Thirty Flights of Loving (PC) review

[Golgo]

Finally got round to playing this indie darling by Brendan Cheung, dearly beloved of the most progressive videogame journalists. Completed it twice last night, about 15 minutes a time, my jaw slackly hanging open the whole time in moronic astonishment. Basically it's a little story about a bungled heist with a bit of romance thrown in. Nothing to do but move through it and pay attention to environmental details, which are not exactly taxing on the old grey matter. The innovation is that the story is cut in a non-linear way and the actual heist isn't featured at all, leaving you to figure out what happened (should you care enough to expend any thought on it). This innovation makes it the latest step in videogame narrative, embarrassing the big budget story capers, so the reviews said. I consider it terrible, however. Borderline insulting to play, derivative and inane in its plot and technique. On second go I deliberately moved away from the main narrative events, taking what I took to be alternative routes that might offer a different viewpoint, and I was always 'cut' back abruptly to where I needed to be. Sometimes I think the more hipster of the indie comunities are becoming a blight on gaming, and the journos that puff them up clearly need a good shoein'. Paid ?3.99 on Steam for it and that's the only robbery here that wasn't bungled.

[MisterBubbles]

Nice write up Dog. I guess you wasted the price of a good pint, now don't get me started on 40 smackers on COD.

['Press Start']

Nice write up Dog.

You can clearly see he is a cat. C'mon.

[MisterBubbles]

Ok, i'll rewrite it just for you. Nice write up PSN_ID- Abused_Dog, i guess you wasted the price of a good pint, now don't get me started on 40 smackers on COD.

[Golgo]

Nice write up Dog. I guess you wasted the price of a good pint, now don't get me started on 40 smackers on COD.

Aaaaaand...there it is!!! Smug mode: ENGAGE!

Don't worry, Mr. B, I sold it on to some sucker for almost what I paid for it.

[QualityChimp]

A non-linear story of a bank heist you never see? Sounds like a rip-off of Reservoir Dogs which, in turn, was a rip-off of City on Fire!

[Golgo]

There are definitely a few Resi Dogs 'allusions' in there.

[Zaki]

?3.99?! I paid about 10p for this in a humble bundle. It gave me motion sickness when I played it. Anything above 60fps does that to me.

I played about 10 minutes - initially cute, but I wasn't motivated to finish it. Maybe I should play the last 5 mins.

[Golgo]

I shouldn't bother, you'll never get those 5 minutes back. ?3.99 included Gravity Bone as well, the freeware prequel, which if anything is worse. The only 'game' here is puzzling out what drugs EDGE and Eurogamer were on when they spunked 9s all over it.