LogFAQs > #932318977

#90





Years of release: 2016 (PC/XB1/PS4), 2018 (Switch)
Beaten?: Yes

Would you believe me if I said that I've always kind of dreamed of being a fire lookout? I've always just sort of wanted to get the fuck out of the city and go into the middle of nowhere for a while. I think I have the sort of quiet, melancholic personality that someone would need to be a fire lookout - I'd be able to sit there for a while, alone with my thoughts, looking for fires. I could go outside and do some birdwatching. I fucking love birdwatching. I also love the internet, and I don't think they have the internet out there, so I think I'd make a shitty fire lookout because I wouldn't be able to deal with that. Plus I'm probably not rugged enough to live in the wilderness for months.

I just really love the outdoors. We go on vacation in central Oregon every summer and god I just love it out there - the sun, the mountains, the rivers, the towering pines, the high deserts. This game takes place in Wyoming but it still really reminds me of the long nature walks I take out there - it really feels like home to me. This game is absolutely gorgeous, and any game that can really properly capture the sheer joy of being outdoors, in the wilderness, on a hot summer day, is a game that I want to exist in basically forever, especially when it's freezing cold and dark outside and seasonal depression is kicking me right in the ass.

I also love walking simulators so this is a game that speaks directly to me.

This game is a story about a fire lookout named Henry, his companion on the radio Delilah, and a bunch of weird shit that happens to them one summer that doesn't properly resolve in the game's third act. Ah, fuck. Real shame about that because the first 75% is awfully good and has so much going for it! All of the dialog between Henry and Delilah is well acted and really charming, carrying the whole game by itself - I wanted to keep playing just to get to the next part where the two of them would chat. You get a lot of different dialog options here, and the branches are pretty impressive, or at least I think they are, I only played the game once. You can get deep into Henry's issues with his wife back home, if you want to, or you can just... completely not bring up that huge plot point ever, if you want to, and whichever choice you make, it comes back up in conversations later when you don't expect it. It's really well done. All the while, I wouldn't say this game has like, puzzles per se, but there's something really relaxing about hiking through the forests, looking for your next objective, periodically checking your old-fashioned map to see where you're going. Again, this game is gorgeous, and just taking in the scenery alone is worth the price of admission.

So yeah sort of a damn shame that the whole game falls apart at the end because it introduces a bunch of really cool intrigue that it just doesn't follow up on and leaves like half the plot threads hanging in a kind of downer ending. Whoops oh well. Maybe I just didn't 'get' the ending but it seemed like kind of a letdown. Still, I kind of want to replay this game again soon anyway, just so I can return to Shoshone National Forest.