The Chinese Room - 2012 (2008 Original) - PC
I've played a few of the games that are sometimes referred to dismissively as "walking simulators" by some. Journey and Proteus totally didn't connect with me while Gone Home came close. I thought The Stanley Parable was absolutely brilliant. Dear Esther, which probably can be credited with popularizing this genre, is no Stanley Parable but it did resonate more strongly with me than most of the other similar games I've played that fall into this grouping.
Dear Esther is a game about exploration. You explore an island by yourself and are occasionally accompanied by voiceover dialogue that elaborates on bits of the story. The story that is presented in the voiceovers is somewhat vague, and I'm pretty sure that was an intentional design decision. I later found out that on subsequent replays of Dear Ester, the bits of dialogue that play are actually randomly chosen, so you might hear one voiceover on one given playthough, but not on the next. Or vice versa. I'm okay with this decision to deliberately obfuscate the story, because I think you can piece together enough information from whatever dialogue is randomly chosen and combine that with the knowledge you gain by observing and exploring to come up with the gist of the story, even if some of its details are fuzzy. It's a game I found narratively similar to Dark Souls, of all games. While there may or may not be an absolute truth to Dear Esther's story, I found myself filling in the deliberate vagaries of the story with my own imagination, similar to what I had done in Dark Souls.
Dear Esther got its start in 2008 as a Half Life 2 mod, and was later re-released as a standalone game in 2012. I played the 2012 remake and found the audiovisuals to be top notch. Both hearing and seeing the wind rustling through the grass and the waves crashing on the shore really helped immerse me in this world in a way that none of the other "walking simulators" had done previously. I let my mind wander with the strange details of the story and tried to piece it together while simultaneously drinking in the high fidelity audiovisual presentation
Dear Esther Video Review
Summary
"Walking Simulators" are a pretty niche appeal. I think this game does it right though. High quality graphics and an interesting story were enough to keep me engaged throughout the experience, though I can definitely see those not used to this sort of thing finding it boring, or the vagueness of its story frustrating. It's definitely not one of my favorite games ever, but it's a neat experience if you're up for something different
Dear Esther is a game about exploration. You explore an island by yourself and are occasionally accompanied by voiceover dialogue that elaborates on bits of the story. The story that is presented in the voiceovers is somewhat vague, and I'm pretty sure that was an intentional design decision. I later found out that on subsequent replays of Dear Ester, the bits of dialogue that play are actually randomly chosen, so you might hear one voiceover on one given playthough, but not on the next. Or vice versa. I'm okay with this decision to deliberately obfuscate the story, because I think you can piece together enough information from whatever dialogue is randomly chosen and combine that with the knowledge you gain by observing and exploring to come up with the gist of the story, even if some of its details are fuzzy. It's a game I found narratively similar to Dark Souls, of all games. While there may or may not be an absolute truth to Dear Esther's story, I found myself filling in the deliberate vagaries of the story with my own imagination, similar to what I had done in Dark Souls.
Dear Esther got its start in 2008 as a Half Life 2 mod, and was later re-released as a standalone game in 2012. I played the 2012 remake and found the audiovisuals to be top notch. Both hearing and seeing the wind rustling through the grass and the waves crashing on the shore really helped immerse me in this world in a way that none of the other "walking simulators" had done previously. I let my mind wander with the strange details of the story and tried to piece it together while simultaneously drinking in the high fidelity audiovisual presentation
Dear Esther Video Review
Summary
"Walking Simulators" are a pretty niche appeal. I think this game does it right though. High quality graphics and an interesting story were enough to keep me engaged throughout the experience, though I can definitely see those not used to this sort of thing finding it boring, or the vagueness of its story frustrating. It's definitely not one of my favorite games ever, but it's a neat experience if you're up for something different
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