Gone Home game review
The scope of a literary work is not calculated by the number of its pages, nor by the quality of its cover or the ink used to put the words on paper. The reader's involvement, his continuous desire to turn each page until discovering the end of the story, this is what makes a book successful. The same goes for a video game. Whether it is beautiful, minimalist, long, short, whatever. What matters is the feeling of the player and his involvement in what is offered to him. There are no words yet to describe the genre to which Gone Home belongs, but to return to the literature, Gone Home would be in the order of the news - a news that we go through in one go but which marks lastingly.Let the nostalgic people proclaim as loud and clear if they wish that video games were better before. Meanwhile, let's appreciate the variety that current titles are capable of delivering. From an adrenaline blockbuster, to a more intimate game through various more or less colorful experiences, creators have never been as free to express themselves as today. The rise of download platforms is obviously not unrelated to this plurality of genres, which allow many studios to exist. Today, the spotlight is on Gone Home, a game that certainly could not have been born a few years ago since it does not respect the codes of traditional video games. There is no fight, no special action to perform, no puzzles to foil either, just a house to visit. If it does not follow the usual cogs, there is no doubt that Gone Home is a video game in its own right that takes us with it in a story that we will not soon forget.
HOME SWEET HOME
To talk about the Gone Home scenario would instantly break the heart of the game. It is the progressive discovery of the story that serves as the link to the whole experience. All there is to know is that the player embodies the young American Katie who returns home after a summer spent in Europe. Instead of finding her parents and 17-year-old sister, Katie is greeted by a desperately empty house. The exploration of each piece then begins and over the documents found, the pieces of the puzzle come together by themselves to finally understand what is going on with the Greenbriar family. Immersion in Gone Home is done instantly by two means, the first is the possibility of manipulating a good number of objects to observe them from every angle. Whether it's a simple vase on the sideboard or a toothbrush in the bathroom, it is possible to hold and rotate objects to inspect them as you would in real life.BACK IN THE 90S
The other crucial element that gives Gone Home all its salt is the important work done to immerse ourselves in the 90s. The story takes place in 1995 and the house is full of direct references to that time. The magazines lying around the living room, the posters that adorn the bedroom walls, the music the sister listens to, or more subtly the false brands of food in the fridge, everything goes back to the 90s. The line is never forced or magnified. We feel that the developers knew this era and in a certain way, that they take pleasure in paying homage to it. The atmosphere created is therefore always right, a qualifier which also applies to writing, mastered from start to finish. Without using other devices than its atmosphere and its sense of storytelling, Gone Home thus manages to guide our emotions - sometimes to the point of making us forget the framework of the game. Over the course of discoveries, there comes a time when the identification is such that we find ourselves continuing the adventure not driven by curiosity to discover where history will lead us, but by the need to know what happened to our parents, our sister, of our family. Few games succeed in this feat. Gone Home simply excels at it and that's exactly what makes it a great game despite its brevity - two hours to reach the end without hurrying.The notes
+ Positive points
The story of a rare accuracy
The 90s as if we were there
Exploring the house plays with our emotions
-Negative points
A bit expensive for only two hours of play
In addition to all the blockbusters that come out regularly, Gone Home manages to create its own buzz with a very simple gameplay proposition: no fights, no puzzles, just exploration. Associated with a controlled narration and an always fair 90's atmosphere, this exploration gives place to an atypical and touching adventure. Clearly, Gone Home won't speak to everyone, but players open to new experiences would be wrong to deprive themselves.
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