While some developers are trying to invent something new and add as many game mechanics, others are striving for minimalism and come up with the similarity of interactive movies. In this genre, already acted Telltale Games , creators of Until Dawn and the notorious David Cage (David Cage), and now they were joined by the authors of Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier . These projects they called the sources of inspiration, but much more "Planet of the Apes" is similar to FMV-games, where all the gameplay is to make decisions.
Events Last Frontier unfolds between the films "Planet of the Apes: Revolution" and "Planet of the Apes: War." The idea is simple: there is a group of people, there is a tribe of monkeys, they do not know about each other, but very soon they will have to face. The main characters, respectively, two: a woman named Jess, who lost her husband and was left a lonely mother, and the monkey Bryn, who goes to look for food along with the "colleagues" -primate. Characters appear in the Planet of the Apes universe for the first time and will not be familiar to moviegoers, so it does not matter if you've seen the trilogy.
The developers have tried to give enough attention to both sides of the conflict - it's worth spending a few minutes with Jess, how soon you switch to Brin, and vice versa. However, the game process, if it can be called so, is the same regardless of the hero. You sit, watch the movie, when suddenly you are asked to choose one of two options. You choose and look further until the next decision comes.
In some episodes, the gameplay changes slightly - instead of directing the stick in the right direction, the player needs to press (or do not press) X to perform some action. For example, if a character is holding a rifle in his hands and aiming at someone, pushing will result in a shot, and inaction will force the hero to do nothing. The difference between these episodes and dialogues is only that during conversations on the timer one can not pay attention at all - even if the time expires, the choice can be done indefinitely. But with the press of the X button, you have to be quicker.
And for a game that is completely built on the decisions that follow one another, Last Frontieris far from ideal. The fact is that more than half of the situations are built around the conflict between two people or two monkeys. One character wants to go to the left, the other proves that it is better to the right, and the player chooses which side to stand on. This does not cause irritation the first five times, but when this happens every three minutes, the script starts to give out a slack.
Another problem is connected with the fact that in this adventure there are practically no difficult decisions. By and large, the player needs to immediately decide on the characters' characters. Will Jess the evil aunt who wants to kill all the monkeys, or will she prefer to solve problems peacefully? Will Bryn become a good-hearted person or will he harm people at the first opportunity? Once you find the answers to these questions, over which direction to move the stick and when to press X, you do not think at all.
Dear movie ticket
In Life is Strange , in the first season of The Walking Dead , and in many other similar games, there were always situations when, over the screen for selecting replicas, I sat for several minutes. I considered, weighed, regretted the decision after pressing one of the buttons, empathized with the heroes. Here, the characters also get a little attached, but this is connected with the main storyline, and not with the actions of the player. He just moves the stick from time to time, and very soon this gameplay element begins to interfere more than immerse in the atmosphere.
And the feeling that the decisions somehow affect the plot, appears only in the second half of Last Frontier. Before that, the story is boring, and the writers have been trying to uncover too many characters for too long, and there are very few critical situations. But in the last chapters and spectacular scenes, and an excellent acting game, and a couple of moments in which it would be interesting to know what will be the outcome when choosing different replicas. But to find out it will be possible only at full passage of game from the very beginning as to add switching between heads creators did not become. And pereprohodit is unlikely to anyone want - an adventure and so it turned out to be longer than the average movie (about three hours), so watching the same for the final half, there is no desire.
Perhaps, such a claim will arise only for those playing alone, and in the company of friends, few will come to mind replaying individual episodes. Last Frontiersupports PlayLink - you can gather with friends for one TV, download to their smartphones application and vote for those or other actions during the course of viewing. This is not the worst project for this kind of entertainment, but the problems remain the same - a tight first half and an almost complete lack of interesting solutions are unlikely to help keep the screen behind all the participants.
From a technical point of view, the game also has flaws. Although this is an interactive film, the videos are not recorded in advance, but are reproduced on the engine. And in almost every scene, the textures slowly flow, then objects one after another arise when the camera moves very far. Because of this, the atmosphere is crumbling - constantly remind yourself that this is a video game. There are no downloads, but a black screen periodically appears with the title of the new chapter, which also looks strange and inappropriate. And, if the game is already clearly divided into chapters, why after the passage you can not choose them?
The authors paid most attention to the animation of the characters - after all, it was created with the participation of Imaginarium studio Andy Sorkis(Andy Serkis). Monkeys look and move tremendously - on their muzzles all spectrum of emotions is visible, primates turned out as much as possible plausible and are similar to relatives of films. But people (especially the main character) have made it too realistic - to the point that their appearance sometimes causes rejection. Because of this, a strange situation arises when you are more empathetic to monkeys only because of their more convincing facial expressions. But the people who voiced the actors tried - remembering at least someone who sounded unconvincing, it's not so simple.
Last Frontier is similar to an attempt by developers to probe the ground - to look at the reaction of the audience, to try out some technologies, to test the capabilities of various platforms (the game is available only on PS4, but will soon appear on PC with Xbox One). The script certainly would not cause discontent in the cinema, but it was not very good for the video game format. We need more complicated solutions, much more forks and lots of endings, so that there would be some sense in the existence of such a project. And while this is not and you can not manage the character, the player will remain an observer, who for some reason is constantly distracted and forced to move the stick in different directions.
Pros: great facial animation, especially in monkeys; actors perfectly voiced the heroes; exciting second half of the plot.
Cons: a boring beginning; there is no feeling that the decisions made on something strongly affect; the situation when you choose a long answer because of attachment to the heroes, are absent; fans of conventional video games have nothing to do here; graphic bugs.
