![]() ![]() As the episode unwinds, it swerves into the unsubtle – ‘Everything is political, Sean,’ insists a Seth Rogen stand-in – and crashes into clumsiness: ‘Oregon is like the edge of the world,’ one character remarks, contained in their own coastal bubble. It’s clear the team at Dontnod was blessed with luck, writing, as it was, long before the storm of recent headlines. When Daniel claims that someone ‘Totally looks like a mushroom,’ I had to suppress a smirk. The writing starts off timely and conscious. ![]() The Diaz brothers, being of Mexican descent, tread through fraught exchanges with people whose hearts lie behind walls. ![]() The episode is couched in the anxious murk of October 2016, just after the US presidential election debate, and politics pours in throughout. They are earthed in turbulent soil as well, with decisions testing not just the boys’ connection, but their relation to the outside world. These choices creak with tension, each one a moral bear trap baited with something you could really do with the punishment – you’re sure – lurking down the line. ![]() You’re given a greater degree of choice here than has been in previous games, with more than binary decisions dominating the twist of the tale.īut it’s the small choices that truly test the brothers’ bond: will you swipe a chocolate bar from the dash of a parked car? It’s Daniel’s favourite, but he’s watching your every move, and it isn’t a good example to set. Larger choices are telegraphed with a freeze-frame, the screen split into shards as you deliberate. When you’re given the option to steal, it rings in your ears like the howl of a wolf. As they alight at a petrol station for supplies and food, you can feel the hungry hiss of pressure as Sean holds their fate in the thin slip of his wallet. On their journey, the stresses of survival have you managing their meagre budget, eating into what’s left of Sean’s money to accommodate the appetites of the brothers. Fortunately, the gloom that’s engrained on his actions sits on your shoulders. The need for emotional calluses weighs most heavily on Sean, whom you play as – and it’s a slight pain that the stiff lip-synching and doughy faces undersell the impact of the more moving scenes. After their lives are shaken by confusion and cruelty, they both need to act older – fast. The game’s focus is on two brothers, Sean and Daniel Diaz, who were first glimpsed at the end of The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. In other words, Life is Strange 2 stares into the headlights of the sophomore slump. Early on, after hearing characters mention how ‘emo’ they feel and worrying over the state of their ‘BFFs,’ the answer, as it was back in 2013, seems to be ‘no, but they might pull a muscle trying.’ But as the episode steers out of a slow start, the tone shifts, shirking its teen leaning and taking to the open road.Īside from The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, which was a short prologue to this season, this episode marks the return of season one writers Christian Divine and Jean-Luc Cano. At one point in the first episode of Life is Strange 2, entitled ‘Roads,’ your character gazes at a photograph and muses to himself, ‘Can old people be… cool?’ The writers behind these games, doing their best to ape the tics and trends of youthful patter, seem determined to find out. ![]()
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