Life is Strange Review

Life is strange.

One moment, we are in the age of innocence, caught up in high school drama. The next, we are on our own, bearing witness to the harsh realities of life. Death is an ever more frequent occurrence. Most of us would give anything to just go back to a simpler time. Would we make the same choices or risk changing everything? What tragedies could have been prevented, what friendships saved. Not every choice is black and white, however. Many of them are morally debatable.

Life is Strange is filled with such choices. Choices that will test your sense of judgement. It seems easy enough in Episode 1 when everything is just high school drama, but just wait until the later episodes. Life is Strange will grab you by the "lady balls" and not let go. In the end, you will be faced with one of the toughest choices in video game history. Neither choice results in a perfect outcome. One look at the community page reveals a very divided fan base. Everyone is quick to defend their choices.

As I was saying before, not every choice is black and white. If life's choices were so easily spelled out, we might never learn anything. Everything is, ultimately, open to perspective. Speaking for myself, I always learned more from personal experience than I did from instruction.


Max riding the bus, more than likely pondering her next decision.

Nintendo Rhapsody (World 4: Trial Separation)

Nintendo Rhapsody is an ongoing story about how Nintendo, and video games in general, helped me through some of the harder times in my life. Each chapter, known as a 'world' in Nintendo Rhapsody, is rather self contained with introductions and conclusions.



World 4-1: He's Got an Attitude

Nintendo's undisputed reign over the Haley household was, for the time being, at an end. Just as Mario hung his hat for a well deserved rest, an edgy new platforming star was beginning his own adventure. Sonic, a mysterious blue hedgehog without a speed limit, was set to conquer far more than my television screen. In no time at all, I owned everything from Sonic the Hedgehog sleeping bags to plush toys to comic books. I would eagerly visit the nearby Ralphs supermarket each month to score a new issue. It was almost as exciting as the animated series. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog aired Monday through Friday at seven in the morning. Once I began attending Hillview Middle School, I had no choice but to record them onto VHS tape and watch them after school. Hillview was a whole new experience. There were an unnerving number of fellow students. Having been enrolled in non-public schools for many years prior, I was not prepared for the often twenty something students per classroom - or the fact I now had six classes a day. It was quite a bit to process. In retrospect, I always found smaller classes more focused and therefore rewarding experiences. One of those classes was, thankfully, a more intimate environment and it was there in which I began to take computers seriously. Previously, I saw them as rather dull educational instruments. I was assigned a floppy diskette and a desk terminal. My assignment was simple: Build and maintain a town in Maxis' SimCity. A town which continued to function whether I was present or not. It was like Quintet's ActRaiser, but without the action platforming stages. Computers were rad and all, but I really just wanted to get home and play the Sega Genesis.