that game again and thus I didn't dive any deeper than the threat at the start of the game. It is a little sad, years later to learn if I d dug a bit deeper I would have had my fears abated.

Great vid! But at the middle of it I thought that Soma should be mentioned, though closer to the end I'm not sure. Any elaboration would be kind of a spoiler so here it is: the story is linear but there's a few choices that aren't about consequences but about asking you new questions related to the game's themes (what means being human, what means being real and how much responsibility you can take over others). Second layer of elaboration: And not all choices are obvious to be choices, and some can be completely missed (and it's so real). And I love the damn thing!

Hellblades lie is perfect to me as someone who has experienced psychosis. The constant fear alone. Mine was because of severe anxiety from a medication. The paranoia was debilitating on top of constantly hearing sounds or whispers. I dont wish it on anyone.

Life is strange does actually use its choices well. If you do not use choices to either push Nathan (report gun) or Madeson (collect evidence when he harrasses Kate) you will not be able to punish either and it fires back on you. When trying to convince victoria during the party, depending on how you have treated her ammounts to how hard it is to convince her. If you have been mean, she will tell you to fuck off and she gets taken by Jefferson. To get a romance outcome for Max and Chloe, you have to carefully choose to build up a background relationship meter. Many characters change their dialouge and opens up new options depending on how you have spoken to them/at all. Its not perfect, but the game absolutely respects your choices and alot more than you'd think so at first

I'm apart of the small group of people who also felt cheated by your cboices not actually mattering at the end of Life is Strange. I do think that part of this frustration came from the fact that I finished Oxenfree first which is one where your choices actually do effect the ending so my expectations for Life Is Strange were colored by that experience.

It's frankly ridiculous that your channel is so small. Your content is up there with the likes of Luke Stephens and Skill up, this is the best A plague tale video I've seen period. Really great work being done here, keep it up!

Just to add to your criticism about Arnauld's strange non-reaction to Amicia killing his friends: I myself actually didn't realise for a long time that he was the guy we were fighting earlier. It was only after the game crashed on the island, I reloaded and read the little loading screen text for this chapter that I learned he was that same guy. There was nothing in the story and dialogue between the two that alluded to their previous hostility. Or maybe I'm just a very unperceptive player. I also missed half the souvenirs with all those great character moments. Like the swing you showed in the video. Overall I'm a bit more critical of Requiem's story than you. I thought it was all over the place and just nonsensical at times. Like, why do we have to secretly infiltrate that religious ritual? Logically, we could just wait for a day and then ask our new friends the ruler and the priestess all about the island and to show us into the temple. Oh, and did you see that very short, final scene of the game? After the second credits. The one with the darth vader breathing or blood pump sound or whatever? I was just wondering because you didn't mention it in relation to a possible sequel to the the Plage Tale series.

A great video essay! Strange to see that it has only so few views. I just played both Plague Tale games over the last week and am looking at some videos now. You voiced a lot of thoughts that I had myself while or after playing the first game. I find the term "disempowerment fantasy" that you use to describe it very fitting. I was also very puzzled by what the family dynamic was supposed to have been before the start of the story and how it's possible for two siblings living together in a small medieval manor to barely know what eachother looks like. Like, wouldn't the whole De Rune family go to their little chapell together every sunday? I'll watch your video on the sequel now!

15:40 , 16:17 Well unless you play on an ultrawide on PC, then you just glance at the map with your mouse slightly to the right when you need to know where you're going 27:30 Horror Adjacent is a term i haven't heard before, but i guess i'll start using it. All the best atmospheric games can be described by it. Outer Wilds, Subnautica, Pacific Drive

Since when a puzzle that need 3 different universes combine to each other to solve it is easy and boring? LoL. The moment i realized i have put the green sphere into the orange at the exact locations in order for the white to shoot the green i was impressed.

I have bought this game blindly thinking this is a chill driving sim on the Pacific Northwest. The fact that I had let myself acid rained on to death on the 2nd junction (PD difficulty) made me wised up and go to the safety of online forums and quick start guides. Actually, this made me laugh thinking back how I've gotten chased by electric bunnies the first time I saw them.

Before we even start, Ghost of Tsushima when they say “this horse will be with you for your entire journey”

I didn’t mind the lie of HB. I actually liked it. I saw the message, felt my sphincter tighten, and resolved that I wouldn’t be beaten. I only died a handful of times and never got too worried. When I found out that it was a lie after beating it, I loved it. It made me feel like I’d been motivated and was closer to Senua’s journey because of it. Death may have felt worse, but that’s because, like Senua, my failure was amplified by false information. We were both going to be just fine - we just couldn’t see it until the end

About hellblade, i have to ask: if most the people praising the lie are people that already have the mental illness, then has it actually spread any awareness? I never let the rot spread that far in my playthrough, so i was more neutral.

Just found out hellblade didn’t have perma death this whole time and have done 2 full play throughs thinking if I died too much I’d have to restart. Thinking that heightened the experience as a veteran gamer and if I ever came back to it now the experience would now never be the same.

As my mind has been thinking about Wasteland 3 a lot after a discussion about games while waiting for FNM draft to start last week. I was surprised that game was not included as the amount of lies you are told by almost everyone involved in the main plot is just staggering.

Heavy Rain implies, heavily, that you can get a distinct ending for the way you play it, but it’s always the same ending. It’s always the same killer, and it pisses me off. My wife told me I have no right to, since it makes sense, a specific killer with it specific motives. But I can’t shake the feeling that it would be way cooler to have several endings, depending on your detective skills. Also, a video about videogame lies should at least mention Arkane’s Prey, since it has a pretty big lie that kind of changes everything, without changing anything at all.

Very good video

"the wording was chosen really carefully". Lol, lmao. There are several ways it could have been worded to make sure the player does not feel trolled in the end. Specifically the "each time you fail" would not pass the jerk genie-test.

How do you only have 3k subs????? Excellent and very interesting video. Keep up the good work

So, about senua, i knew the spoiler beforehand because everyone talked about it and i didn't care enough to avoid spoilers for a game i didn't know. what surprises me (i know, i come from a point of knowing it beforehand, so it's not fair), is how no one picked up on it not actually growing further. As the video has shown, no death beyond the third actually adds rot. I'm pretty sure the threshold is met even earlier, at the second or maybe even first death per chapter. And then you see it actively grow between a lot of chapters, even without you dying, which i would feel cheated for. "hey, i didn't die here and you STILL added rot? what if i died more often earlier, would i just lose all my progress in a cutscene?" which i would assume is the moment most people would realize they're being lied to. (i'm not claiming i would've realized, but if i didn't, i'd be surprised how easily i was tricked). Oh, and it "technically not being a lie" is definetly bs. removing "and all progress will be lost" would make this true, but with "this is not a lie" it basically means that their game is meaningless, as there is no progress upon finishing the game. also, i hated the ending. not because giving up is wrong per se, but it's framed in a way of "just listen to your abusive father, he was right all along".

mostly great video but that quick note reading of life is strange was messing with me, and i don’t get it. ignoring that i think the choices in the game are more about the internal experience, eg, hearing someone say something you did, or making something harder (saving kate for example), the theme is imo quite clearly about the fact that you can’t have a perfect life. It doesn’t rob you of agency, because there’s a very clear choice, but it does say that you aren’t always going to get to be happy. Sometimes things are going to suck, no matter what you choose, SOMETHING isn’t going to be right, and you have to live with that. Grief, etc, it’s about moving on while knowing that nothing can ever be perfect. A lot of people read the ending as “you can’t change anything” but that implies that one ending is correct, and that’s just their personal emotions on the bay ending leaking in, imo it’s pretty clear that the only message that fits both endings is that sometimes you’re gonna have to take cuts, not anything about determinism or something lmaooo. wonderful video though complete aces

Its like in horizon zero down, i wondered if choosing different options changed anything, but soon i didn't care (it most probably didn't ) but it helped me to feel in the same head space as Aloy to the point that i felt i was her, i even walked everywhere inside populated places, and sometimes even in the wild, because doing otherwise made me feel selfconsious or that i didn't had a reason to

Why do British people say trapezoid weird

Another example: in freespace, some briefings in story missions are simply incorrect, but in-universe it's quickly shown that your commanding officers are not infallible, and the enemy is genuinely out maneuvering your intel.

Very good video! Well organized thoughts.

I don't like Life is strange just because it felt like someone given a power they didn't ask for and being punished for it. She didn't even wish to save her old friend. She was just freaking out. Then she got punished and taught not to change the past when she didn't seem like the person to want to do that to begin with. Also on the Spec ops choice is to not pay the devs for their game, since you just stop playing halfway through as the choice to not use white phosphorus.

I like Slay the Princess and its relationship with lies. Spoilers: I don’t think the narrator ever truly lies. Gaslights a little, but never lies (“don’t listen to that voice, you are happy”). Something about the game makes you feel like the narrator is lying though. So the game is lying about the narrator’s lies. This isn’t to say either the princess or narrator are right or wrong, they simply have perspectives. It isn’t until you understand those perspectives do you actually see the truth in both party’s statements

I would have not bought Hellblade at all if I didn't learn that perma death thing was a lie. Thing is I like both deep narative games and games with complex combat system and higher difficult settings are the best way to test the latter. If I bought the game without knowing, I would have played on easy to not have to worry about that and that type of meta-gaming does hurt the immerstion for me. Maybe it would have been better if instead of a tutorial like pop-up message, it would have been better if you were told this through a character in-game. With Senua being anything but realiable it would have been more ambgious if this was a real threat or not. The way it isn't just the devs lying straight to your face at least.

press WHAT to close the menu??

that senuas sacrifice lie gave me enough anxiety that i stopped playing halfway through lmaoo might go get back into it now. having made it further in the video, i will concede that even though i quit halfway through bc of my own anxiety and (ironically) mental health, i never looked at the experience i had as anything short of a masterpiece. that was part of why the effect was so strong on me

They should have just handed Hugo over at the beginning of innocence.

i have to say that calling WP a "dangerous incendiary" is the understatement of the century given the uhm...severely atrocious kind of chemical weapon it is, to put it kindly

33:59 I think we can say with confidence armed lee is better. Simply for that cleaver/glass shard dual wield zombie brawl, lee is a god damn machine.

Mass effect is such a weird beast. Because yeah the excution of the ending especialy before the directors cut is pretty bad and pretty baffling. But not becasue the choices dont matter like a lot of people claim. Its them trying to find a way to make choices matter and actualy having made a pretty good system for it and then still fumbling it. The war asset system that excist is suppose to be a answer to how do we make all choices matter. Wich war assets you get can actualy get quite complicated with a lot of them be depending on at least 1 if not often several choices you made up till that point between all 3 games. SImple example is the infamous punchable reporter. She can be a war asset but the only way to make her 1 is to NOT punch her in any of the three games. And yes war assets actualy have a influence on the ending. the control and later added synthys ending arent even avaible until its high enough. How well the normandy and its then active crew survives is reliant on it, As well as the additional scenes like the star gazer ending is only avaible if its high enough (before dlc stargazer was actualy impossible without doing multiplayer since it aplied a multipyer to the asset score depending how muich you done). Now the game is realy bad at commuciating this and the actual endign are still to similar, But there was defntiyl more of a attempt to make it work then people give it credit to.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice kind of lies? After so many deaths you earn something called Rot Essence, and the game lorewise explains to you that the more you die, NPC's will get sick. Afflicted NPC's cant give you any special dialogue, and the first person who always gets afflicted is the Sculptor. When you talk to the sculptor, he says "that hes special and cant die" so it makes you think that the more you die, NPC's are going to start dying off. But the tutorial that pops up for it doesnt say thats what happens. It explicitly says "The more Rot Essence Wolf has, the lower the chances of receiving Unseen Aid". So maybe less of a lie, and more of a "I wouldnt be surprised if From Software actually did that" lol

Nice content man, keep it up, new subscriber here

Life is Strange is one of few choice-based games that creatively uses its mechanics and, rather than attempting to be a technical tool of branching realities, makes its mechanic the very part of narration. Max uses her rewind to never face grief, to never be lonely or unliked. Similarly, we adapt to Max's worldview and simulate her desires, snooping around us and rewinding time for miniscule tasks simply to have the best forms of dialogue, of relationships, of events. We create the best consequences for Kate, for Chloe, for Rachel but also wish kindness to David, Victoria, Joyce and even random Arcadia citizens. We want to fix everything and live in a perfect world by actively relying on our powers (as a character) but also replaying the game time after time for the best consequences (as a player - applicable to those in 2015 waiting for new episodes). The game lying to the player is crucial because Max is lying to herself. The very tropes of Butterfly Effect and Donny Darko are quite popular, a lot of us are familiar with it. And it's not like the game attempts to hide what it will make us do. In Max's journal, she herself alludes to media about the two choices, sometimes even mentioning her own irrational fear of the same thing - but ultimately she always brushes them away for yet another "I have to save Chloe". Just as we brush them away because we want this story to end differently even if the answer is staring us right in the face. Life is Strange is ultimately the journey of grief. It's the deep desire we all have to relive the past with our loved ones, for things to be different. Throughout the four episodes, Max accelerates in her use of rewind powers but also desperation. To save Chloe, to have everything, to never have anything bad happen. Ultimately, that desperation reaches its climax in Polarized, non-stop jumping through time and realities to imprison Jefferson, to save Chloe, to win the contest; never having a time to catch a breath or process the horrific assault she experienced just moments ago. Max runs towards a destination that doesn't exist in search of a light, of revelation, of something to Fix Everything. We run with her. And then we stop, finding ourselves on the top of the cliff, the very place we ran from all these episodes dreaming of a different world and we Finally Know. That's why the story works. That's why letting Chloe or Arcadia go is so heartbreaking. Life is Strange is not supposed to have a good ending or a good myriad of consequences to our previous decisions. It's supposed to crash the illusion we played into for those 5 episodes alongside Max. Chloe dying on a bathroom floor angry, not knowing what happened to Rachel, never finding peace with her mother and stepfather - is what breaks our hearts. Whichever ending the player chooses, Max is left with the result of sexual assault and seeing death all over. Arcadia Bay's death trail and convoluted messy problems of its citizens will never be overwritten. And we can't change that. No amount of interference, rewind, choice making will fix that. It's supposed to be horrible, unfair, powerless. Because that's the reality of grief and loss. Max, and us, are supposed to acknowledge the truth, the reality. And acknowledging is the path of accepting and moving forward from the horror endured. Back in 2015 the endings did face scrutiny by players. Of course, everyone wanted everything to be Good, for consequences to be felt, and for us (and Max) to never lose agency. I find that years later the overall perception has grandly changed and people set with it a little, reflected on the game, maybe even replayed it, and finally accepted the story it told. But I do think it's expected and quite normal that back in 2015 people were adamant to that finale. Of course, no one wanted their pefect reality and a myriad of perfectly chiseled decisions snatched away from them.

Even though I hate Life is Strange, the every choice matters lie isn’t what makes it bad. There’s a few narrative games where it works really well. I’d say the best one I’ve seen is Refind Self, because the choices do matter for the personality part but not for the overall story. You’ve gotta play it three times, it’s fairly short though so that’s not an issue!

I can see how choice-based narratives like Life is Strange, Mass Effect, etc face a catch-22 when it comes to the ending. As you noted, allowing the player to choose their own ending ends up retroactively devaluing all the choices the player made during the game. On the other hand, I can see an outcome where players get upset if they are forced into an ending they don't want due to choices they've mde throughout the game. You let me make my own choices for 15 hours then all of the sudden when it comes to the biggest choice of all, you're going to railroad me into an ending I don't want? Or you end up with people removing all choice and just using guides that will get them their desired ending. I'd be curious if people have examples of games that manage to avoid this catch-22.

Hmmm, the section about dialogue-tree choices is kind of missing the mark for me. You seem to be presenting a few points that I don't believe line up with what those games were doing or even what they were claiming to do. 1) You interpret the opening statements in TWD and LiS as suggesting something about each game's ending, but that's not at all what they're saying. What they state is simply that the narrative will change depending on your choices - that means the narrative throughout the game, not only / not specifically the ending. The fact that e.g. in TWD different playthroughs will have different characters join and/or die throughout the game based on your choices is exactly what the opening statement promised. Same with Life is Strange. To reduce those promises to the misinterpretation of specifically the ending is disingenuous I think. 2) You then use that rationale to claim the games are lying to you, and at one point even state that the games pretend they're "better games" than they are, which is again very much a misrepresentation of what's happening, and makes me worried that you're making your viewers think badly about these games when it's really just your misinterpretation that's wrong. I don't want to come across as combatitive here, I genuinely don't actually care much about either of those games, I'm just disappointed that in an otherwise really great video with interesting points, this section just entirely misses the mark and somewhat ironically makes you fall into the exact trap that you describe for all these games (essentially lying to your viewers, whether intentionally or not). It tarnishes the credibility of the other great points you make by suddenly making the viewer think "well wait, that's just straight up not true". I still think the video overall is very well done, I just wished you approached this section differently.