So all the big releases have finally been...um....released. Now we critics have about a month to catch up with other games whilst we compose our obligatory 'year end' lists.
With me having blown my last paycheque on my PS4 and games to review - funds are a bit short. So, I decided to be foolish and see what was for free on Steam this week; forgetting how Unturned and Close Your Eyes failed to impress. Whilst leafing through the endless Minecraft, FTL, DayZ, and Counterstrike clones, I stumbled across a little game called Emily Is Away. It stood out in-amongst the other mediocre fares, and so I decided to give it a shot.
Emily Is Away is a game that mimics old instant messaging chatrooms such as MSN and AIM, before Facebook came along and ruined your life. This was also in the good old days when computers could only run two apps at once, being connected to the internet was completely optional. and the government wasn't watching your every move. You even get an old Windows XP-style interface, and can choose from a ridiculously pixellated profile image. To talk, you can select from three different options; then you smack the keyboard until the response is typed. I kind of wish there was an option to have your response immediately typed, but maybe this'll be added later.
You have no idea how refreshing it is to review a free game and not have to use the excuse that it's free to justify any of the flaws. OK, the game is very short; but it doesn't outstay its welcome. It doesn't need to be any longer than it already is, and you feel there is enough content to merit the games existence. It actually has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's not some kids first experiments in Unity; rather, it's like Coda's experiments in The Beginner's Guide.
It's also like The Beginner's Guide in that the game is an emotionally affecting journey that only some people will be emotionally affected by depending on their life-experiences. Oddly, you don't need to be familiar with early 2000's instant messaging to get the most out of this. Rather, you need to be familiar with losing friends, gaining friends, having friends swept away by the internet, and having your long-time crush being separated - with only fleeting moments of stilted online communication. A good subtitle for this game is: 'How The Internet Ruined Everything.'
Emily Is Away is about you, a man, talking to Emily. (I wish there was a way to swap the genders round, but alas.) You're both the same age, and you're both going to different colleges. You can probably already predict where the plot is going, but thankfully you're not forced to be in love with her. You can be a typical man and completely ignore any and all signs of attraction, or you can attempt to percieve romantic advances when none exist.
The plot alters depending on both your choices and just how you chose to place yourself. Right from the start you could either be that funny yet distant friend, a best buddy, a childhood crush, or a failed Romeo trying desperately to seduce his failed Juliet. And both the genius and frustration of the game comes from how these choices ultimately end up in the same place.
OK, the rest of this review is going to completely spoil the game. So; if you're in any way interested in Emily Is Away, then play it. It's a free 50MB download that takes less than a second to install and can run on a potato. You need Steam to play it, but Steam is free too and doesn't require much time or effort to install and sign up for. The game itself takes about two hours to play through all the options, and it can take just fifteen mins to whizz through the story once. So, if you're sold then go play it and I'll catch up with you again in a sec.
Played it? Did the ending annoy you a little? Because you can't win this game. Depression Quest (another free game that only lasts about fifteen mins) did the same thing where it limited your choices in order to make an artistic statement, yet there was actually a 'good' ending where you're on the road to recovery and there's hope for you. It wasn't exactly a happy ending, but it left me with a sense of accomplishment - which is great because otherwise the game would've probably made me want to kill myself.
Here, however, there is no victory. Whilst the circumstances that lead you there will be different, you end up in exactly the same place: unfriended. Whether it was you who was the jerk, whether Emily or yourself unwittingly made mistakes, or if you both just got caught up in things you can never really move on from - you're not going to speak again.
When I first played the game, I went for all the choices I would've made in that situation. I was as good a friend as I could've been to Emily. I didn't get in the way of her boyfriend and I was a shoulder to cry on when they broke up...but then she confessed that she had feelings for me. I put this aside because I just didn't feel the same towards her and suggested she come visit and we could get drunk together and have fun.
Then she revealed that our weekend together got too intimate and she felt I was forcing myself upon her. I said that wasn't the case, and I still wanted to be friends. This made her feel even worse, and so the friendship was ultimately over. She got back together with her boyfriend, I lost my girlfriend (that bastard Mike broke the 'bro-code') and it's clear our friendship has been ruined by a combination of feelings and just life doing it's own thing. I was graduating from Art college and she was off with her boyfriend looking for a job. Even if the whole "KISS HIM YOU FOOL" thing didn't happen then we still would've stopped being friends just because of how the world works with relationships.
I've had this happen to me before. Not the whole "we might've got drunk and had sex" thing, but definitely: "I didn't realise you had feelings. Sorry but I don't share them." It happened during university and I felt like a monster. By simply existing I had played havoc with a woman's emotions, throwing her love-life up in turmoil. It's one of the worst things I have ever done to someone, I will never stop feeling guilty about it, and it's something I achieved by not doing anything at all. And here it is, re-created in game form. By making all the right choices, I had lost because that's just how life and love works.
So I decided to play the game again, and this time I would overclock the flirt levels. Everything I said was a sad, non-subtle cry of "I LOVE YOU PLEASE JUST HUG ME." I stopped another guy from talking to her (thereby breaking the 'bro-code' myself) and tried to interfere with her boyfriend. When they broke up I made my move, and this time I shunned alcohol. I wasn't going to force her into anything. We were just going to sit there, talk, and find out if we shared any feelings.
Turns out she didn't. I'd forced myself onto her, and she was showing no signs of wanting this to happen. I was seeing attraction where there was only friendship. I'd blown everything. Again, I'd lost my girlfriend, and she was back with her bastard ex. We said our goodbyes. Again.
Again, this has happened before. I keep trying to make my feelings known for someone, but I'm waiting for him to approach me (which I know will never happen) rather than approach him because I'm terrified of blowing it. You have no idea how many times I've had that final conversation, where there's this unspoken yearning for a deeper talk yet it dies. This telepathic understanding seems to dawn between you both, as you realise that either you don't care about this person anymore, they don't care about you, or both. You might finish the conversation with: "Talk to you later" or "We must speak again" but you both know this is the most underwhelming 'farewell forever' in history.
Like Depression Quest, this really ought to come with a trigger-warning. Whilst The Beginner's Guide actually made be break down because I could relate so much with what the game was trying to say - here, I just felt numb as I saw my life writ large upon my screen. A cruel, farcical adaptation of my life is sitting in my Steam Library.
The only real problem with the game is that it doesn't really have any replay value. There are a handful of Easter Eggs, but once you've spent about two hours exhausting all the options available then there isn't much reason to play the game again. This is exactly the same problem that Her Story had. Brilliant, innovative game that told an excellent story...but not really worth playing again. It's odd because I keep replaying The Beginners Guide despite the fact it's more or less a walking simulator. I think it's because despite the game being so short there are multiple interpretations, and because it's a full 3D game then there's a unique atmosphere that can be experienced again and again.
Also, I really don't like it when games signpost the choices that'll alter the game (Telltale is guilty of this crime in particular). I cringed when the game said "Emily will remember that" or "You chose to X" because I knew for certain that t. This meant that whenever I did something else, I didn't worry about it because I knew it wasn't going to affect the gameplay. It always takes me right out of the experience when a game tallys up all your points right before your eyes. I like to be kept in the dark. I like it when games such as Deus Ex leave me second-guessing. That moment when you go into the women's bathroom and then your boss later tells you to stop it would've been completely ruined if the game had said: "You went into the women's bathroom" or "Manderly will remember this."
But this is one of the most surprising games I've played this year. It's a humble free game, yet it's touched me. It's not low-budget; it's intimate. It's not short; it's concise. It's not a game; it's life and love.
