LIFE IS STRANGE: TRUE COLORS (2021)

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i'm not really sure if the writers involved with this project--of which there are five of--even like or understand video games. and i say this in the sense that life is strange: true colors doesn't seem interested in the player nor their agency, nor their decision making, nor their interest or interpretations of characters. and i say all this because never before has there been a life is strange where your choices are a game of "well, what's the LEAST embarrassing of the two?", where your choices are "alex says something vapid and stupid" and "alex says something vapid and stupid but with a smile". and alex, good lord, is the wet blanket protagonist of all wet blanket protagonists, a player stand-in that doesn't really even work considering how you may want her to act or speak doesn't matter because it doesn't align with how the five writers want her to speak. am i making sense, here? if the first life is strange player, for instance, did not like a character, that player was given the tools to express it. everyone is soft and spongy in true colors, speaking in mounds of references and absolutely terrible, bog standard romcom slurry. and what a cast this is--you know, there's nothing wrong with the slow paced slice of life approach that i keep seeing nowadays from western companies and studios, but it seems they all forget that these SOL attempts require a main ingredient: lovable, interesting casts. and who the hell am i supposed to latch onto when everyone spouts out that same aforementioned slurry, where every line is right on the edge of irony poisoning and extreme self awareness? how am i supposed to connect with generic indie rock loving hipster girl alex whose offered observations could not be any less boring, any more forgettable? i can't remember a single line she's offered about her environments save for the very, very dry references to REAL BAND here and REAL BAND there and REAL MOVIE here and... so forth, and so forth like a marvel convention equivalent of a mixer. i made the claim that these writers don't like or understand video games, and it's based on all i've written thus far and just three more points. ONE: nearly everything feels set in stone, as if the game is a compromise to the writers to tell their otherwise straightforward forgettable young adult novel i had to suffer through many of in college. TWO: you're given a power to read the thoughts of others, but this is heavily limited to very, very, very few characters, the majority of NPCs seemingly unable to give you anything, as if they aren't there, as if the writers did not want to push themselves just a little bit more to add some flavor to this lifeless mess. and THREE: why the fuck can't you land in the minecart in that arcade game? come on, now. i just can't find a single positive trait in this. the graphics are fine, the soundtrack may or may not even exist because i don't remember any of it. the voice acting is a medley of first takes. the actual "gameplay" sections impose without merit. the choices have never been more meaningless. the consequences have never been more toothless. the observation mechanic has no real development for what it is. the flavor text is lifeless. the characters are lifeless. the story is lifeless. the developers' ambitions are lifeless, and this game may as well not exist at all for all it isn't: no teeth, all gums.