Sam would be proud that I figured it out.Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers. I just needed a little bit of time to piece it all together. Like Life is Strange, Twin Mirror is best at making you care about the problems on the periphery of the biggest plot beats. I want to see if he gets his shit together. I want to see how he influences the life of his grief-stricken goddaughter. I want to see how Sam’s failed relationships and his standing in Basswood shake out. However, it’s not the flashy violent stuff that most has my attention. The demo ended on a big ol’ cliffhanger, and I want to see this murder investigation through. The opening hours do a hell of a job of setting the stage. There’s a lot of leisurely exploration of limited-size spaces, chatting up anyone and everyone in hopes of building a world, and making friends and enemies in equal measure. It’s going to be more Life is Strange than Sherlock Holmes. It’s also an evolution of the puzzle-solving and action in Life is Strange while still fitting within the same kind of framework.īut most of Twin Mirror doesn’t seem like it’ll be that - at least judging by the two-hour demo I played. When you see each step physically play out, it’s easy to piece together how that bar fight progressed from bellied-up squabbling, through a table, into a pillar, and eventually knocking over the memorial decorations. Twin Mirror uses a hologram-like visual filter to aid in Sam’s recreation. It’s a neat touch gathering clues and applying them to the case in real-time. Think Will Graham in the Hannibal TV series or Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints. It’s useful for mentally recreating crime scenes and figuring out exactly what happened. Sam goes to a place called his Mind Palace where he puts his analytical skills to work. He traces it back to the bar he where he blacked out and uses his investigative prowess to figure out that he got in a fight. After a memorial wake gone drunkenly wrong, Sam awakens in the morning with a killer headache and a lot of blood on his shirt. There aren’t a lot of smiling faces greeting Sam’s return to Basswood. Mining towns aren’t good for much if they don’t have a mine. Higgs was run out of town after running a piece that led to the coal mine getting shut down. Sam Higgs, a socially-cocooned investigative journalist, has come back to his West Virginia hometown (SHENANDOAH RIVER) to pay respects to his recently deceased friend and former coworker. The plodding walking, the pull to examine absolutely everything, the stilted interactions and friendships forged - it’s all stuff that Twin Mirror excels at even though this is a murder mystery first and foremost. It’s a slick and natural evolution of the Life is Strange formula, but without the episodic structure to string things along. Twin Mirror will be instantly recognizable to Dontnod veterans. There’s no mistaking the Dontnod DNA though. I’m playing a Life is Strange game, but with a pulpier feel and less import given to teenage relationships. Oh yeah, I’ve seen this before just by a different name. Maybe if I look around a bit –really focus and think hard and try to shake the cobwebs off my brain - it’ll all come rushing back. I’ve been here before but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
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