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DuckHairback
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15 Nov 2022, 11:34 am

Has anyone else played this? I'm utterly obsessed with it at the moment. Can't think about anything else.

If you've never heard of it, it's a videogame - an FMV videogame of all things. For those of us old enough to remember the MegaCD and CD32 that might be enough to put you off.

But it's insane. I'm always most impressed by things when I can't figure out how they work. I like things that are smarter than me. And this is one of those things. I have no idea how the game makers planned and executed this.

Basically, you're watching rushes from three unreleased movies in more or less random order. They all starred this girl, Marissa Marcel. One was made in 1968, one in 1970 and the third in 1999. As you watch the clips you can pause, rewind/FF and skip frame by frame as if you were using an editing machine.

Further you can select things onscreen - people or props etc and the game will then show you another clip that has the same person, same prop or same type of thing in it.

That's it. That's the game. Sounds terrible right?

But it isn't. You start of with a basic question in your head. Why weren't these movies released? Then there's a slow drip feed of information as you slowly notice things and you get this unsettling feeling that something really dark and disturbing is going on.

It's so weird. Not only do you slowly start to figure out the movies themselves, but also who was involved in making them, what their relationships to each other were and what happened to them. It's a psychological horror so what seems to happen to them isn't particularly pleasant. The result is this slow creeping dread that builds up inside you as you play. You kind of don't want to know any more but you also can't help going back to find out more.

The really impressive thing is that the movies look absolutely right for their era, the detail is spot on. The actress is seriously good too.

I can imagine serious gamers really hating Immortality but I'm not that anymore and I think it's extraordinary. I had no idea games were capable of this sort of thing. This, to me, approaches art in the same way that Twin Peaks is ostensibly a tv show but approaches a work of art.

So have you played it? Did you like it? Did you hate it?


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DuckHairback
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17 Nov 2022, 1:22 pm

I guess no one has played it.

But I want to talk about some more so nyah.

I still think its brilliant but...

Last night I was playing and I got to the end credits.

Problem is, I've only played a fraction of it, so many of the mysteries I don't have the answers to yet but I already know how it ends.

I suppose this is the danger for non-linear story telling. It's a shame though, I wish it hadn't happened. I think the ending would have been a lot more impactful if I'd learned a bit more first.


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