Vidjama Gmaes Work

Two exposures for the price of fun. (Spoilers for Life is Strange 1)

Life is Strange is a series that has had its ups and downs. The original is a classic that everyone loves even if you don’t like the “40 year old dudes who think they know how teenage girls talk” dialogue in some parts. Life is Strange 2 was a pretty good sequel that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot nowadays. True Colors was, in my opinion, much better than 2. After LiS 2, Don’t Nod went off to create more adventure games in other new IPs like Tell Me Why, Twin Mirror, Jusant, and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. I have only played Tell Me Why and I loved it.

You should check out Tell Me Why, even if you wait until the annual “get it free” for pride month.

Double Exposure takes place ten years after the events in Arcadia Bay and yes, the game does let you choose what ending you picked in the first game. It only amounts to some small changes in the text messages, as regardless of whether you saved or sacrificed Chloe in the first game she doesn’t actually make an appearance in-person here. Max (Hannah Telle) is now faculty at Caledon University and hasn’t used her time-rewinding powers in the years between games.

Max has a new life with her friends/colleagues Safi (Olivia AbiAssi) and Moses (Stephen “Blu” Allen), and may be getting the confidence to hit on the cute bartender Amanda (Samantha Bowling). But everything goes sideways on a fateful night when Safi is suddenly killed by a mysterious gunman. The trauma and grief is just what Max needs to unlock a new power as she finds herself able to travel between two parallel timelines, one where Safi is still alive.

Can Max use her timeline jumping to solve Safi’s murder? And can she figure out if the Safi in the living world is also at threat and, if so, keep her alive? Only time will tell.

As a story-driven game, Double Exposure relies wholly on its cast of characters to make the game good. Otherwise there’s not much to do if you don’t like the people. And Double Exposure has a great cast. I loved Yasmin (Bahr Dawoud), Safi’s mom. She gets quite a workout on her vocal range throughout the story and she will break your heart.

There’s a whole subplot with the Abraxas Society and its leader Vinh Lang (Sam Oguma) trying to desperately keep hold as confident up-comer Diamond Washington (Ilaseia Gray) threatens his leadership with ideas of her own on how to improve the secret college society. Reggie (Jake Cuddemi) is a goofy goober who I immediately suspected would end up with Vinh by the end of the game.

Teacher Gwen Hunter (Rachel Crowl) is passionate if very hard headed and opinionated. Loretta (Ashlynn Hideman) is a student journalist whose job is to routinely swing between ally and enemy. Lucas (Marco Alberto Robinson) is a teacher and clearly an egotistical asshole who reminds Max a little too much of a person she knows from her past. Vince (Brian Landis Folkins) is a cop with questionable people skills who finds himself caught in a very hard to explain murder scenario with really sketchy people.

The combination of strong voice actors and really good looking faces keep you involved in everyone’s day to day lives and drama. And I’m not talking about the character attractiveness, but the really good facial expressions. If Life is Strange had bad animation the conversations would probably not be as fun to sit through as they are. The developers had to build the entire game twice, so the player could investigate and swap between the living world and dead world as the game calls it, to finish puzzles and deal with characters/obstacles.

One downside I will comment on is that Double Exposure doesn’t have the same impact that the original game did. As with the original there are two endings that are 100% decided by a single choice made in the last act. But along the way you do make decisions that don’t have the same lasting effect as LiS1. Kate’s suicide for instance doesn’t change the direction of the story, but it does feel important to the player then and there and it’s something you either feel great for having pulled off or terrible for having failed.

But I do think Double Exposure is a worthy sequel to the original. Hopefully Deck Nine can clean up its toxic workplace and get back on track making great narrative games like this.