Life is…Strange. Ohhhhhhhh!

I thought it would merit a blog post in itself since I’ve played the entire episodic narrative, Life is Strange. After a long 6 months since I bought episodes 1-5 on Steam, recently I finally put aside some time from work to play. All this time avoiding spoilers I can put in a review down without ruining any plot lines and there are a bunch of plot lines.

Developed by DONTNOD and published by Square Enix, you play as Maxine Caulfield who has travelled to Oregon to attend Blackwell Academy in hopes of being a photographer. Within the first month of settling in, you have premonitions of a tornado. You have 5 days to prevent it happening. Along the way of trying to save the seaside town of Arcadia Bay, you make friends both old and new.

You play in the third person in a narrative where each episode is a day until the end. As you play choices from the previous episodes can effect the story and how it will culminate. The art for the game does exude something resembling of water colours which exemplifies focus on the story while delivering a detailed (but not too detailed) atmosphere. The entire game is littered with story devices which opens the player to character development outside of Max’s journal. If you are an empathic gamer, you will find yourself thinking about these little bits of information as you interact with other characters and help make decisions throughout the game. The voice acting in itself is very professional and does feel very natural and fluid with each choice. The character animation is nothing impressive, there are parts where characters would just talk and wouldn’t necessarily interact with each other. Felt more like talking heads on the news than a theatrical performance. Definitely something work improving is the motion capture to let these characters interact with the space around than standing there and have it be consistent. Max’s time travelling provides a good plot device to allow the player to change their answer if they think their choice is undesirable considering most choices aren’t described fully. Usually the game will give your an explicit choice of actions or a vague noun like “Nathan” or “Joyce” and hope that choice is what you are thinking it would be what is summed in a few words. It makes a logical choice to have the choices concise but a bit more description would be helpful. Then again the time travelling ability really solves all that.

Thematically, the game is about choices. Choices everywhere and if you aren’t tainted by spoilers, these choices are interesting because they carry weight through the game and changes up what you can say and do. The developers seemed to explore the idea of choice in terms of a social sense with moral implications. Choices which challenge vices and virtues, needs and wants, truth and the perception of truth; the does give some good examples of philosophical dilemmas which defines our humanity. Who said video games can’t teach your anything?

If you haven’t decided to get Life is Strange yet and you want to play it, I would recommend getting all the episodes in one package. For the value of a movie ticket and popcorn (like 25 dollars-ish),  you get about 22 hours of content (That’s on my count, experience may vary). As much as the first episode is thorough in giving you a preview of things to come, the main attraction is a story which a game can only deliver. There are some faults in quality such as some bugs and some dialogue which fell flat because of the animation. It’s a good play with achievements which can be completed (for you perfectionists out there). In the end after I made all the choices and comparing similarities with my personal life, the title is indeed exclaims a truth. Life is strange, so very strange.

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You are the Change

I spent most of my academic days trying to figure it out. The situation of self and the realization of “having career opportunities” with qualifications. I am not going to lie to a teenager like most educators trying hard to keep a facade, Schooling does not necessarily make you who you want to become.

In school, I tried many courses they offered. I tried a bit of information technology, elective mathematics and creative writing. For all the years, I even tried a lot of history courses. Of all the years and hours spent at home and at school beat myself over the head with homework I learned very little which is relevant. Of all all the things I learned, I know for certain is algebra is only thing which has solid applications as a course. Everything else is a basis on opinion and extrapolation. Essay writing can help build an organized opinion. History helped with developing critical thinking. Of all the English classes, I can say I can write and describe experience in words. History (aside knowing the United States had a very bloody past) has given me an opinion about and idea of where I live and what it means to be here. The end goal regardless whatever the course was a grade; hopefully a passing grade.

Though I am not a success story, I still have much to learn but there is what I know for sure. Of all the things I’ve learned, none of that matters to what I do. No one really wants me to write essays or do a lot of calculations. Getting out of school, it seems most work places just require you to follow instructions and maximize productivity within the position you are hired. “Able to follow instructions, verbally and visually” is the primary concern for employers. You start lower than what you know. Kind of depressing when every expectation of you is surmised into a sentence as seen from an employer.

Don’t be discouraged, we all started somewhere. We never become what we want, it’s the matter of determination and commitment to where we want to end up. It’s not just taking the education of where you want to go but what you do as a career. You will realize you will start on the very bottom where your career will seem irrelevant and you will have to build your way up. Sure you can be an academic, but most of the work comes from actual experience of both in and our of the career. The end goal in never really the what you wanted but how you have experienced everything.

Isn’t the trip only as good as the journey?

Canadian Concerns

To preface this post, I would like to say I’m not a political person. I know I’m not very active in taking sides to any issues, for the most part I sit and watch how my last has really mattered. The irony about my last vote was I wasn’t even a necessary one.

I believe the last election was about 4 years ago when a Canadian federal election was called. Though I still have faith in the system, in a way I don’t have faith in it either. I strongly believe democracy can get a lot done, there is so much finger pointing and bickering that I could’ve became a grade school teacher and seen less of it. Fact is I have about over 6 weeks to decide who is the next prime minister for the next 4 years. The next 42 days changes what happens in the need 2000 and plus days until the next election.

Without divulging which party I selected last year, I did choose one that stood by on some critical issues. The large one I followed was veteran affair. I have a firm belief people who serve the armed forces in this country should be entitled to something at the end of their service. They may be faceless to some however for me from what I’ve seen and read beyond the headlines, no one can ever outwork these people. All of us may complain of an 8 hour day at a low wage, these guys work themselves to the ground to ensure security at home and abroad and providing a face for the Canadian public on the world stage. If I could, I would owe them all a pint however I rather vote to put some of my tax dollars into making sure they get a well deserved retirement.

As a young person, it’s definitely hard to find jobs these days. To be honest there are only two jobs I feel qualified for; one I must have qualifications or I am overly qualified. I think this is the bottleneck we face where employers are hiring overqualified students for menial labour. Preach all you want about unemployment being at this percentage all you want, we still have our future working in jobs where they don’t benefit society. These engineers and scientists are our taxi drivers and burger flippers. These are the kids we have to put our best foot forward if we are to make a lot of changes to ourselves. This change could be anything from the environmental and technical sectors. One of those unemployed or underemployed folks could be developing a method to get us as a species into space more efficiently but they’re holding on a job that does not fit the degree. Most of my readers have read about my employment problems in the past and I know there is something we can do about this. At the time of this post I checked the unemployment; it’s sitting around a 6.5%. Doesn’t sound much at first, however you consider that with a number like 3 million, you soon realize 6 percent is a lot of people still out of a job. Even worse is the fact the number doesn’t even account of underemployment, those people who are still working but can’t necessarily pay for everything they need. This is indeed a scary thought that someone somewhere is being ignored because the governing body decides they’re already well off. As compartmentalized as the government is, employment a major one effects industry, economy, labour. The people must come first before we can go anywhere.

Though these are a couple and I am just one of millions who are going to vote, I want every young Canadian who is eligible to vote. Don’t slack off and not vote or pass your vote off at a random person. Make it out to the voting because there are issues that concern this generation, our generation. We are only getting older and if we don’t act now, the future can get only worse.