reviews: 64
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| id | game_id | external_id | review_text | added | posted | allowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 64 | 232430 | 81157171 | Gone Home took me 69 minutes to complete the first time I played. That was about 69 minutes too long for me. Gone Home starts out intriguing, with you returning from a European vacation to an empty house. Your parents and younger sister have disappeared into a stormy night, and you have no idea why. It's your job to explore the house and figure out what happened. That setup is pretty compelling, I have to admit. I was intrigued at first because the plot could go in a lot of different directions, and Gone Home does try to lead you to believe you may be dealing with something paranormal or sinister in both its trailers and some of its minute-to-minute gameplay. You'll hear hints of former evil in the house, find spooky hidden hallways, and even dig out a Ouija board. None of it means anything at all. You are not untangling some interesting mystery or plot, as the devs apparently want you to believe. Instead, you are being force fed a ham-fisted narrative about sexuality and relationship problems. Gone Home is not really a game so much as it is a sermon. While I have no personal issues with the general messages behind Gone Home's focus on sexuality, I do have an issue with developers stealthily using games as a means of prosthelitizing. By all means, weave your beliefs and values into your games. But use these threads to add color to a broader tapestry, not to form the main contours of your game itself. If you insist on making a game specifically designed to push a certain message, please be honest about that upfront so those of us looking for something else can avoid wasting our time. If I wanted to spend 69 minutes of my life learning more about sexuality and related social issues, I'd watch a documentary, attend a seminar, or read an in-depth article. My recommendation is that you do the same. Your gaming time is better spent on actual games, and you'll get an awful lot more out of an hour of dedicated study on this issue than you will from Gone Home's flimsy, trite story. Avoid. | 2021-03-14T05:52:05.001240 | 1 | 1 |