(Reviewed after playing the entire "Sam Barlow Trilogy" as I call it: Her Story, Telling Lies, & Immortality)
Bigger in scope than Her Story and better for it. Telling Lies is another FMV game by Sam Barlow. This time we get more characters, a more complicated storyline and way more themes and undertones while still maintaining that signature Barlow style. Just like I said in my Her Story review (here) I found these games best enjoyed over Discord with friends, so that we could share our theories and react to the various discoveries together.
The main draw this time is that most video clips are of some sort of video call where you can only see one side at a time. This puts significantly heavier emphasis on the acting chops and character depth and luckily, Telling Lies triumphs in both these regards. David Smith is such a fascinating character; he's so hard to love yet somehow even harder to hate. The other characters here are memorable as well, but Logan Marshall-Green brings David to life in a way that only gets topped by certain actors and actresses in Immortality. Water is life.
My main problem with all of Barlow's games (though especially noticeable with this one, I feel) is how you end up running out of interesting clips to find and instead have to dredge through negligible search results until you find something juicy again. This always occurs in the final hours right before you hit the credits, and at that point you're already hooked into the story so it's not that big of a deal. Still, it does make me wonder if the self-paced nature of these games can be more detrimental than beneficial. Luckily Immortality was affected the least by this, from my experience.
Anyway, play this game. Play all of Sam Barlow's games, honestly. They're super unique and well-executed and I wish more people talked about them.
Bigger in scope than Her Story and better for it. Telling Lies is another FMV game by Sam Barlow. This time we get more characters, a more complicated storyline and way more themes and undertones while still maintaining that signature Barlow style. Just like I said in my Her Story review (here) I found these games best enjoyed over Discord with friends, so that we could share our theories and react to the various discoveries together.
The main draw this time is that most video clips are of some sort of video call where you can only see one side at a time. This puts significantly heavier emphasis on the acting chops and character depth and luckily, Telling Lies triumphs in both these regards. David Smith is such a fascinating character; he's so hard to love yet somehow even harder to hate. The other characters here are memorable as well, but Logan Marshall-Green brings David to life in a way that only gets topped by certain actors and actresses in Immortality. Water is life.
My main problem with all of Barlow's games (though especially noticeable with this one, I feel) is how you end up running out of interesting clips to find and instead have to dredge through negligible search results until you find something juicy again. This always occurs in the final hours right before you hit the credits, and at that point you're already hooked into the story so it's not that big of a deal. Still, it does make me wonder if the self-paced nature of these games can be more detrimental than beneficial. Luckily Immortality was affected the least by this, from my experience.
Anyway, play this game. Play all of Sam Barlow's games, honestly. They're super unique and well-executed and I wish more people talked about them.