izigame.me

More cinematic than their other fare, but fewer variances except for the endings.
Wow, this team has upped its game. I've played most of the games from Wales Interactive, and I can say that this one is up there in terms of the production value and ambition. There are huge set pieces, wide panning shots, many intricate costumes, and a complex, winding story line. I was amazed the entire time at how truly huge their sets either were or appeared to be, from a wide shot of tents near the ocean at the beginning to large offices, a huge lab, and a gigantic vacuumed security tunnel. Even the acting was cinematic in nature, making for a movie-like experience in a choice-based game.
I can't say enough about the sets and the costumes. Whoever designed those went all out. I've never seen anything like it in an FMV game. Heck, it likely outperforms many TV shows and some low-budget movies. There are multiple hazmat suits and lab uniforms used. Other than a small glow for the actors standing in front of the comm screen in the lab, I didn't see where the CGI began and the real environments ended (and there had to be some CGI because at least one of those sets was impossibly large). Even the unsung effects like the laser beam, the smoke, the virtual keyboard, and the video screens were very nice. Well done overall in that regard--everything felt very, very real (hard to do in high-def).
The acting was fine. I know people are often critical because they can't afford Meryl Streep, but I always think they do a good job. There are some actors from other games, like the bartender from Mia and the Dragon Princess, who make appearances. As usual, they get an attractive female lead who really drives the show forward with screen presence as well as a male comedy relief who can turn to drama on a dime. They gave the male lead a lot of depth, from having panic attacks from the stress of his field to having a fondness for TV and movie references (he referenced The Office, Jurassic Park, and Speed that I noticed). The initial antagonist has a lot of depth as well, as you learn about her backstory and motivation throughout. The other antagonists don't get a ton of development, but it's because they're not in most of the scenes and so they can't do much with them.
As for the plot, I really enjoyed it. Effectively, there's a lot of drama involving nanotechnology's double-edged sword of being either life-saving or life-ending. Of course, there's the typical inclusion of monetary vs. societal motivation, though I love how most characters had mixed motivations so there weren't too many mustache-twirling evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil characters. They really did a fantastic job with the multiple endings--it wasn't like many of these where you either win or lose. Instead, there are many things happening, from various people living or dying to various consequences from how the nanotech is handled via your actions. In fact, the "best" ending from my perspective was one of the seemingly "bad" endings...what a bold choice on the part of the creators. No obvious perfect-mediocre-bad/evil endings here.
The thing I think is most noteworthy about the gameplay is how they tweaked their typical formula. Unlike the I Saw Black Clouds approach where they had hundreds of decisions with hundreds of variations of scenes, they had fewer than 200 in this one. I think this improved a lot, from having almost no unskippable scenes that were near-identical to previously viewed ones upon replay to having scenes connect more seamlessly without cop-out moments where people just mysteriously leave to keep continuity. However, it did make many of the choices have minimal impact on the story, which is the trade-off of that decision. I think just a few additional weightier options throughout would've been fantastic, but otherwise I felt that it was an improvement over the more options with lesser quality of others. The weighty decisions are all at the end, which means that to get all 9 endings, I basically just tabbed through the whole game until the last 5 or so decisions to complete the achievements--again, positive because it's a time-saver, but it does mean that more decisions don't affect much than other games by Wales.
Overall, I enjoyed playing it and probably put it in my top 5 of the games by these folks. I'm impressed with what they did here scene-wise. Amazing. The variety of endings were also strong, with very, very different things happening to all of the characters based on your choices. I enjoy the kind of actors they get for these and thing the story was beefier than similar games. If you like the other games of this type, I think this is one of the better ones. And, as per usual, I have to applaud them for just delivering a story that engages you and makes you think without filling it with sex/drugs/sociopolitical commentary that most TV shows and movies seem to do these days. The risk/reward of bioengineering that they explore here is much more interesting and, while not analyzed heavily per se, they show instead of tell by having the various endings play out for you to consider. Very well done.