Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Life is Strange: Episode 2 – Out of Time is a third-person episodic adventure game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. The episodic action of the game continues with the second episode developed by Dontnod Entertainment who are known for creating games with powerful and independent female characters that grow and become stronger through the duration of the game.

The story of Episode 2 begins with a recap of the events that unfolded in the first episode, with the continuation of the story revolving around the lead character, Max, who following the events of the first episode, is now attempting to make her best friend Chloe understand and believe her time manipulation powers are real and not just a figment of her imagination.

Max discovers that she can manipulate time by rewinding it in order to use the knowledge she has gained to her advantage in overcoming a situation by gaining answers to an important question or doing the opposite of the actions previously attempted as to try changing the outcome of a bad scenario.

Rewinding time can also help players to guide their actions in regards to the choices made and the consequences of those decisions. Whilst it generally helps with puzzles such as not realising there are multiple elements to finding an object involving another item or conversation, therefore rewinding time far enough to affect the future result of a puzzle that must be solved in order to communicate with the person, retrieve an object or find tools that are needed to progress. A perfect scenario of this is when Max is attempting to convince Chloe that her time manipulation powers are real, therefore having to provide a detailed description of everything within Chloe’s pockets and describing 4 events which occur within 30 seconds or so when discussing her powers in the café. This is an excellent design choice as it means that the standout mechanic of the game is not just a gimmick as it is actually used effectively. It is quite easy to see that a genuine thought process has been invested in taking the time to implement scenarios that would fit well to the time manipulation mechanic.

The Choices feature is quite reminiscent of the My Choices feature found in The Walking Dead episodic games by providing an entire listing of choices including the statistical analysis regarding the percentage of players who have made the same choice and the percentage of those who have made a different decision for each moral decision with the feature being directly available from the main menu.

There is a form of collectibles that are scattered throughout the episode in which Max can take a photo of a specific event such as a squirrel rather amusingly looking at a beer can pondering quite what it is or a statue with a total of ten optional photos that the player must be wary of encountering at any given moment within particular areas in order to find them. The optional photos are a positive design choice as it encourages a greater amount of exploration, but it is made even better by how players can return to any area of the episode in search of the optional photo that may have been missed without it interfering with previously chosen decisions by playing in collectibles mode.

The characters continue to be very unique in their personalities in regards to how they bully other people and having certain behaviour patterns such as being shy, sarcastic, aggressive, knowledgeable, talkative or friendly, while the male and female characters have their own diverse fashion styles that really set them apart in how they look as strong characters emerge throughout the story.

The environment design is excellent as players explore Max’s hometown of Arcadia Bay in Oregon such as Blackwell Academy as well as the surrounding grounds, dorm rooms, a bus journey that takes Max past a lot of local landmarks, a diner, Chloe’s local hangout spot in a neglected junkyard, train tracks and much more besides with every area looking distinctly different which is a positive due to the variety of scenery that is provided across the environments.

The performance during remote play is just as excellent as the first episode with the graphics, audio and general performance are all at the same level of quality as the PS4 version, while the control scheme has been appropriately optimised resulting in a comfortable control scheme during remote play as moving faster has moved from R2 to the top right of the touch screen, although it would have perhaps been better suited to the R button instead, while tapping the touch pad to open Max’s journal has been mapped to the touch screen and R3 has been mapped to the rear touch pad to re-centre the camera.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with the control scheme consisting of pressing triangle, O, X or square to perform contextual actions; holding L2 to rewind time while holding R2 to rewind time faster; holding R2 to move faster; pressing R3 to re-centre the positioning of the camera; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move Max; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to move the camera; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. The touch pad implementation displays Max’s journal by tapping the touch pad, while the light bar implementation remains a light shade of orange throughout gameplay and menus, alongside vibration that is scattered throughout the game for heavy objects falling or loud noises.

The graphics have quite a stylistic approach to rewinding time comprising of such special visual effects as overlapping screen space particles, double exposure and post-processes to create a very unique look that captures the imagination as to exactly what the eyes would see during time travel and time manipulation, while the particle effects during the storms are amazing as are the rain droplets which fall in slow motion to provide an extra layer to the mood of a dramatic scene, alongside superb character models with fluent and natural character movements, although the lip syncing still does not quite match the voice-overs for the majority of the characters and lines of dialogue.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, episodes, help and options, additional content and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. The background of the menu screens is of beautiful, picturesque scenery as a town is situated next to the coast line with foliage gently swaying in the wind as a flock of birds fly in the sky and the sun shines upon the sea.

The voice-over cast deliver exceptional performances with realistic dialogue to the age range of each character which if anything makes each of the characters even more diverse rather than too serious during light hearted moments or one dimensional. There are a couple of new characters introduced in the second episode such as Cissy Jones as Joyce Price having voiced Katjaa in The Walking Dead: Season 1, Shel and Dee in The Walking Dead: 400 Days, Kelsey Brannagan in The Wolf Among Us.

However, the voice-over cast largely remains the same including Hannah Telle delivering an amazing performance as the lead character Maxine Caulfield having previously voiced Iris Campbell and Rose Campbell in Murdered: Soul Suspect, while Ashly Burch voices Chloe Price having also voiced Ayla in Awesomenauts and Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2, alongside former X Factor USA finalist Dani Knights who voices Victoria Chase and Derek Phillips who voices Max’s photography teacher Mark Jefferson having previously voiced Lord Treavor Pendleton in Dishonored and Officer Scott and Kurt Wehlander in Murdered: Soul Suspect. amongst many more talented voice-over artists.

The sound effects include Max as well as other characters walking, running and generally interacting with their surroundings and nearby people, while there is just as much ambience in comparison to the first episode such as a howling wind, storms, birds and seagulls, while the amazing soundtrack consists of hand picked indie music from rock to melodic acoustic ballads which perfectly set the tone and atmosphere of the scenes they accompany from artists such as Alt-J, José González and Local Natives, with the score composed by Jonathan Morali of Syd Matters. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation which is surprising as it could have produced voice-overs, sound effects, ambient sound effects or music to provide a further layer of audio.

The trophy list for the second episode includes 12 bronze trophies with the complete trophy list featuring 61 trophies with 59 bronze, 1 gold and 1 platinum trophy. The trophies are all pretty simple for the second episode as long as players know the mechanics of the game as they have to take 10 optional photos which will provide 11 trophies such as the Full Exposure bronze trophy for taking optional photo number 2 of the squirrel on the bench eating bread outside the dorm rooms, while the remaining Out of Time bronze trophy is awarded for completing the second episode. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 2 to 3 hours to 100% the second episode and 10 to 15 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, however there is a rather fitting difficulty curve as there are plenty of puzzles to solve which are related to rewinding time, resulting in the difficulty curve being the equivalent to how quickly players adapt to the time manipulation mechanics. There will most probably be a few puzzles that may not be initially obvious in regards to what is required in order to solve them, but with some experimenting; players will work out the requirements of the puzzles within a few minutes.

There are no online leaderboards and no local or online multiplayer, although players would not really expect a multiplayer component in something that is as story and character driven as Life is Strange. However, despite there being no online leaderboards; there is a statistical analysis of the decisions that have been made throughout the duration of the episode in comparison to the decisions that everyone else across the world and the player’s friends who have played the second episode of Life is Strange have made, which is a positive design choice in the sense that it provides players with an in depth look at if  the correct or incorrect decision has been made in comparison to other players. Every decision within the second episode is clearly defined in the statistical analysis and it is incredibly interesting to what percentage of players made the same decisions as you and to also see the percentage of players that chose to go in an opposite direction.

The replayability of the game revolves around the excellent story and strong developing characters, while the unpredictability of how situations will play out given that the outcome can be changed by experimenting with rewinding time which will collectively have you playing beyond the initial playthrough consisting of two to three hours worth of gameplay for the second episode to see how differently scenarios can play out and people can react to certain decisions and approaches to conversations.

Overall, the second episode of Life is Strange is just as much of a thrilling experience as its first episode with emotion added at its core due to personal problems of particular likeable characters, therefore continuing to maintain a pace which delivers an exceptional level of quality throughout from story telling to character progression and some thoughtful puzzles to shocking and unpredictable events which further cements the game with the potential of being one of the best episodic videogame stories to date.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Life is Strange: Episode 2 – Out of Time
• Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
• Publisher: Square Enix
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1
• Hard Drive Space Required: 2.7GB (Episode 2)/5.19GB (Episodes 1 and 2 – Version 1.01)