Nilly wrote:
Have you played Life is Strange? Based on your current faves I think you'd love it. It's episodic so you can just start out with ep 1 and decide if you like it from there.
(My reply to your post is evidently too long for a single post, so I'm having to divide it into two posts, sorry!)
You won't be shocked to learn that I already have Life is Strange!
As to where it actually falls with me, I'd place it as maybe my fifth or sixth favorite from last year after Undertale, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Read Only Memories, and Her Story. Fifth for 2015 is, in my mind, kind of a three-way tie between Life is Strange, Tales From the Borderlands, and Pillars of Eternity. I also enjoyed the second chapter of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky last year (and would add that no one should be fooled by its generic-sounding title!). What I liked best about Life is Strange was the wonderful friendship between Max and Chloe, which was developed to a degree that we don't often see in video games. I also liked the game's willingness to at least touch on pertinent social topics like online bullying. That said, besides the fact that the game's ending didn't to me feel like it should've been a choice, the main reason Life is Strange doesn't really fare as well with me as games like Undertale or Gone Home has to do with its dependence on narrative contrivances and arbitrary "gamey" elements lacking narrative purpose, which to me just doesn't seem like a match for its ambition to tell a complex, compelling story about the dangers of I guess becoming too close to any one person. (Too bad, I say. I defied what the game obviously wanted me to do and chose to stick with my best friend because I hate these contrived, phony-moral "Who do you kill?" type of choices. Or at least that's what I did the first time.) At the end of the day, I'd say my opinion of Life is Strange is mixed, but positive overall.
I love that games are becoming a medium to tell a story (or make a point) rather than just having fun, Gone Home, To the Moon and The Stanley Parable being a few of the obvious ones on your list (which are also 3 of my faves - havne't finished To the Moon yet though).
I've found To the Moon and a couple other games like it (including this year's That Dragon, Cancer) to be helpful with grieving because they concentrate both the helplessness that we feel when we're going through that, but also the point that love is stronger than loss. If you couldn't tell from my list in the OP, I don't like the way flippant way that video games tend to treat serious subjects like death, abuse, and loss. Too many games are designed simply to be power fantasies, and most often specifically male power fantasies at that. The world could use more games that treat serious subjects seriously. At its best, due to its participatory nature, I think gaming as a medium can be a powerful vehicle for generating empathy and making the world a more caring and compassionate place to live. I'd just like to see that potential realized more often and become discouraged because it's hard to see that happening within the commercial, profit-driven framework within which it is situated overall.
In fact, if I can say this, Undertale is my favorite game precisely because it's straight up about making you question the merits of structural violence present in most games and also asks why you, as the player, are willing to kill "enemy" characters just for personal gain in the form of things like experience points and loot even when you have the option not to. And amazingly, it somehow manages to do this while retaining a great sense of humor, respecting player choices, and just providing an all-around fun play experience at the same time; a spectacularly wonderful combination that has been impossible for all other games to date that I have played.
Let's keep this thread on the topic of video games. MmmmKayyy. 