When people think of the next generation of "narrative" video games, they probably imagine games that, to some extent, resemble Everybody's Gone To The Rapture. Its abandoned country village is coated in sweeping orchestral music, rich foliage, pristine cottages, and explosive sunsets, and it's peppered with the voices of seasoned actors working with a quality-if-confusing script. (And, hey, what good's an indie video game without some confusing dialogue?)
Those disparate parts all sound like the stuff of game publishers' dreams—an artful, high-minded project to fit neatly into a larger portfolio so that come awards season, someone could claim dibs on having produced the next Braid or Gone Home. That description also sounds, quite frankly, like a Sam Machkovech game. After all, I'm Ars' resident story-game advocate, eager to champion stuff like The Stanley Parable and Sunset.
But try as I might, I didn't love EGTTR. Heck, I struggled to like it. It's as if its creators at The Chinese Room noticed every great innovation and stride in the narrative-gaming genre over the past few years—not the plot points or the gimmicks, mind you, but the incredible challenge of balancing story and interactivity—and ignored them in favor of pride and arrogance. As such, every incredible part of the resulting game suffers.
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