The lastest game from San Barlow, the creator of Her Story and Telling Lies, comes another FMV game where the game part is less and less important. It took me hours before I felt I understood the purpose of anything I was doing in this game. I get I’m watching clips of a story out of order but a game like Her Story at least had it make sense and gave you a goal from the start. Here it’s aimless watching of three different movies out of order, until you get the twist and then it just becomes a mindless hunt.
The idea is kind of compelling, there was once an actress that received a lot of buzz in the indie scene, she filmed three movies but not one ever got released due to controversy or tragedy. She mysteriously disappeared once for about 15 years and then soon after a final movie disappeared for good. You get footage of the making of these three movies and from that piece together what happened to Marissa Marcel.
Immortality is basically an erotic thriller, well three bad erotic thrillers in one. It’s full of nudity, sex, and purposefully bad acting. The most enjoyment I got out of this game was simply trying to piece together the plot lines of the three movies. There are so many clips that you get more than an hour of each movie and then some, I just wish these movies were better. But that’s the thing, they are supposed to be cheesy erotic thrillers because in the fictional real world of the game Marissa is working for a once great director far past his prime and later a hotshot young director who gets praised for being artistic and avant- grade, he’s just a douche.
The movies are so cheesy that they end up being entertaining. I do have to hand it to the actors because many times they are playing two roles, the role in the movie and then their character the actor when the action stops. The stand out is the actress who plays Marissa, she does most of the heavy lifting. She is beautiful, charismatic, she nails the role of an up and coming star but one that got stuck with bad roles and the mysterious thing that the overall story is about which I won’t spoil. Everyone does a good job, they nail the feel of sort of B level actors and directors hoping to do good work… which in a way is exactly what they are doing with this game. It’s a sort of directing inception where Barlow is making a game about cheesy B movies with artsy fartsy directors believing they are making works of art while being an artsy fartsy game director doing the same thing.
Basically the real story of immortality goes well beyond the three movies and these actors; you discover this by “scrubbing” the film. This means during a scene you can fast forward or rewind in different speeds. There might be an audio clue that something is in the scene so you go backwards and forwards until it’s revealed. Thats basically your entire gameplay goal, just rewinding every clip you watch.
Oh to get new clips you simply zoom into an object and you will randomly get another clip with that object. Zoom in on a face and you get a new clip with that person. Zoom in on an Apple you will get scenes with apples. Some scenes are well hidden and you need to find the one object that ties to it. Zoom in on boobs and you will get every scene with boobs…I did it for the gameplay only! I swear!
Scenes will repeat over and over as you search for new clips, by the end it gets really tedious.
So that’s the entire game, clicking on objects and rewinding and forwarding them to see if you find the hidden stuff. There are some compelling stories in there, some of the actor relationships are interesting, the overall mystery component is compelling. While I can definetly see Barlow’s budget increasing I think this game is more unfocused than Her Story. How much you enjoy it will all come from how much you enjoy the crappy movies they are making and if you care for these characters. I cared for some of them, I was hooked for a while in the middle when all the storylines were being revealed. But after I passed the point of understanding what happened and the fate of everyone it became a slog of tediousness getting enough clips to unlock the true ending. And even then it wasn’t really worth it.
Score: 4.8
The idea is kind of compelling, there was once an actress that received a lot of buzz in the indie scene, she filmed three movies but not one ever got released due to controversy or tragedy. She mysteriously disappeared once for about 15 years and then soon after a final movie disappeared for good. You get footage of the making of these three movies and from that piece together what happened to Marissa Marcel.
Immortality is basically an erotic thriller, well three bad erotic thrillers in one. It’s full of nudity, sex, and purposefully bad acting. The most enjoyment I got out of this game was simply trying to piece together the plot lines of the three movies. There are so many clips that you get more than an hour of each movie and then some, I just wish these movies were better. But that’s the thing, they are supposed to be cheesy erotic thrillers because in the fictional real world of the game Marissa is working for a once great director far past his prime and later a hotshot young director who gets praised for being artistic and avant- grade, he’s just a douche.
The movies are so cheesy that they end up being entertaining. I do have to hand it to the actors because many times they are playing two roles, the role in the movie and then their character the actor when the action stops. The stand out is the actress who plays Marissa, she does most of the heavy lifting. She is beautiful, charismatic, she nails the role of an up and coming star but one that got stuck with bad roles and the mysterious thing that the overall story is about which I won’t spoil. Everyone does a good job, they nail the feel of sort of B level actors and directors hoping to do good work… which in a way is exactly what they are doing with this game. It’s a sort of directing inception where Barlow is making a game about cheesy B movies with artsy fartsy directors believing they are making works of art while being an artsy fartsy game director doing the same thing.
Basically the real story of immortality goes well beyond the three movies and these actors; you discover this by “scrubbing” the film. This means during a scene you can fast forward or rewind in different speeds. There might be an audio clue that something is in the scene so you go backwards and forwards until it’s revealed. Thats basically your entire gameplay goal, just rewinding every clip you watch.
Oh to get new clips you simply zoom into an object and you will randomly get another clip with that object. Zoom in on a face and you get a new clip with that person. Zoom in on an Apple you will get scenes with apples. Some scenes are well hidden and you need to find the one object that ties to it. Zoom in on boobs and you will get every scene with boobs…I did it for the gameplay only! I swear!
Scenes will repeat over and over as you search for new clips, by the end it gets really tedious.
So that’s the entire game, clicking on objects and rewinding and forwarding them to see if you find the hidden stuff. There are some compelling stories in there, some of the actor relationships are interesting, the overall mystery component is compelling. While I can definetly see Barlow’s budget increasing I think this game is more unfocused than Her Story. How much you enjoy it will all come from how much you enjoy the crappy movies they are making and if you care for these characters. I cared for some of them, I was hooked for a while in the middle when all the storylines were being revealed. But after I passed the point of understanding what happened and the fate of everyone it became a slog of tediousness getting enough clips to unlock the true ending. And even then it wasn’t really worth it.
Score: 4.8
Reviewed on Mar 23, 2023