Well.. This game has caused quite a lot of controversy since its “official” re-release. Is it a game? Is it even a story? Is it a pretentious money grabbing mod? You could argue in favour of most of those but you would find equal opposition on every forum that exists. I took the following approach.
It’s a kinda new experience. I want to see what it is like. I am going to be open minded. Let’s see how it goes.
And to be honest. I had a lot of fun. Yes it is slow and atmospheric. No there is no interaction in the game aside from moving through the world and observing. When I first played it, like many others I have spoken to, I couldn’t shake the feeling of “I am missing something”. It was an action button. No jump, shoot, talk, interact. Nothing. So I ended up starting the game with an unsure attitude and felt like I wasn’t quite there. This soon subsided as I began to listen to the story and piece together my version of what was happening. I played the game through in 2 sessions of about an hour and a half each. You can’t die in it, but when you do something like falling from a cliff or drowning, a voice says “come back” and you return to a sensible place near bye.
Now I don’t want to call them levels and I am not sure they are chapters so I will have to phrase this carefully. The way the world is constructed is quite interesting as it is a very linear game, but with little exploration loops as you move through the island. For example, a path will split into two, if you take the left path it will loop back onto the right path. If you take the right, you miss the left part altogether. Also there are frequent places where you head into a dead end, turn around and then see a hidden path leading away.
I enjoyed the experience, thought it had a ton of atmosphere and I enjoyed the ending. I recommend buying it, taking 3 hours aside and putting on headphones in a dark room and playing it. It left a lasting impression with me and I am glad I played through it.
One thing it did allow me to do though as a happy side effect was let my mum experience what it is like to play and experience a modern videogame. My mum is keen on learning what I do for a living and just finding out new things in general so often I show her new games and what they are like. All too often however it goes like this.
“walk over there.. no wait.. oh.. ok that guy shot you.. ok stay down.. that’s the B button.. the red one… no wait, let me show you…” etc.
With Dear Esther I let my mum play it for about an hour and she really enjoyed it. She was able to explore and move around with no threat and just let the story happen.
Is it a game? No not really. It feels like an art demo with a story in it. It’s like walking through an audio book.
Is it interesting and worth playing?. Hells yes.
No score – it’s just good. :)
