'Life is Strange: Before the Storm' Review Roundup
"Life is Strange: Before the Storm" is the prequel to the time-traveling role-playing game "Life is Strange," and like its protagonist Chloe Price, it's the more grounded, less supernatural counterpart to the first game. It's looking less an extension of "Life is Strange" and more like another side of it, a change which fans may have different reactions to.
Unlike "Life is Strange" and Max Caulfield's ability to rewind time, Chloe Price's story focuses more on the shocking and often irreversible ways a decision can ripple out to affect everything, as Gamespot's Justin Clark notes in his review of the second episode.
Even with most players already familiar with Price's story at this point, the game still does a great job of setting her apart from Caulfield, with her own way of doing things. Chloe is perceptive and is actually used to manipulating others, so she can mostly do well on her own even without the ability to alter time.
Each decision, however, is heavier, as Eurogamer's Aoife Wilson points out. "Life is Strange: Before the Storm" is all about permanence and Price's inability to take things back once said and done, as well as a journey into what actually happened with Rachel Amber, the key mystery of the first game.
Wilson noted that "Before the Storm" prompts players to reflect and ask themselves whether or not they tell themselves lies that are worse than the lies they tell others.
"Life is Strange: Before the Storm" is currently rated by reviewers on Metacritic a 79 for the PC version, and a lower average of 70 for the PlayStation 4 version. User scores are friendlier for the game, with a 7.9 out of 10 rating. The game has been out on the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One since Aug. 31.
