Road 96 is a piturbation that romanticizes third world country problems from a Western perspective. Everything feels like a children's fairy tale when you listen to the worthless stories of caricatured characters who are affected by an order in which people suffer more and more each day, while walking on the roads full of so-called "terrible" country conditions. In order not to stereotype their work even more, an American-like atmosphere was created by avoiding Middle Eastern country aesthetic but it only made it clear that these writers were very foreign to reality. This game is nothing more than a cheaply formulated interactive Netflix project with Hollywood-like action sequences, characters who always act optimistically, an unnecessary traumatized serial killer plot, thieves who were created for comedic relief but emptying the game's entire message and illusions of impactful choice. The intersections of each character's stories feel as disconnected and inappropriate as can be. While there is a revolution down at the gate, an irrelevant family reunion with poorly written dialogue creates a huge disconnect between two situations. It is a really brazen work that fetishizes the suffering of people and hopeless society with many sentences such as "I went through difficult roads but what I went through changed me and this is a good thing.". It's also extra frustrating that game tries to transition into a heart-wrenching experience thanks to the cheap act of revolution in finale, as it reveals that this studio is pontificating in a fantasy world where they thought everything could be solved by riots. I didn't look at who made the game on purpose and when I saw French names in the credits everything fell into place.

Fuck French people

Aside from being a passionate love letter to cinema, The Wreck couldn't used the power of storytelling in video game medium well enough, despite its highly creative narrative ideas. They work well on paper, so you can't help but think that maybe they should've stay on paper as a novel. But game's sensitive and striking dialogues manage to carry its heartbreaking story about domestic traumas along with grief. And entire gameplay is just a loop and it ties that loop so perfectly to final of the game that it's hard not to be amazed.