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There are a few interesting quirks to these videos: in each one you can only see and hear one person talking (and reacting to whoever’s on the other end, who you can’t hear) you search through videos by using keywords you hear in previous videos. Played from an in-game computer operating system, with a female silhouette reflected in the screen, you listen to online video chats between several people to piece together a story that amounts to something of a thriller. Which is a tad unfair, because Telling Lies is actually a pretty good game if this kind of game is your thing. Clearly, it’s a divisive game whichever way you look at it, but something about the Game Pass audience, or the way we consume games on Game Pass, didn’t quite click for poor Telling Lies. It’s how a game like Telling Lies ends up with just 23% positive reviews on Game Pass and 66% positive reviews on Steam. However, some games are so niche and catered towards such specific kinds of audiences, that when you throw them out into wilderness of something like Game Pass, where a game like Telling Lies is way more disposable than when you pay $20 for it on Steam, you’ll put that game fleetingly into the hands of people who literally don’t know what the hell to do with it, discarding it into digital oblivion after 10 minutes, instinctually pissing on it to mark their turf, and moving swiftly onto the next thing.ĪLSO READ: The Last of Us' Winter Chapter Remains Naughty Dog's Greatest Triumph There’s no doubt that this can open gamers’ horizons onto new genres and styles of game, and conversely giving that game an avenue to reach new audiences (this is especially handy for new studios releasing their first games). It’s there, it’s included in the subscription, why the hell not? See, one of the things the various developers I’ve spoken to love about Game Pass is that it lets players who’d never have bought a certain type of game step out of their comfort zone risk-free and give it a go. Game Pass, treasure trove of indie weirdness that it is, has all three of Barlow’s games, which is great for me, but not necessarily great for the games’ user scores. The latter just came out last month, and its bizarre story and flirtation with some pretty big ideas inspired me to check out what’s seemingly the least loved of Barlow’s games. The game in question here, with a phenomenally low score of 1.9 stars on Game Pass, is Telling Lies, the ‘middle child’ of Sam Barlow’s FMV-based trio of games which also include Her Story and Immortality.
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