4 Complaints About Life is Strange Addressed.

General Life is Strange review is here.  

I'd like to address a few of the complaints about Life is Strange since I disagree with many of them.  Unfortunately, 2 of them I cannot discuss without spoilers so I'll put a page break in for those of you who still want to play these games.  The first 2 are spoiler free though so have at it.

Not sure if I'm saying I'm smarter than everyone but....

1.  The Secondary Characters are all Cliche Stereotypes.

On the surface, yeah, they are.  You have a rich asshole dude, a popular alpha-bitch, reserved bible thumper, arrogant science/nerd girl, famous arrogant art teacher, creepy "I wanna draw you" guy, even creepier janitor who talks to squirrels, asshole security guard former marine, asshole drug dealer, and even Chole is a bitchy punk girl, who is only that way because her PERFECT father died in a car accident years ago.

Almost all of these characters get fleshed out and have many layers to their personality, some more than others, but still a lot more than your average video game character.  Throughout the games, Max discovers more and more about these characters backstory and their motivations.  Characters that seem like outright villains at first start to look more sympathetic once you discover more information about them. Some of the nicer characters might be a little darker than they seem at first.  They have depth.  Most video games ignore this kind of characterization, which makes this complaint mind boggling for me.

"But he's a Chief.  A MASTER Chief."  

This kind of complaint makes me wonder if the gamers that make it see EVERYONE as a stereotype.  The thing this game does so well is make characters that feel like actual people.  Social media, and the internet at large, tends to make us all look like stereotypes.  People are rarely JUST a "Fallout fan" or "Avs fan" or "Gun nut", or "Republican", or "Liberal", or...you get the idea.  And while I think there are a few people out there who do tie their entire identity to one thing, I think they are the exception, not the rule.  People are more complicated than that.  Life is strange indeed.

2.  There is no Gameplay

I swear this is the last time I'm going to mention this in regards to this game but please, stop.  I know "walking simulators" exist in this grey area that is between full fledged video game and visual novel.  It doesn't matter.  Making this argument when there is still SOME gameplay is absolutely stupid.

How about a Sleeping Simulator?  Happy now?

When people make this complaint, what they really mean is that the gameplay sucks (which is very subjective) or that there is not "enough" of it.  Enough of it?  I don't even know what that means?  Did you want a combat section?  The type of people who make this complaint tend to do it exclusively on games without combat, or at least traditional puzzles.  Life is Strange has plenty of puzzles, most of which are far more cerebral than traditional puzzles.  I'd argue LiS's puzzles are more cerebral than Portal and I LOVE Portal. I found out that I NEEDED the journal at times to make sense of things.  This game made the journal a part of gameplay way more than any RPG's codex.

No gameplay.  Get the fuck out.

Spoiler section below.

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