Ark of the Lost Angels

So, I’ve been playing Life is Strange, and I have to say that I’ve been adoring the game. I know the game predates it, but the idea of playing with time has been stuck with me since “Effect and Cause” in Titanfall 2, and so having a game built around similar time traveling mechanics but a puzzle was intriguing, as was the mystery aspect.

But man, did it take me on a journey. I’m only through the first three episodes, but right away, I understood that my choices had impacts on the story. This is not new to me, I’m a veteran of Mass Effect, and so choices with galaxy-spanning, permadeath resulting, reporter-sucker-punching results are nothing new to me. Once I got that, I decided to take a step back and commit, let my choices play out how they may. In terms of Mass Effect morality, I’m playing a mostly Paragon run through with a few Renegade options here and there when they feel appropriate. As Alisha Karabinus said in her article for NYMG, “there’s no winning. There’s no losing. Everything simply is, based on the stories we’ve each built. ” (The article is titled “Life Is… Tough: Hard Choices, Metanarratives, and a Spoiler-Lite Postmortem Look at Life Is Strange”) and that’s typically how I played Mass Effect, which has let me turn off and enjoy the ride I’m creating. And what an interesting ride it has been.

The spoilers are going to start here, so if you come across this and haven’t played the game yet but would like to, bookmark this, go play it, and come back and read. I’ll only talk about the first three episodes. 

I tried to make choices that would be sensical. I’m a logical problem solver, so with Kate’s issue against Nathan, I thought it would be prudent to tell her to wait and gather more evidence, especially as I had been burned telling the principal about Nathan having a gun in the women’s room in the beginning of the game when the authority figures came back at me. It was a decision I weighed heavily, but thought it’d be the best case scenario in taking Nathan down for good. I thought that by telling the principal earlier and getting burned, by getting proof, I would be able to win him over in the end and take Kate’s side as I told him Nathan was a bad actor, and the end result would be better for Kate.

And, I was wrong. Much like reality, I’m forced to live with my decision, and it sucks knowing that Kate didn’t trust me enough to not commit suicide, and it’s the sense of guilt, albeit fictional, that I have to live with. It’s the same sense of guilt that we all have to live with in our real lives, when we make a call we thought was the right one and it turns out we were horribly mistaken.

I think that’s why Life is Strange is such an excellent view of life in general. It’s not about the right or wrong decision, it’s about staying true to the decision made and learning to live with the consequences.