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She’s goofily written, like everyone in this game, but she’s likeable and identifiable for anyone who’s ever had self-doubt issues.
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The action takes place in and around the prestigious seaside Blackwell Academy, where 18-year-old Max Caulfield is a senior photography student unsure of her abilities or her place in the world. It’s a story about three women - regardless of the sex of the writers, that’s unusual in today’s gaming climate - and the first episode has enough tantalising material to pique my interest for the remainder. I was worried that the male writers would fail to write compelling female leads, but it’s not even an issue of how women speak - it’s an issue of how Americans, youths, and to be honest, people speak.īut somehow, the awful dialogue can’t scupper the first episode of Life Is Strange for me. Intellectually, the writers know what they want to accomplish - and I think their goals are worthwhile - but they seem incapable of presenting their characters in a natural way. Let’s thrash this place!” before proceeding to put on light alternative music and shout “Rock out! Break it down.” These characters even have the gall to call each other out on outdated slang. Ditto the language used by the game’s photography students, referring to how they’re “such photo nerds” taking “pics” with their “analog cameras” that are “framed by the sun.” Or that of the punk girl who says “I feel like stage diving. Now, I’m an out-of-touch (and corrupt) Kiwi male journalist, so I don’t know how American teen girls talk nowadays, but I’m pretty sure nobody uses the word “hella” like it’s used in Life Is Strange. For an all-male, all-French, all-adult writing team, that’s going to be a hard task, and it’s one Dontnod don’t quite accomplish. And as the principal characters are female, they have to speak like real teen girls. Developed by Dontnod, the Paris studio that made Remember Me, it’s a supernatural tale of friendship set in an all-American high school, so its characters don’t just have to speak like real people - they have to speak like real teens. It’s a problem faced by Life Is Strange, a narrative adventure game whose first episode launched late last month. If you’ve seen The Room or Troll 2, or anything written by someone not fluent in the language they’re working in, you’ll be familiar with the phenomenon of “alien dialogue.” It’s unique to writers who understand what words mean, but don’t quite grasp how actual people string them together in conversation.* The result is at best dialogue that makes sense but sounds odd, and at worst, unintentional hilarity.