Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

[I Saw Dasein]

I won't get any support for this opinion over here, but I feel it needs to be said:

 

It really bothered me that Danielle Riendeau reviewed this for Polygon and gave it a perfect score just a few days after guest-starring on Idle Thumbs and admitting that she's good friends with people that worked on this game. It doesn't affect my excitement for Gone Home, of course, but... man, I really wish they'd found someone else to review it.

Why would that bother you? There's a ton of video game review sites, so if you think she's biased just read a different review.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Countdown to tears - finished:

It feels embarrassing to say, but I could cry—did cry—with the relief of knowing a game like this even exists.

[Chris]

I won't get any support for this opinion over here, but I feel it needs to be said:

 

It really bothered me that Danielle Riendeau reviewed this for Polygon and gave it a perfect score just a few days after guest-starring on Idle Thumbs and admitting that she's good friends with people that worked on this game. It doesn't affect my excitement for Gone Home, of course, but... man, I really wish they'd found someone else to review it.

I'm good friends with her, but I don't think she really knows Steve or the rest of the Fullbright people. (I'm not a thousand percent sure of that but I was never aware of her hanging out with Steve in Boston, and she's never lived in the same place with any of the Fullbright people at any other point as far as I'm aware.) I'm good friends with her but my contribution wasn't even mentioned in her review and I doubt it was much of a factor.

I think her personal life experience makes her a really excellent choice to review this game and it would be a bummer if a pretty tangential personal connection invalidated that. Of course others may disagree.

[tberton]

Bought it, but I just realized that I bought it on Steam rather than their site which I had meant to do. Sorry Steve!

[feelthedarkness]

There is probably some nebulous value in buying it on Steam as well, to raise it's "top seller" status and maybe get it some visibility. Unless all those visible places are paid promos. 

[Nijhazer]

Thanks for the follow-up, Chris. Admittedly, it wouldn't have been such a big deal if not for the perfect score- in which case there's not much that can be done, short of asking Fullbright to add a bunch of ghost jokes so the score will be lower. Unfortunate, but a good problem to have, really.

[melmer]

We had a good run

Eurogamer 6/10

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-15-gone-home-review

[TychoCelchuuu]

[MrHoatzin]

I hope Steve will give himself a bonus if he gets a high enough metacritic score.

[TychoCelchuuu]

We had a good run

Eurogamer 6/10

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-15-gone-home-review

Yikes! That's the same score he gave Antichamber, so I guess Gone Home is in good company at least.

[brkl]

I had to buy it. Not prudent, but necessary to continue as a human being.

 

EDIT: Paid for it, anyway. I suppose Humble will realize that I did eventually.

[ItsMeYourFriend]

how is the combat 

[Dosed]

I plan on buying this when I get back at some point. I just know it's something I'll enjoy, and I'm gonna go into a media black by destroying the internet to protect myself. See ya. 

[elmuerte]

Damn, I accidentally bought it via Steam instead of via the humble store.

[Dewar]

Wow, GB doesn't give too many five star scores. I'm looking forward to diving into this in a few weeks.

[MrDowntempo]

Well I just bought and played through it and have to say.. I'm pretty dissapointed with it. There certainly is a lot to like here. The way the game tells a story through exploration and 'audiologs' is not entirely new, but executed better than most games manage. There are certainly some creepy moments and the way the game set's it's atmosphere is done very well. But by the end of the game I felt gypped. Firstly $20 or $18 with the 10% discount is a lot for the amount of gameplay you'll get out of this game. It's definitely a one play through affair. Other than that I can't explain why I was so bummed by this purchase without spoiling it so...

 

The story this game ends up telling is quite different from the one I expected. I've got no problem with the story itself, just that it wasn't the kind of story I thought I was buying. I feel like I bought a ticket to a horror movie but ended up watching a drama after all. I didn't -want- a drama though, I wanted something frightening. While there are some creepy moments I didn't get my fill. It is impressive how things like the 2nd message on the answering machine and the red stains in the tub seem to setup a horror plot when by the end they're perfectly explained. But the 'twist' if you can call it that was not that hard to figure out. When I got to the end I wasn't surprised by what happened (there were plenty of clues), but I was bummed it was -all- that happened and that it was over so shortly. 

 

All in all it was a good story and told very well, but wasn't what I thought I was I was getting. There's certainly room for these more poignant stories but I didn't get the frights I thought I was buying. I knew there wouldn't be shock scares from the reviews, but I was hoping for some more under the skin terror through the story.

[osmosisch]

Man, the good ol' Looking Glass code makes an appearance. Lovin' it.

[juv3nal]

The story this game ends up telling is quite different from the one I expected. I've got no problem with the story itself, just that it wasn't the kind of story I thought I was buying. I feel like I bought a ticket to a horror movie but ended up watching a drama after all. I didn't -want- a drama though, I wanted something frightening.

 

Oh man, if that was at all the result of ghost trolling, I am so, so sorry.

[MrDowntempo]

Oh man, if that was at all the result of ghost trolling, I am so, so sorry.

Haha, no, I wasn't the victim of any trolling. I saw a quicklook and all the screenshots make it looks like more like one genre than another. It is a good game and enjoyable, but just not what I was hoping I was getting.

[pabosher]

 the red stains in the tub

In fairness, there is the explanation for that directly next to it. I do largely sympathise with your thoughts, but I didn't feel the same way (most likely because I'd already played the introductory act before).

[Denial]

 

Firstly $20 or $18 with the 10% discount is a lot for the amount of gameplay you'll get out of this game. It's definitely a one play through affair.

I think reviews _ought_ to mention the play time and the possibilities for replayability - those are important things to keep in mind when deciding on whether or not to make a purchase, especially in the knowledge that the game will at some point be available for $5 in a Steam sale, almost inevitably. I think that as a game it is so unlike the traditional run of first-person games that these are things worth noting, as likely to be contrary to expectations - but I think these are arguably strengths rather than weaknesses. Building in replayability and length are marketing necessities for many games seeking to justify their price tag, and can impose damaging constraints on the artistic freedoms of the creators.

 

Non-expert press review here:

 

Warren Ellis observed some years ago that one of the strange things about comic books as a medium was that it treated “mainstream” as being a synonym for “superhero” – that is, that the comic books about spies, soldiers or regular people were regularly relegated to the status of “indie”. This, he argued, was like  the publishing industry deciding that books about nurses were mainstream, and that every other kind of fiction should be reassigned to the genre shelves.

 

Gone Home  is a mainstream game.  Which is not to say that it is a game about marines, or space marines, fighting in the Middle East, or Space Middle East. It has the kind of setting and the kind of emotional dynamics we encounter in TV and film often, and in games almost never.

[osmosisch]

What a lovely experience. It's like a

uplifting

version of Dear Esther.

[SecretAsianMan]

I was checking out the IGN review to see if they were blown away (they were, but didn't use the words) and I was amused to see this

 

 

I haven't played either one yet, but Catherine?  (Also shown: To the Moon and Thomas was Alone)

[Codicier]

I'm just under 2 hours in and I'm really having a very mixed reaction so far.  Think I'm just going to call it a night and give it another go tomorrow.

I'm worried my expectations are killing this for me. I have liked a lot of what Steve has done and has had to say in the past about games, and perhaps this has led to me subconsciously expecting some sort of Citizen Kane of games.

Will talk more when I'm done, hopefully the parts of this I love will make me forget the parts I'm finding frustrating.

[miffy495]

I was checking out the IGN review to see if they were blown away (they were, but didn't use the words) and I was amused to see this

 

 

I haven't played either one yet, but Catherine?  (Also shown: To the Moon and Thomas was Alone)

 

Actually, from what I've heard from various outlets, Catherine reputedly has a very moving story about emerging into adulthood from a lifestyle-prolonged adolescence and a character's reluctance to enter the "real world" when their time to do so has arrived. This is, of course, under all the sexy anime ladies. Patrick Klepek's enthusiasm for the game was enough to motivate me to buy it when it was super cheap on PSN+ at the end of last year. Still haven't played it, but it's on my radar.

 

Anyway: Gone Home. How's the multiplayer?