Update Three Hundred and Thirty-Six: 15 October 2019
Late Shift
25 hours playtime, ~3 hrs actual, 20 of 20 achievements
6/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
An FMV game that had a strong opening soon fumbled by Man Filmmaking, I entered my twentieth minute playing Late Shift thinking ‘ooo how thrilling, yay!’ and entered my fiftieth minute thinking ‘I’m good okay let’s be done now please.’
Late Shift plays like a choose-your-own-adventure movie about some fuckin’ guy named Matt who gets unwittingly roped into participating in a robbery and then suddenly becomes a yelly, focused, way too invested, eyerollingly competent out of nowhere thriller action hero protag. Let me clarify: he starts the game as some schmuck garage night watchmen taking a class on game theory (imagine me rollin my eyes here) and by midway through “"”act”””” 2 is waving around a gun and shouting about how he has to make all of this worth it m8 it’s been three hours.
I played through one path (and got all the endings) and actually got MY WIFE to play through the other path! Here’s her review below:
“Hey, it’s been a while! Time to talk about this game.
I came in to finish it off when Tsuper couldn’t, and I finished most of the “good” ending. Right off the bat, I was… not against it, but turned off. “Is karma a thing? Am I a selfish asshole or not? Choices are IMPORTANT.” Yes, I know they are- I also played Telltale games. Honestly, I’m surpried they didn’t have that pop-up. “May-Ling will remember that…”
It didn’t get much better from there. I found some interesting moments in it- like at the auction house, where May kept bidding to increase their take. And the twist with Mr. Woe (Wu?) genuinely surprised me as well. But other than that, I failed to see much purpose in this story.
Though I have to admit, the direction of it was pretty good. The shots, lighting, framing, it all felt right when it came to the genre of story they were trying to tell.
Not going to lie- part of me wishes this was a more Papers, Please kind of a game, where you actually play out your shift and the choices you make are more about how you treat other people, and not some thriller about stealing pottery.”
She’s right and she should say it!
Next up: I’m excited for this one!
See you soon!
You are certainly making up for the long absence of posts :) And thanks for the review. I have a key for the game and after reading the review, I don’t think I’ll use it for myself.
Hahaha, yeah! It’s good to get through a bunch of ‘em, though I think now I’ll start angling for more mid-length experiences, perhaps…
Yeah, it’s not really anything to write home about. It’s also annoying to 100%, so you can’t even just use it for an easy +1 perfect game, too! Glad I could save you from a meh pair of afternoons.
Haha clever idea to share the pain(?) of going through every single choice. :P
I won a copy on SG but sadly it was so broken for me it’s nuts. Relaunched the game easily 50+ times and spent several hours trying every hotfix to stop the black screen of death but it’d appear randomly, never at the same part, often 5-10 mins into a chapter and since there’s no way to save in between chapters or fast forward…had to replay Chapter 2 alone at least 30 times. Good grief. :( Looked like a lot of people were also having problems. The story was fine, but nowhere near memorable enough to put up with that trouble. ;_; Am grateful I managed to brute force it tho, was very close to giving up before I got a lucky 15 min bug-free reprieve!
The story was a lot different than I was expecting, things happening so fast (yet also not? If you know what I mean. Definitely down times but still the pacing, quite the night for them). Would be interested in playing more FMV games (hopefully with a lot less black screen freezes), still have Her Story high on my list. Watched someone play the first 25 minutes or so and it was actually really interesting, how the story could unfold slightly differently for every player.
I love the rusty lake games but heard Hotel has a huge dealbreaker of getting stuck if you don’t have the correct items and needing to start from scratch each time. I don’t trust myself to be on the same page as the dev from the get-go, even though the other games weren’t too tough. My fingers are crossed that you don’t come across that and perhaps enjoy the rest of the series. :) Hope u and ur wife are doing good!!
Oh no!!! Oh, Jaffa, that sounds awful! Oh, yeah, 100% achievements or not, if I had to fight the game THAT hard I’d just toss it. It’s not worth that aggravation. I definitely found Her Story to be more interesting, for sure. I’d also play other FMV games, though, and I know how this sounds coming from me, either there needs to be more game aspects OR it needs to be more pure VN and enable save-anywhere and fastforward to choices.
Rusty Lake Hotel was aight! I followed a guide so it was pretty simple. I’d play the other games, and the newest one (paired with a short film?) looks intriguing. What do you like in particular about the Rusty Lake games?
I completely agree, being able to fast-forward through parts you’ve already seen would make it so much more enjoyable. It’s like when you’d read choose-your-own-adventure-books, ain’t nobody gonna reread everything for each path! On-screen is even worse because you can’t skim or skip it easily. Her Story sounds more contained in that sense though? That you shouldn’t (need to) be replaying it a bunch of times.
Hmm I’m not sure, I honestly liked pretty much everything about the ones I’ve played. The puzzles were generally perfect imo, not too easy or tough. I hardly used a guide at all which isn’t always the case with P&Cs (though I still don’t know how to play chess…) The pace flowed very well, yet managed to feel satisfying. I’m also a fan of the ‘out there’ story, yet it still manages to have an interweaving story. I enjoyed Rusty Lake: Roots more than Cube Escape: Paradox but it was still good (just a couple slower, slightly more tedious parts). Loved the short film! Was basically the game on screen spot on, was cool to see it in real life. :) I know there’s a bunch of f2p ones not on steam, haven’t played ‘em yet. Curious to see if they hold up like the full games!
Also you just made me aware of The White Door when I went to search the Cube Escape title, which looks a lot different from their usual. Thank you for that. :D
wow now we know why you missing for ages. Congratz and interesting this game will be next since it was literally just released in a bundle yesterday
Hee hee! See, when I put effort into playing games, I can get through them…! Though… it does mean I’m drawing slightly less. That’s okay, though! Balance in all things.