And not in a challenging way, one that will create twists and turns in a story undercut with suspense and mystery, but in a way that makes me feel like spending hours and hours in his company will be exhausting. Were other decisions made in that conversation could it have gone another way? Potentially, although it wouldn't help the fact that Sam comes across as a fundamentally unlikeable protagonist. He chooses the latter and she is understandably upset. The one made in this instance has a lasting impact on his grieving goddaughter for the rest of the game – promise to look into the death of his best friend or refuse to help and focus on getting through the night without "pissing anybody off".
Think of this character as the physical manifestation of Sam' psyche, arriving to offer different points of view in key moments when impactful decisions need to be made. It's here where we get to see another element of Twin Mirror's original vision that has also been overhauled in the last two years, that of The Double. "If Nick hadn't died I wouldn't have even come back," he tells his grieving god-daughter, in a conversation peppered with occasional choice and consequence. The next nine minutes takes place largely in a car, as Sam has a lengthy conversation with the daughter of the deceased – his god-daughter, whom we learn he abandoned along with his best friend in his rush to leave Basswood to move in with his mom following his break-up with Anna. If this early look at Twin Mirror is anything to go by, it's going to be a really good looking game – the best Dontnod has put out into the world – undercut by some occasionally stilted performances. Twin Mirror employs long tracking shots, beautiful moody lighting, and dramatic camera cuts to give it a cinematic feel – all of it supported by a really beautiful, melodic soundtrack. Putting Sam's unlikeability to one side for a second, here we get a nice look at Dontnod's ambitions with respect to presentation. Am I The Asshole?Īfter this, the game shifts scenes as Sam arrives at the wake, having missed the funeral of his best friend because he had the baby wah-wahs over getting dumped some years before. For somebody with a forensically analytical mind, he sure has a talent for missing the point. He spends so long reliving this memory that he actually misses the funeral. Honestly, if the most painful moment of his life is his inability to listen to his girlfriend then we're in for a long ride in Twin Mirror. Our first taste of this is the reconstruction of what is supposedly the painful moment of Sam's life, and it's the type of complaint that would come with the following sign-off on an r/relationships post: TL DR – I proposed to my girlfriend two years ago, after she told me multiple times that she didn't need a ring to be happy, and I still can't work out why she said no. This otherworldly space allows Sam the opportunity to sift through his memories, and relive past events. He might be able to recall the smallest of details and reconstruct past events with precision, but boy does he have a problem understanding them.Įventually, we are given a brief glimpse at his 'mind palace'. What I do see, however, is just how limited Sam's supposed intellectualism is. I'm not, however, able to get a clear sense of how that might look or ultimately work in the slice of the game presented on this occasion. In the context of what I've seen of the game before, and at Dontnod's insistence that every discovery, decision, and interaction will ultimately help influence the direction of Sam's journey, it would be easy to assume that even the smallest detail could have some impact later down the line. "For somebody with a forensically analytical mind, he sure has a talent for missing the point." Honestly, I'm conflicted by the thought of spending an entire game trapped inside his head. If Sam Higgs weren't attempting to uncover the dark secrets of his hometown, trying to solve one murder whilst being pulled into the centre of another, I'm certain he'd be laying his idiocy out on r/AmITheAsshole for all the world to see. He's the guy coming in hot with the type of short-sighted complaints that have helped enshrine r/relationships as one of the last bastions of true joy on the internet for the perpetually nosey. You'd have come across his sort while doom-scrolling Reddit at 2am. Within minutes of meeting protagonist Sam Higgs, investigative journalist turned habitual whiner, you know his type.
Why, then, am I struggling to connect with it? What sets this game apart from its predecessors – Life Is Strange (opens in new tab), Vampyr (opens in new tab), Remember Me – isn't its setting or supernaturally-inclined cast of characters, but rather its focus on faux-intellectualism and sadboy trauma.
0 kommentar(er)
