Life is Strange: Episode 5 - Polarized

Robert Murphy


There are countless times throughout a persons life where they wonder what would happen if I could have changed the past, would things turn out for the better. Max Caulfield spent the entirety of this five part series finding out just what it would be like to change your fate but in the end, will it be enough and can she make the tough decision to save everyone she has come to know? 

It is an understatement to say that Max has not evolved as a character thanks to her new abilities and the challenges she has overcome with them. When we first met her she was a shy and timid girl who was comfortable silently walking through her life without making waves or getting on anyones radar. That has now drastically changed as she throws all her cards on the table in this final chapter and is thrown throughout multiple time lines in order to stop the horrible future that has come about. My heart strings were being tugged to the extreme as multiple futures led me to have to make insanely difficult choices and relive some of the previous episodes darkest moments. Max is faced with mind bending realities and it seems as though the worst fears that lay in the back in her mind came out in order to torment her. Even when I thought that the ending could have come to a happy one I was proven insanely wrong. 

That being said, as you time hop from one reality to the next the experience can be a little desensitizing. Max often must return to a pinnacle moment for this episode in order to move forward and the rehashing of this scenario over and over again was where the story loses it's momentum. It is already obvious that this is the lowest moment for Max so there was no need for it to be capitalized on repeatedly. This main villain that is created from one of the games least obvious characters was a low point for the story and having to come back to it made things even worse. The dialogue between Max and the character amounts to nothing but frequent cursing and psychotic delusional blabbering that was capped off by some irritating rewind sequences.

What comes of this though is what made this final chapter bring out what the game does best. Life is Strange has always been able to capture a sense of everyone's feelings no matter how small they or nonessential they are to the overall story as well as a drama to life that many people don't experience but one that Max has to live through in each chapter of the game. This is especially true for your relationship with Chloe as you two rebound throughout each episode and it would seem that that is what everything has truly been about. The bond you two have begun to share was admittedly much deeper than I realized by the ending of Polarized and made me think back on a choice that had been so minor before but now seemed really relevant. Whatever the case, Max and Chloe's relationship brought the story back to life and it won't just be Max doing all the saving this time around.

While there is multiple endings to the concluding chapter of Life is Strange, there is frankly only one satisfying conclusion to the story. The diverging ending follows along the same lack luster tropes and cliches that make moments throughout every episode feel like a let down. That being said this final chapter tended to lead you towards the more satisfying conclusion to the tale and make the hard choice in order to put a stop to the impending destruction. It's funny to say this about a game character but as I closed on the last moments of the game I felt that even Max was happy with the choice I made as a player.

Polarized continued to bring out what the series does best and that is tell a story with a deeply emotional look into teenage relationships, drama and their daily issues. Even though Max's problems tend to go to an extremely larger scale she was still a girl with normal everyday issues and by the end I feel that point came full circle. I still don't argue with the dialogue choice and the overuse of the word "hella" but oh well. There is however a large amount of after taste to take in when you process with the conclusion to the murder mystery that was hiding in the background till almost the end of the story. But by the end I was still able to find a satisfying conclusion to this emotional roller coaster ride despite the dark twists and turns that were thrown at me.

Good:

- The psychological journey

- Deeply emotional moments and dramatic conclusion

Bad:

- Horrible villain

- Unsatisfying alternate ending

- Rehashing of the darkest scene of the episode

Scully Rating: 6.8 out of 10

Mad Max: Fury Road

By: Robert Murphy

The post apocalyptic genre is a place many film makers have tried to go to and that is for one simple reason, Mad Max. Some thirty odd years ago the first of the three films came out and set the standard for this type of film with its desolate and society crumbling idea for the future of the human race. We would all basically become animals trying to make our way through desolate and grungy looking scenes and I loved that. Now, George Miller returns after three decades to the wastes and the character he started all those years ago but he receives a new face with Tom Hardy. This isn’t a bad thing as Tom fits the strong and silent Max character well as he now faces a new sort of danger than the one he had before. Desperately trying to forget the mistakes of his past, Max is traveling from place to place hoping to escape the ghosts that now haunt him but it seems the world just can’t leave him alone. 

Max is no longer a warrior who travels from place to place trying to scrounge up whatever fuel he can scavenge, no now his character really wants nothing to do with the outside world. Running away from the past is his main concern at this point as people and faces haunt the stoic Max to this day, all the people he couldn’t save and the ones that couldn’t survive this harsh new world. He has frankly gone just as mad as the rest of the world around him. The rest of the remaining human race are still ragged and tattered but now they no longer run around looking for power or fuel rather they come to the new found source of all power, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, a former bad guy in the first Mad Max film). Joe has created an empire out of the wasteland that currently remains of the world by controlling one of the few remaining sources of dependable water. He controls those underneath him and the men that fight for him by supplying them shelter and promises of immortality. His army of pasty skinned soldiers all believe that they will die and be reborn again in Valhalla by following his commands and doing his bidding. They all attack with no fear of what will happen if they die as it appears Immortan Joe knows just how to control the feeble minded masses.

What causes all the trouble for the story though comes when Joe's second in command steals a very precious commodity of his.  Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) leaves on the scheduled trip to secure fuel for Immortan Joe's machines but she secretly has her own plans and has made away with all of Joe's beautiful wives. She is honestly just as much a main character as Max though as she is both intricate to the plot but she also supplies some of the hard hitting action as well. The one armed Furiosa commands a mighty rig that only she knows how to drive, she is able to hold her own and take a hit like no other woman and she has plenty of skills with guns, knives and fists. She hopes to free the former enslaved wives of Joe and take them to her former home which is now run by a few remaining biker grannies who really know how to put up a fight on their own too. Once Joe finds out about all of this, that's when things really kick off.

Almost immediately the somewhat decrepit Joe sends out every available War Boy and heavy hitting vehicles to retrieve his stolen property. This leads to some of the most spectacular CGI stunts and massive car chase that I have ever seen. The makeshift vehicles in Joe's command vary from supped up mustangs to giant war rigs and even a traveling bard car complete with massive speakers and a flame wielding guitar player on bungee wires. If you think that was a mouthful to read wait until you see just how crazy it is on screen. All the vehicles are decked out to the maximum with all sorts of weaponry like flamethrowers and machines gun. You then have the crazed War Boys swinging from car to car by paper thin poles as well and it truly is quite a sight to behold. It's this madness, the crescendo of the music and the vibration coming off of the cars and explosions that will have your eyes glued to the screen. It has been awhile since I was on the edge of my seat for an action movie such as this an I guess it took the return of George Miller and his Mad Max to do it.

 This also happens to be where Max comes back into the picture after being initially captured in the first few scenes of the movie. A bright eyed and thoroughly brain washed War Boy by the name of Nux (Nicholas Hoult) is using Max as a sort of blood donor after being previously injured. He comes into play later after questioning Immortan Joe and all he has stood for. In the meantime Max has sort of felt like a back seat driver for most of the movie and that works out in all honesty because his story is more of a quiet one this time around and he wants to go unnoticed. This still doesn't stop him from tearing through the never ending onslaught of Joe's men and being an all around solid character, perhaps one of my favorite scenes is when he mysteriously walks off from the rig and you hear some brief explosions in the background. Max returns a bit bloodied with an full arsenal of weapons around his shoulders and only utters at most one word while the flaming wreckage of what occurred laid behind him.

Fury Road excels at creating an absolutely out of this world post apocalyptic action movie. Once the ball starts rolling in the story there is just no stopping it and that is what a great action movie needs to do, it supplies over the top stunts, intriguing characters and doesn't fall into the the slumps of what all normal action movies do today. Out of the wreckage and chaos that ensues throughout this Mad Max sequel, you get a truly beautiful experience.  

Good:

- The sheer amount of insane stunts and action

- Tom Hardy's Max may take a backseat for some of the film but he still hits insanely hard

- The incredible world that is built and presented before you

- Theron and her portrayal of Furiosa 

Bad:

- Keep on scrolling, nothing to see here

Scully Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Life is Strange: Episode 2 - Out of Time

By: Robert Murphy

The series continues to live up to it's title as I entered into the second episode "Out of Time." Max returns to her life at Blackwell Academy and begins to feel a wave of care free nature in the wake of her new abilities. Things will not be as light and breezy as the opening to the episode would suggests though and I start to feel the first real signs of tension and drama that I was missing out on in the first episode. 

Almost immediately this chapter starts off with an overwhelming level of peace to it that drastically changes in an instant. Max starts her day and relishes in her new found power and how she really can go about her day with ease because of it. This was the issue I pointed out with episode one as your rewind powers seem to almost be too over powered to generate any real problems. This issue would soon become irrelevant as Max begins to learn of the torment that her fellow classmate is going through. Bullying, sexual abuse and drug use all begin to weave their way into the story and Max will end up being mixed into all of it due to her inherently good nature. Max remains a character that deserves the gift she is given, she may joke about using her power for little things like not being late to class but she mainly ends up reversing time for a greater good. 

That greater good though is quite hard to find in this episode. The decisions you are faced with are extremely difficult ones in this episode and I felt like I was right back in Telltale's Game of Thrones adaptation where no choice I could possibly make is the right one. This is due to the fact that your relationships with the ones around you get more involved. The main out cry for this episode came from a character that I barely paid any attention to the first time around but quickly became invested in once I learned what was happening to her and that was Kate Marsh. She it seems got into some trouble and you will need to decide whether or not you have what it takes to help her but depending on the decisions you've made up until this point her fate and yours may be intertwined and you could help one another out. This brings me to the fact that many of the decisions you made in the first episode begin to start showing some meaning. Here and there I found information and issues arising from the choices I made, whether it was receiving texts from an unknown number or stopping a certain security guard from picking on my friend, the effects began to show. This was interesting because often times I don't feel any sort of effect in these decision making games from the choices I've made and here I've found myself confronted with issues that would have gone differently had I gone another route.

From here players will see that your relationship with Chloe which also begins to get stronger too as last episode you revealed to her your gift and you two begin to bond like the good old days again. Chloe does became one of this episodes problems however as she felt the need to put your powers to the test for herself just to make sure you aren't crazy and who can really blame her. This leads to a mind numbing rewind and retry sequence in the first few scenes of the game. You have to correctly guess the items in her pocket at one point and notice the most insignificant details about the items it would seem. Then you must predict the future to Chloe and call out the actions of what happens in the diner you are in. Following this you have to play a find the bottle game at Chloe's secret hideout. It was all nitty gritty objectives that I was glad were done within the first portion of the episode and not spread throughout. However, the pace does pick up considerably once you get all of this out of the way and your relationship with Chloe will lead you to two of the most tense moments of the episode as her past comes back to haunt her and you must decide what you must do to help Chloe out. Constantly exposing your powers to this strain of everything that you two do will also have a big effect on the finale for the game too which took my breath away.

The only thing that did not show signs of improvement and probably will not change any time in the future for Life is Strange would be the dialogue. I'm not exactly sure what teen drama or crummy TV show that the developers got their teen slang from but it is certainly a dated and annoying one. Max and her friends walk around spouting out typical teenage jargon but at the same time they also use lines that feel completely out of character and out of place in every day conversation. At one point Max asks to "rap" about what happened the other day to Chloe and I cringed. People do not talk like this in the real world and it makes me shutter every time one of these cliche line comes pouring out of someones mouth which is quite often. 

That being said, "Out of Time" takes some very positive steps forward from it's first episode. The overarching story starts to take shape as the decisions I've made in the previous episode start to carry some weight and make it seem that far bigger problems may lie in store for Max because of it. Players will also see a big ramp up in the tension in the story and I finally begin to feel real concern for the characters in the game and also more invested in interacting with everyone I see. I certainly hope the tension can continue forward as more and more is revealed about Max and her abilities, along with the mysterious goings on at Blackwell Academy. 

Good:

- The ramifications of my decisions in episode one already start to show

- Exceedingly hard to make choice

- Characters start to gain more appeal especially the one with Chloe

- An ending you won't forget

Bad:

- Horrible and cliche dialogue that doesn't appear to be going away any time soon

- The mind numbing sequences with Chloe testing your powers

Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10

  

Life is Strange: Episode 1 - Chrysalis

By: Robert Murphy

What do you get when you turn a CW teen drama into a video game? You would probably end up with something similar to Life is Strange. The story follows seemingly average teen Max Caulfield who has just returned to her home state of Oregon and is now attending a prestigious private school. She is a gifted photographer but lacks a certain confidence to strut her stuff and show what she's made of but hey, it is high school and kids are going through all sorts of problems and emotions but Max may have the rest of the kids her age beat. After a horrible nightmare in the middle of her photography class and stumbling upon a scene where a young girl gets shot, Max discovers that she has the power to reverse time. This takes her oddly poetic life in an entirely new direction as she struggles to make the right decisions to all that is going around her but being able to rewind your life in mere seconds to a point where you choose helps out quite a bit. This is a power any teenager would dream of it would seem but never the less it is one that Max is in dire need of for the future to come or yet to be made. 

Time travel was the last thing that I thought of when I first laid eyes on Life is Strange, I thought to myself that it would be another choose your own story style of game set through the life of an American teen that would be ripe with classic high school drama issues. That part was still true at least. Max is definitely an outcast member at her new school, she may have grown up in this town but a lot has changed since she left and her shy nature has made everything a bit harder for her. She wanders the halls with headphones on trying not to be noticed or cause anyone to really notice that she is there, Max just wants to quietly move about her day with as little stress as possible. Her strong nature though is revealed quickly after her photography class ends and she ends up in the girls bathroom, she is hidden at the end of the stalls when a boy enters and a girl soon after him. The two begin to argue and the boy in the end pulls a gun out and shoots the poor girl, this is a crucial point for Max as it is her first big time jump. She rewinds time all the way to her photography class, gets revenge on the mean girl in class and then returns to the restroom to pull the fire alarm and save the girl. It's certainly a powerful first chunk to the story and it only gets more intriguing from there.

Every decision Max makes ultimately has a consequence to them and while for the moment Max only worries about the choices she makes, such as turning in the boy with the gun to the principal, there are sure to be bigger problems later because of it. These choices however can be done or undone rather easily, Max can restart time on a whim and players can decide whether or not the decisions they've made were truly the ones they wanted. I stood there for a few moments debating to rewind time and save a girl from getting whacked in the head with a football or not, seeing if it would somehow help me later. It definitely leads you to feeling more relieved with your choice unlike in any Telltale game where I would love to rewind time and make a different choice if I could. The rewind function is a bit of a cheat in a way but one that I certainly love, time travel can always get so messy in movies and shows and I'm sure it will certainly get messy in Life is Strange but for the moment the time manipulation is pretty darn fun. 

Now, not every choice in the game leads to some huge life altering future as many of the decisions in the game can be as simple as preventing someone from being bullied or staying off the radar of a particularly mean security guard. Max is definitely a person deserving of the gift of time manipulation as she does whatever she can to help those around her and use her gift for the right reasons. She may not know why she has this gift but she knows she can do some good with and starts to blossom into a truly great character. If only all the characters followed suit with her appealing characteristics. Many of the characters in the game are frankly flat, my conversation with the principal of the school was particularly mind numbing one and I felt like I was back in high school myself trying to dodge the conversation with my own principal. What made matters worse was when I decided to tell him about the boy with the gun and his blank expression really left me with a perplexed feeling, a kid had a gun! Do something other than stand there slack jawed starring at me. It certainly created a lack of tension for me as I played, I already felt invincible with my gift but with the characters around me not giving me any sort of concern I felt like the some of the drama was sucked out of this supposedly dramatic tale.  

This isn't to say that all the characters in Life is Strange are bad, no many of the characters introduce look to lead to some potentially interesting stories later on. When I reunite with my long lost best friend Chloe, who is the punky girl in the bathroom that I watched die, I finally found a character with as much appeal as Max. Chloe has gotten into some big issues while Max was away and she has completely changed from the girl she knew, at least on the outside anyway as the two awkwardly stumble back into friendship. Chloe has an interesting story in itself but she also has more going on in the background as she is looking for her missing best friend that sort of replaced Max when she left. We then have her not so friendly step father, you met him earlier, he's our jerk security guard. His character has some screws loose and his massive levels of paranoia certainly made me curious as to what sort of things he will be up to later.

As it goes with most first episodes, Chrysalis does plenty of setup and leaves a lot of intrigue for what is to come in the next chapter of the story and it does it well. Max Caulfield is a sweet and interesting main character who starts off meek but is already changing into a compelling character before the halfway mark of the first episode. The story and world is also a very interesting one and I am certainly ready to see what lies in wake next. What is the lighthouse and what was with Max's bad nightmare in class and how did she get these powers she has? So many questions that I want answered and I can't wait to see what I find. 

Good:

- Max is a wonderful main character

- Enjoyable story and world to explore

- Interesting choice to make

Bad:

- Some characters are flat and lack expression

- Not a lot of tension for a supposedly dramatic story

Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

By: Robert Murphy

It has been awhile since I have taken up an adventure style puzzle game like this but with Max: The Curse of Brotherhood it makes me wish there were so many more of this style of game. Not since Limbo have I played something like this although this is far less bleak and dark and more something you'd want your kids to play for something fun to do. You play the role of Max, a young red headed boy who comes home from school one day to his annoying little brother (been there) who is playing with his toys and Max wishes for nothing more than to be alone. Going to the internet for a solution as we all do in today's world, he finds a spell that in turn opens a portal and gets his brother kidnapped. Immediately regretting his decision he jumps after his brother and now must travel through this new world he finds himself in to save his brother. 

Now you are not much of the hero type when the game first starts out, you're a young kid who doesn't want to risk getting in trouble for getting your brother sucked into another dimension. You appear quite small in this world and the first couple of platforming challenges you face are really easy but things get more difficult as you go on. After jumping your way through the first few platforms, you meet a mysterious elderly woman who tells you the tale of this land you find yourself in and she in turn will help you defeat the evil lord Mustacho who wants to use your brothers youth to become young again and continue ruling the land. This elderly woman possess the soul of your mighty weapon....a marker, this marker allows you to control various elements in the game such as creating earth pillars, creating vines to swing on, creating solid branches, controlling a gush of water, basically you become the Avatar when you have this thing. But all these abilities come gradually over time as you progress through the treacherous environments that you have to find your way through with your wits. 

All the puzzles in the game are fairly easy even when you get to the later levels, it involves a bit of trial an error though when you get to angling things like the water and end up falling to your death. The main drawback to the whole thing though isn't performing the puzzle over again or figuring it out, it comes from our main character Max. Since you don't possess many jaw dropping abilities as the young kid you are, you suffer from limitations like the inability to double jump or make it that tinniest fraction closer to grabbing that edge you missed. Things also get a little more challenging when Max will appear to glide and slide across a surface making you panic jump to your death, it's an issue with the game itself and when you're playing a puzzle game where any mistake can cost you, it can get a little irritating. 

The fun really kicked in more for me later on when I gained control of all my markers abilities, like I said before I felt like a real life Avatar with my ability to control all these elements. Solving puzzles was just so much more fun when I had all these abilities under my belt, water spouts are particularly fun as you create your own water slide in a sense and send Max on a ride through the air to a jungle vine. This also comes up when you have to do the puzzle you are presented with in a certain way to get to a hidden goodie, the game comes with amulet pieces to collect and eye stalks to sever that are used by Mustacho to spy on you. Often you'll have to take the puzzle in another direction to reach these hidden gems and then remember the correct way you set up your path before. This brings up the other issue I had with the game and that's the timing and quick time events you will encounter along the way when it really becomes a challenge to take your marker out in time to preform the action the game wants you to do. It happens every once and awhile but when you have to sit through a whole cut scene time and time again it got on my nerves. 

In closing, I enjoyed what Max: The Curse of Brotherhood had to offer with it's bright and colorful puzzle solving game play. It made me think back to playing Limbo as I said before and I'm glad to see this type of game make it's way to the Xbox One early on. Issues do arise though that can make the game play a little bit of a challenge when you involuntarily slide across a platform that cause you to freak out and fall to your death. Quick time events and timing issue are also a bit of a problem for the game and when you're trying to solve a puzzle over and over again do to you missing that split second time constraint, you'll be frustrated. 

Good:

- Cute and fun environments that fit the story

- Controlling all these elements with the flick of your marker was really quite fun

Bad:

- Timing and quick time event issues

- Some control issues with your character Max

- Max himself can bring fault onto himself by not being all he should be, whimply missing jumps and ledges

Scully Rating: 6.0 out of 10