We Are Chicago
I finished We Are Chicago yesterday. It's a wonder I finished it at all actually. Coincidentally it's black history month, so this post kind of fits. This game puts you in the shoes of a young black man named Aaron living in Chicago soon to graduate from high school. And you're trying to ensure that happens even as gang violence is going on around you and people you know are being influenced and affected by them. Each day you walk to school with your little sister Taylor to protect her and sometimes your friend James comes along too as you try to stay out of trouble. Education is heavily emphasized and there are choices to be made with timed dialogs similar to TellTale games. I often think they don't give you enough time to pick through the dialog options either. There's also a mini game where you are counting out change at work. But it's much more of an interactive movie than a game.
I get what they were trying to do with this, but it was just executed very poorly and in what it tries to achieve it comes across as shallow. The graphics are bad too. Super laggy and choppy and I knew it wasn't my computer because no matter how I tried to adjust the settings, it had no effect. This made it nearly unplayable for me. The voice acting is really wooden too, so I couldn't really connect with the characters. They weren't convincing at all. I doubt the voice actors were professionals. As far as choices go I don't see them as having any impact on the story either (What little there is), except maybe in one scene where you either choose to go to work or not when your workplace is held up at gunpoint by gangsters. This wasn't much of game, it was actually more like a public service announcement in the form of a game. You can tell that it was designed to educate, maybe even to be used in schools for people to play? That's what it felt like to me. Especially when they push you to support the charities that were surely sponsoring this game. It's kind of strange, but again I get what they were trying to achieve here, but it comes across as disingenuous. So, it's a bizarre extremely flawed "game," but here is a screenshot. Most of the game is spent doing this. Walking and talking.
Now I've said I was only going to stick to my adventure games list from now on, but I thought since the Aggies (Like the Oscars for adventure games) are coming up on Adventure Gamers, I thought I'd look back and see what games have won awards and play some I haven't played before. I've already played almost all of the ones who won best adventure game of the year, so I'm mainly pulling from other categories like Best Story, but most of them are probably the silver Aggie winners, which are basically honorable mentions. So, I put together a pretty good sized list, and the first game on my list is called Lost Horizon. All I know about this is I think it's kind of an adventure story ala Indiana Jones, fighting Nazis and all. There's also a sequel, but it isn't reviewed as well. I might or might not play it. It depends on what the faults actually are. But again, I will be alternating between my main list of games and this new list.
I get what they were trying to do with this, but it was just executed very poorly and in what it tries to achieve it comes across as shallow. The graphics are bad too. Super laggy and choppy and I knew it wasn't my computer because no matter how I tried to adjust the settings, it had no effect. This made it nearly unplayable for me. The voice acting is really wooden too, so I couldn't really connect with the characters. They weren't convincing at all. I doubt the voice actors were professionals. As far as choices go I don't see them as having any impact on the story either (What little there is), except maybe in one scene where you either choose to go to work or not when your workplace is held up at gunpoint by gangsters. This wasn't much of game, it was actually more like a public service announcement in the form of a game. You can tell that it was designed to educate, maybe even to be used in schools for people to play? That's what it felt like to me. Especially when they push you to support the charities that were surely sponsoring this game. It's kind of strange, but again I get what they were trying to achieve here, but it comes across as disingenuous. So, it's a bizarre extremely flawed "game," but here is a screenshot. Most of the game is spent doing this. Walking and talking.
Now I've said I was only going to stick to my adventure games list from now on, but I thought since the Aggies (Like the Oscars for adventure games) are coming up on Adventure Gamers, I thought I'd look back and see what games have won awards and play some I haven't played before. I've already played almost all of the ones who won best adventure game of the year, so I'm mainly pulling from other categories like Best Story, but most of them are probably the silver Aggie winners, which are basically honorable mentions. So, I put together a pretty good sized list, and the first game on my list is called Lost Horizon. All I know about this is I think it's kind of an adventure story ala Indiana Jones, fighting Nazis and all. There's also a sequel, but it isn't reviewed as well. I might or might not play it. It depends on what the faults actually are. But again, I will be alternating between my main list of games and this new list.