Firewatch

[darkswordsman17]

I just completed this game, I bought it for about what I consider to be half-price for a PC game (£15 UKP). It's extremely short even by short PC game standards (5 hours absolute max? I think I finished it in two or three sittings). It feels more like a short story than it does a computer game, and while I appreciate it because it's different from most PC games, I think there was quite a bit more they could have done with it.

Early on I thought that I wouldn't have to keep looking at the map because the game would give me sufficient time to get my bearings, but because whenever a "mission" ended, it skipped straight on to a new day; so it would have been tedious sometimes to do twenty or thirty long walks back to the lookout hut, but with that I would have got my bearings.

I think this plot would have worked a lot better as a TV mini-series, with a whole load of other stuff about living in the wilderness.

Yeah, I hated the abrupt end of quests and jumps in time. I get why they did it, but I think they missed a big opportunity to help immersion and setup the world.

But, if it had the same story it wouldn't have mattered and people would be bitching that they got roped into wasting more hours literally just walking.

And that's what this game comes down to, missed potential.

It's weird though, I feel like I agree with everyone's take on this game. Loved it? I can see why. Hated it? I can see why too. I feel somewhere in between. I enjoyed my time and feel compelled to go back and play it more even knowing there really isn't anything more there (I haven't actually gone back and played it, and feel no great loss for not having done so either).

There's just something about the game world that is appealing that plenty of games never even get that (even if they have better stories, more compelling gameplay, etc). Skyrim and the first Borderlands game gave me similar feeling. And I think that's also why some people feel so let down, because it's like they had this compelling setup and then did so very little with it, robbing us of sinking tens of hours into it.

Same with the story, we get the feeling of depth that just isn't really there, and compare it to say Telltale Games that are story driven games and that becomes really apparent.

I kinda wish some big studio would buy up the rights and then make other games. Flesh out the whole mountainous area. They could make a bunch of different types of games too. Like a co-op firefighting game. Could do like a whole mystery series. Or slasher type game. Or survival. Heck even a game that is about just getting pictures would make sense. And they could flesh it out to add animals (Pokemon?).

It's like it has the base of something that could be fun, but we got about as superficial of an experience out of it as we could.

Actually, I almost can't even fault the way the story went as that fit perfectly with everything else. It's like a tease of something more.

 

[mikeymikec]

The other thing that got my goat a bit is this business of encountering a scenario that is so obviously a trap, yet the plot can't go forward without the player forgetting their brain and doing an incredibly dumbass thing. It happened pretty much twice in a row as well.

 

[Mandres]

Yeah, I hated the abrupt end of quests and jumps in time. I get why they did it, but I think they missed a big opportunity to help immersion and setup the world.

But, if it had the same story it wouldn't have mattered and people would be bitching that they got roped into wasting more hours literally just walking.

And that's what this game comes down to, missed potential.

It's weird though, I feel like I agree with everyone's take on this game. Loved it? I can see why. Hated it? I can see why too. I feel somewhere in between. I enjoyed my time and feel compelled to go back and play it more even knowing there really isn't anything more there (I haven't actually gone back and played it, and feel no great loss for not having done so either).

There's just something about the game world that is appealing that plenty of games never even get that (even if they have better stories, more compelling gameplay, etc). Skyrim and the first Borderlands game gave me similar feeling. And I think that's also why some people feel so let down, because it's like they had this compelling setup and then did so very little with it, robbing us of sinking tens of hours into it.

Same with the story, we get the feeling of depth that just isn't really there, and compare it to say Telltale Games that are story driven games and that becomes really apparent.

I kinda wish some big studio would buy up the rights and then make other games. Flesh out the whole mountainous area. They could make a bunch of different types of games too. Like a co-op firefighting game. Could do like a whole mystery series. Or slasher type game. Or survival. Heck even a game that is about just getting pictures would make sense. And they could flesh it out to add animals (Pokemon?).

It's like it has the base of something that could be fun, but we got about as superficial of an experience out of it as we could.

Actually, I almost can't even fault the way the story went as that fit perfectly with everything else. It's like a tease of something more.

Well said, that's pretty much exactly my take on this game too. If it were 100% trash then I wouldn't care at all, but it had the potential to be something really special and then just wasn't.