Yeah, I've seen it said that billing it to look like a completely generic shooter was pretty much the best possible choice they could have made in terms of making their point to the people they want to make the point to. :::PPP
I like that commentary under the spoiler, @Meagen Image . For me, this game is both a commentary on the contradictory nature of these sorts of games (no, Call of Duty, it's not happy fun times where you can smoke a cigar at the end!) and a commentary on what would you choose and what do you do when you cannot make those choices, or when you're deluded into thinking you only have one choice, do you stop playing the game, or do you continue to see if everything you've done pays off? Spoiler In the end (I think all endings), Konrad says "even after all you've done, you get to go home", and that is part of what really drives this games message in for me. Even after all the crimes you've committed, you get to go home, when everyone else didn't have that chance. You at least have that choice. That's another thing I love about this game - it fooled you on whether or not your (Walker's) perception of events was real, and this moment really drove it home Spoiler That it wasn't, but you had no idea to tell reality from the delusion, because neither did he. But yes that fucked me up to, holy shit
(I'm really loving talking about this game again so I'll probably make a large rambly post about my thoughts on it later, btw)
Spoiler: Ending stuff Konrad's speech as he's counting down gets me every time, too. "I didn't mean for this to happen." "No one ever does, Walker."
i love this game for how much of a deeply unenjoyable experience it is. it is a game that is specifically designed to be very unpleasant to play through, and it does this job almost perfectly. my one gripe is also friedrich's biggest regret in releasing the game: the fact that there are achievements for your actions it's not supposed to be a rewarding experience, so the inclusion of out of game rewards sort of detracts from it
To be honest getting achievements just sorta horrified me more - and not in a bad against-the-game way, but in the same way the game was horrifying me (can you tell im a kid who was raised on battlefield and cod). Like, the choices and the way the characters reacted to them horrified me, and the fact steam popped up and get "achievement" horrified me more because why the fuck was the game still encouraging my completionist ass to keep playing - but I think that's what kept a lot of players who would have put it down playing. They were getting awarded, that means there had to be some sort of grand reward at the end, right? They had to keep playing because they were getting rewarded along the way, they had to see how it turned out.
