Not for Broadcast Review (hani)
I love this game. It's no accident I've played almost 100 hours. It's a full-motion video game. It's the best dystopian game since Papers, Please and a must-play for fans of the genre. The story is quite original, the actors are great, the humor is just hilarious, and the soundtrack is memorable. The game is clearly a labor of love, lots of attention to details that make the experience just top. And there is so much to see, too. Depending on the headlines you pick, or what you say to your family, or whether you prompt the audience to boo someone they're supposed to clap... a lot of choices have consequences and change how the story unfolds, the ending, and the outcomes of side characters. Some characters have more than 15 possible outcomes (!) and the game itself has quite a few different endings. And all are excellently written and worth watching. In my 100 hours in, I still am discovering new scenarios and I'm not done seeing all endings yet. It makes you wonder how many alternate scenarios they have recorded in total, it's quite impressive.
Now, the game is not perfect. It is an outstanding interactive experience. But it's not great as a game. It is very fun and interesting to see the story develop as you pick what is shown to the public, but there are aspects to manage that are not so fun. Like when it's too hot and you have to manage a fan that keeps turning off... It's a distraction and not fun. But thankfully, the devs have added options to turn off the gameplay mechanics. It became much more enjoyable to play.
This is the kind of game that needs to be played more than once in order to be thoroughly understood. The problem is that there is no way to skip excerpts already watched, which makes the game quite grindy to replay. Lots of grind for little reward. On top of it, the game is somewhat buggy, crashes are not uncommon, leaving you to replay sometimes up to 15 minutes of already watched footage.
Still one of the best games I've played, thoroughly recommended. The writing is amazing and makes up for it. Thoroughly recommended.