***SPOILERS ARE HERE FOR LIFE IS STRANGE AND TELLTALES THE WALKING DEAD BEWARE!!!!***
I forget sometimes on how much of an impact video games can make on us.
Especially the interactive story games. I have recently completed Life Is Strange: Before The Storm and during the process I've teared up and had my emotions go all over the place. From smiling one minute at how happy the characters are to mistrusting and being suspicious to people to missing them to annoyance to tears of sadness to gobsmacked-ness (if it aint a word auto correct well it is now!).
I originally completed the first LIS (Life Is Strange) on Xbox 360 when it first came out back in 2015, and i originally found Chloe to be such an annoying character who was only using Max.
However after before the storm i understand so much more and i feel for her, i feel so sorry for her, its crazy, god it sounds so stupid out loud as we all know and you know she aint real at all, just a piece of writing pieced together with code, cgi and a voice actor. I feel so sorry for Chloe and I just want to hug her but alas i cannot.
It's truly amazing how some games can take you out of all that and make you feel as if the characters are real because that's damn good writing! Sorry it seems like i grew too attached to these characters but this is only the beginning of this blog post lol. Now let's get spoiling and opening up more.
As my post indicates I grew quite attached to the game series Life Is Strange. I've finished all of them and even though I did Before The Storm last, there was apart of me that felt like I could do it, I can actually save Rachel from dying! I was happy at the end of Before The Storm to see Rachel and Chloe messing around being so happy BUT It's only when after the credits roll you realise that's not the case, you can not save her!
She was doomed to die from the start. It's so sad, just tragic, depressing even. It's crazy that this girl whom you never really meet in the first Life Is Strange made so much of an impact in that game because all you really know about Rachel is her name and the fact she was this perfect student who has up and vanished one day.
I will say she makes a hell of an impact in Before The Storm and on every character that ever came in contact with her. This girl who was full of life, so well known yet she is taken so young. This girl whom I made happy playing as Chloe and who made Chloe happy there's no saving her, you couldn't.
God damn this series is so bleak, even its soundtrack is bleak but it's quite beautiful, poetically speaking.
I can only hope that as a writer I can create characters which can give people the same effect as these characters have made on me. If any of the Life Is Strange writers do read this I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I talked about the tragedy of Life Is Strange and how beautiful it is even in it's bleakest of moments but now to talk about a game and a man from another interactive episodic game series.
Now it's time to talk about Telltales The Walking Dead with Lee Everett!
Season 1 of Walking Dead by Telltale games featured a man named Lee. Now we don't know a whole lot about Lee besides he was on his way to prison when all of a sudden his life got flipped upside down and boom, it's the apocalypse! The other thing we know about Lee is he has a family who runs a pharmacy. Mostly we are Lee, the player is Lee and so we choose what he does and says.
So you go through this episodic first season looking after a little girl you meet named Clementine who is the sweetest girl in all of gaming let's be honest.
She's helped us the player out at times aswell during the game.
Now one thing happens in episode 4 which leads you to get bitten (it happens no matter what sadly). So your then infected and on your way to become a zombie. After losing some friends and encountering massive odd of bandits and zombies of course Sweet Pea gets kidnapped by some psycho and we have to get her back.
We fight through the hordes of zombies to get to Clem even though we suffer great blood loss and the fact we are losing our time to live and we save her BUT then as we try to escape together our time is up together.
Here we lay unable to move as our body gives out and we are faced with a decision and the first one we ever make with Clem.
Kill Lee or let him turn into a monster?
It's tough because we want a different way Clem does. She is so upset she does not want to lose this man who's been like a dad to her but we have no choice.
I personally shed a tear and shot Lee.
I didn't want him to turn into a monster and Lee end up killing her. I raised Clem to not let the monsters get to her and she's a tough badass woman now.
After shooting Lee the credits song rang and I'll never forget that. The song still makes me sad now when I hear it.
The brilliant tense adventure of Lee and Clem has come to an end.
Now flash forward years later Telltale has their final season of Walking Dead coming and I have a sinking feeling this will be it for Clem she won't be surviving the end of the season but who knows for sure.
As for Life Is Strange well a sequel is coming so who know's what will happen and how much more heartbreak we gamers will suffer with that!
That's all I have for you another slice of emotional gaming memories. If you did read this, thank you! I got a lot of this on my mind right now, along with the sad thoughts and songs that followed each sad scene of the games. I've grown so attached to these characters and games it's crazy I know.
Share yours below!
#EmotionalVideogameImpact
Written by Scott Jones
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