Loretta
Loretta is a psychological thriller that would make the player an accessory to the heroine’s crimes and would lead her through a self-crafted nightmare. This story is about a woman, dealing with betrayal, her husband’s infidelity, relationships problems and difficult social situation of the 1940s.
Conceptually and aesthetically, the game is inspired by the American art of the twentieth century, the works of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, film noir of the 40s-50s, thrillers by Alfred Hitchcock, the Philip Ridley movie “The Reflecting Skin”, the books “1922” by Stephen King and “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov.
Story
The year is 1947. Lora and Walter Harris move to a farm, which used to belong to his parents. Walter is a writer and Lora is a housewife. Both are quite unsuccessful.
The family is going through financial difficulties. The situation is also complicated by the fact that Walter owes money to people from New York. And although the husband keeps it a secret from his wife, Lora has a suspicion. Moreover, she suspects him of cheating.
Lora understands that she gave up her job, her dreams and other opportunities for her failure of a husband she doesn’t even love. Now she is stuck in a cold empty house barely making ends meet.
As she struggles to make loan payments, she finds out that Walter’s publishing house has insured his life. In the event of his death, the insurance sum would be 30.000$. A plan is born in Lora’s mind.
Loretta is a story-driven adventure game in which gameplay focuses on choosing phrases in dialogue, interacting with objects, and making decisions: planning the murder and getting rid of the evidence. Killing a husband, trying to cover a crime, Loretta makes a player an accomplice.
Features:
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The plot can either turn into a web of dodgy lies, or into a crescendo of bloody murders.
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Player is free to decide the fate of the character.
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Freedom of choice.
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Many endings.
Read More: Best America Drama Games.
Adventures in Morality: An Interactive Case Study
First to the creator(s) of the ICS, you should be aware that there appears to be a bug with the cassette recordings. Every time you find one and play it, it also plays all the ones that you have found and played before, simultaneously, making understanding anything pass the third one nearly impossible. Onto the review.
This is an interesting experience. The idea being that an AI is the one conducting the Case Study on you is both intriguing and perhaps a bit alarming and I mean both of those ideas in as to whether you accept that at face value or if you accept that as part of a fictional narrative. I was actually most interested in finding and reading the log notes about the “childhood” and growth of said AI, and I got a good snicker at the mention of bonono monkies (i dont have to google, i actually saw a N.G show on them so totally got it ;) As for the Subject of the case study, this idea of sympathy types, while the particular labels used to describe said types might be newish, the idea behind it is not. I was reading about where people fall into self, tribe, and human kind in self help and spiritual enlightenment books back in the 80’s and 90’s. And those authors were NOT representing the knowledge as something new; but, rather as something very old and mostly forgotten or purposely suppressed (Those in power naturally tend to keep those below them divided and weakened through the use of Us vs them, whether thats Individualism vs Communism or Tribalism in one form or another.) The one thing none of those authors ever did was threaten to use the knowledge being shared to bring about an apocalypse and try to divide up the world based on results of some case study. Really not sure what to make of that.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best America Visual Novel Games.
Opening video has a couple good lines.
The rest is random questions that don’t make any sense as a test of morality. Not to mention that just by walking around you get 80+ ‘Humanity’ rating.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Silas Greaves is here to kick ass and chew tobacco leaves. And he’s all out of leaves.
**Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a gold standard for arcade, wild west, stylized first-person shooter games.
… well it is frankly a very specific recommendation. Let’s shorten it up and say that it’s simply just a great game.**
One of the better video game ‘feel good’ vidya stories from recent years. After an abysmally abhorrent experiment that was ‘Call of Juarez: The Cartel’ Techland took a deep breath and returned to form with one exceptionally charismatic, familiar yet unconventional first-person shooter that is not only anything like its predecessors but stands out among competitors in the genre to this day.
– Real player with 32.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best America Western Games.
IN A WORD: COMPELLING
IN SHORT:
OF A SIMILAR NATURE TO: n/a
WHAT TO EXPECT: Western themed FPS. AAA comicbook style graphics. Great story. Amazing voice-overs. Three game modes. Singleplayer only. Slow-mo mechanic. Skill-trees.
ACHIEVEMENTS: DIFFICULT. But rewarding.
STATUS: COMPLETE.
WHEN TO BUY: A DECENT SALE.
More info below….
THE LOWDOWN:
Call of Juarez Gunslinger is a western themed FPS with a story-driven campaign and, arcade and dueling modes. You take on the role of Silas Greaves a cowboy turned bounty hunter who must take on an assortment of robbers, thieves and legendery outlaws in order to track down and kill the gang responsible for murdering your brothers.
– Real player with 31.9 hrs in game
In Flames
In Flames is a 2D adventure with lots of puzzles and an immersive storyline. It is set in the 80s rural America with all the features you’d expect – a spooky town, characters with well-developed back stories, and a great mystery to solve. Finn Clayton finds himself chained to a tree in the middle of a crisis, and is about to find out what is going on.