It had potential, but... (Review)

[Naoya]

I've been posting on a few threads here for a while, told some of my opinion to others, but I think it's about time I write a full review of my own here. Yes, this is a negative review, but it is purely from an artistic standpoint that I criticize it. While I will touch the gameplay a bit, that topic's been done to death, so the main points here will be the rest; Music, graphics, story, things like that. I'll be dividing my review in those kind of categories.

Now, before I start, I want to say that yes, this is simply my opinion. That doesn't make me right or wrong. So if you're just going to reply by insulting me, telling me to go play some generic mainstream shooter or that "I didn't get it", please just kindly leave. But if you have something intelligent and meaningful to say, even if it's against me, then by all means do so. "Getting" a piece of art is very subjective. Art isn't just something you're served on a silver platter. It's something you must experience. So while some will "get" it in certain ways, others will "get" it in other ways. There is no one true way to appreciate art.

With that out of the way, let's dig in, shall we? I'll get the gameplay out of the way right now.


Gameplay

Now, this is the most lackluster part of this game, by design or not. You have control over a character, but that's all I can say. You cannot interact with any being or object, there is nothing to accomplish or solve, all you can do is explore the island and discover the secrets therein. It gets some points for being able to move and find secrets, but that's it.

Now, some people say that the emptiness was really what got them into this game, but I can't say I felt the same way at all. I had no feelings of loneliness, or anxiety, and certainly not any kind of dread as I explored this island. Because there was nothing to give me any of these kinds of feelings. I need more to feel lonely in a game than, well, just being alone. That is a very artificial way of bringing about loneliness, and there are much better ways to go about it. And fear? Well, the game gave me nothing to fear. Heck, the whole time I was playing, the lack of any kind of interaction, and having to constantly just hold W and nothing else, often really broke my immersion and reminded me that there's absolutely nothing in this game.

This was extremely underwhelming to say the least, but as I said, this isn't the focus of my review, so let's leave it at that.


Graphics

Many praise this as one of the high points of the game. And certainly, the graphics are quite a sight to behold. However, that's all it is. There's a sight, but there's nothing more to it. I was served a meal in a beautiful platter, the food on it all arranged to look its best. It looked very appealing, but as I took the first bite, I soon found the food to be bland and tasteless. As beautiful as the island is, there's nothing that truly makes use of these pretty graphics. The island is nothing but scenery. And while scenery can be beautiful, I can get beautiful scenery in any number of games, so that is clearly not all I'm looking for.

It feels like a waste to me to have such graphics and have them used for absolutely nothing. Seeing things happen on this island could truly have brought out the beauty of the island better than it just sitting there waiting for you to look at it. However, the emptiness of it all left a bad aftertaste in my mouth. But the graphics were meant to tell a story, so surely the story itself makes up for this, right? Well...


Story

Now, this is the meat of the game. This is what the creator of this game put the most work in, and this is what the entire game was meant to convey. When I first started out the game, I was expecting this to be the thing to really grip me and keep me going through this otherwise admittedly tedious experience. It started out okay, too. However, the deeper I went, the less it gripped me, and the more I was left disappointed with it all. On the outside, it was interesting, but as I was starting to get the pieces of the puzzle, the more I put them together, the more I saw that on the inside, it was just a simple, uninteresting story.

Simply, it is the story of a man who lost his wife in a car accident. Grief-stricken, he slowly went insane as the years passed on, until he started taking a journey through his memories and feelings (The game itself) and, having seemingly done peace with it, leaves this world for good. Now, there is a bit more to it, like the protagonist getting kidney stones, another person being involved in the accident, but... This is not an interesting story. This is the kind of story I'd expect to read in a short written story, which are a very interesting form of story telling mind you.

Even though the game tried to make it so complex on the outside, the story was just too simple on the inside to really interest me. Now, I understand I was supposed to go through this man's broken mind, and feel what he went through during his ordeal. However, there is a flaw there as well. The protagonist is not interesting or well developed at all. He doesn't even have a face or a name. For me to feel another character, I have to first make a connection with this character. I have to be able to relate to the character, but this is something that made impossible, again, by the emptiness of it all. Simply knowing this character's past is not enough for me.

Overall, the story was really the most disappointing part to me. This was the most important part of the game, and yet this is really what let me down the most. The story might have beauty on the outside... But it lacked too much on the inside.


Sound and Music

To me, this is where the game truly shines. The voice actor, while I didn't particularly care for what he said, had a very pleasant and attractive voice, which was a plus. The music was really amazing, and I quite loved it. And the sound effects, well there's nothing wrong with them.

However, I don't have much to say about them other than that, because they really had nothing to truly accompany them. Feels like a waste to me, but it gets a lot of points here regardless. If the rest of the game had done this music justice, it really would've been amazing.


Conclusion

Now, you might have noticed a recurring theme throughout this review. Beautiful on the outside, yet hollow on the inside. And yes, that is exactly my feelings about this game. Outwardly, this game truly was pleasing to the eyes, a beautifully painted picture. But on the inside, the soul of the canvas itself was lacking. Art is very much like people in this way. It's not the outside that counts, but the inside. After all, no matter how pretty someone is, if that person is stupid, mean and annoying, they won't be attractive. But no matter the appearance of the person, if they're truly kind and fun to talk to, no amount of physical flaws will ever kill their beauty.

While I do find this game had potential, I think it really could've been executed better. Now, some people felt different about this game. And that's fine. Everyone has different artistic views and senses, and nobody is right or wrong here. But maybe reading this review will help you look at this game from another perspective. Maybe it'll end up making you see flaws in it, or maybe it'll end up making you like it more. Either way is fine. That's what art is all about, after all. You can't truly appreciate a piece of art unless you look at it from all angles.

And that's it from me. I don't write reviews, so I hope it wasn't too bad for my first try at one. I hope you enjoyed reading it too.

[CrossroadsWanderer]

[[Spoilers]] There probably won't be many, but I'm not going to limit what I talk about, so some spoilers may find their way into this wall of text.




I think I understand your perspective. I loved the game, and my perspective is quite opposite for the most part, but you've expressed yourself well.

I think a lot of the things I've said are pretty much the kinds of things you talk about in your gameplay section. I did find the lack of mechanics helped immerse me, but I get what you're saying here. You can't really enact your will in this game. If exploration isn't what you want to do, you basically become a passenger in this game. I've always like exploration, even in games that didn't really expect you to explore. To me, exploration itself is an enjoyable game. This game was exploration + plot, and both of those things appeal to me. The first person viewpoint was familiar to me from many of those exploration games, where I'd go into a sort of free camera mode to explore. It just makes it easier to see some details, and, where it applies, it makes me feel a bit more like I'm inhabiting the body of the main character.

I think that some part of the anxiety I felt while playing was due to other games I'd played. Usually, games have enemies. When you see abandoned buildings in other titles, they are likely to contain monsters. But, I got past this notion of there being monsters in the game relatively quickly (I didn't know about all the "ghosts" until later, and the one that I interacted with I mistook for a living person that simply avoided interacting with me). Part of the dread that took over after that point, the more visceral part, was due to the injuries the main character spoke of. When he told me his leg was broken and infected, it raised some of my own visceral fears. Basically, he would have to face death or dismemberment. One of my personal horrors is the idea of losing pieces of myself, so this sort of set the stage for me, even if he never directly mentioned the possibility of sawing the leg off.

As he/I recklessly jumped down holes and probably worsened his injuries, my fears intensified. Eventually I realized that he was going to die. At first, this contributed to my dread. It wasn't until his final monologue on ascending the tower that it felt acceptable. And the funny part is that the monologue was different, and much more conflicted on my second playthrough. If my first playthrough had had that monologue, his death probably wouldn't have felt "right" and the game would have felt much darker to me. It's still a pretty dark ending, and reading a couple of the theories people have about it brought back some of that feeling, but I've settled on parts of the overarching narrative being uncertain, so I don't think of the theories I've read as being "the" answer even if some of them make a lot of sense.

I think the loneliness I felt was also based in the main character's story/psyche. This was a man who, by his narrative (even if the island isn't real) had gone into a self-enforced exile. I was probably projecting, and thinking about how I'd feel under those circumstances. It wasn't just the lack of any signs of other human life that did it - though that certainly enforced the feeling - it was the premise and the level of immersion and identification with the main character I was feeling.

The graphics didn't mean much to me. Yes, they were pretty, but it's not what I think of when I think about why I liked this game. The music, on the other hand, I think had a strong impact. Most of the time I wasn't paying close attention to the music - though I liked it in those moments I was paying attention - but I think the music had a lot of impact on my emotional state. I think it was a strong factor in the dread I felt through most of the game, and there were even one or two spots where the music got quite sinister and I was rooted to the spot til it passed. And then there was the more peaceful music in the cave. Aside from my apprehensions about his wounds as he fell, most of the dread I was feeling lifted completely while I was in the cave system. I suspect it's because the music is much more calming there.

I completely understand what you mean about the story. But, to me, a story going from complex to simple, as long as it's done well, is satisfying. When I first started playing the game, I knew very little about the main character's reasons for being on that island, and the things he said were filled with such dense language, such seemingly meaningless metaphor, and (as I discovered on subsequent playthroughs) so many context-less pieces of the story, that they only raised more questions. I didn't even realize that he was mourning a lost friend/lover/whatever she was to him until the line "you have been rendered opaque by the car of a drunk" while exploring the wrecked ships in part 1. That was something I latched onto. It was sort of an "okay, now I'm getting somewhere; I know a little bit about this character now and can empathize with him more than I could before" moment.

More details here and there allowed me to understand and empathize with the character more. Some of his lines seem to have been red herrings, but even those were delivered in such a way that, rather than seeming like a meaningless distraction to keep you from discovering what happened, they actually seem like the product of a disturbed, grieving psyche. The story progression was a bit like solving a puzzle. It hands you some of the major details, but there's still a fair bit to puzzle out. What clarity can be found at the end is your solved puzzle.

In my opinion, stories going from simple to complex leave a very open-ended feeling. The subject matter of this story I think is better handled as something that can have at least some loose ends tied up. It doesn't feel good to have a tragic story with no closure. Sometimes I'll play games that make me feel terrible just because experiencing some emotion, whether good or bad, from a game can be enjoyable. But I like the arc in Dear Esther where initially I felt bad, and gradually I came to feel acceptance.

[Naoya]

I do like exploration, but not when there's nothing else I can do. For example, one of the reasons I hated Zelda: Skyward Sword was because of a lack of exploration.

But I think I understand a bit more the fundamental difference of why you enjoyed it and why I didn't. Basically, because you could connect and relate to the character, while I couldn't. My inability to do so caused me to feel absolutely nothing. It makes sense that way, and I guess it's just because I have a much harder time relating to characters. I did connect to some characters in the past, but I need a lot more than what the game presented for me to do so.

[CrossroadsWanderer]

I understand that. I try to connect with characters when I play a game/watch a movie/whatever. Like, it's not always a passive thing for me. I seek out stories that rely heavily on characterization. But I can understand if you aren't as enthusiastic about it, or if you feel more genuinely for characters when it happens passively.

I can't always relate to characters (some shows that friends and family really like, I'm not too fond of because there aren't any characters I feel like I can "inhabit"). Sometimes a particular character arc is old hat and you just look at it and go "I know exactly what's going to happen here; it isn't novel". And sometimes you want to connect with characters that don't feel like the sorts of people you'd meet in the real world.

I don't know which, if any of these, you fit under, and I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons, but these are the sorts of reasons that come to my mind for someone to not have enjoyed this game, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it if you just can't get into it.

Just as an example, my family thinks I'm insane, but I can't identify with any of the characters in Battlestar Galactica (the series that was on a few years ago). So I don't particularly care for that show, even when everyone around me is in love with it. So I get where you're coming from.

As far as reviews go, everyone's going to have a different subjective experience. You just have to go off of your past experiences and try to compare to your expectations when you're buying a game, or a movie, or whatever. It won't always line up, though.

I guess I'm kind of rambling off in the direction of other threads I've seen on here, now. I'm not criticizing your thread. You were up front about your reasons, and you managed to state it in a way that didn't contain spoilers, which I failed to do. I just think it's silly when people make "You shouldn't buy this game because it sucks" threads. But your thread wasn't that, so it was more interesting to me to exchange ideas on the game here than going over the same old in threads where the op is clearly not too open minded.

[Naoya]

Indeed, for me relating to characters is a much more passive thing. I cannot willingly do it, and I don't usually do it. The thing that drives me the most in stories are usually the story itself, the depth and interactions of different characters and other such things. If a particular character starts appealing to me, I might eventually start relating to him. (I can only really relate to male characters, being male. Nothing against female characters, it's just the way I am.)

Living, breathing worlds full of interesting concepts and great characters are usually what appeal to me the most. My favorite when it comes to story is Fate/Stay Night. The Visual Novel, not the anime. And really, anything written by Nasu, the author of the story in Fate/Stay Night, all rank among my favorite stories.

When it comes to games, I can enjoy a wide variety of them, from purely action and gameplay-driven games to story-driven, so called "artistic" games. I hate calling them that though, since all games are art to me. What Dear Esther really lacked was the level of story depth, interaction and characterization really needed for me to really get into it. Maybe I'm just hard to please?

[Swartt]

I agree with the OP

The game was nothing but hollow, you don't even walk around the island, you flaot. you make no sound, there is no shiver when you walk in the snow, you can walk up stone slippery from water with ease.

But the biggest problem I had with this "game" was the texture quality, it was terrible, I thought that if you focus so much on not gameplay or visual and audio feedback, that atleast the textrues would look good, but no, the grass is 2D, you have no legs, you have no voice, there is effort put into walking around, you do not lose your breath, the game just felt extremly cheap, and it failed to imerse me even once

Now different things are more important to different people, for me this was nothing but an unintersting story dressed in pretty words as makeup for a lack of real meat on the bone, a dumb person trying to sound like a smart person, so to speak.

The voice acting was okay, though devoid of emotion, the music was decent, nothing spectacular and I found it quite generic

The whole game all I could think of was how they could have made it so much better, and a game that fails what it sets out to do is not a good game

There are two scens that looked good in this game, The underwater highway and the waterfalls, the rest was bland modeling and bland cinomotografphy 2004

there was potential, if the story and characters were interesting, if the world was living instead of just a set-piece, but as it stands it is nothing but a hollow husk of a game

[Ailes]

I'll be honest I didn't read what you wrote, I still may, but I nevertheless want to say that I love this game. While it may lack actual gameplay it probably still wouldn't be the same if it were a movie. There is some choices in where you go, the exploration is gameplay in some ways, and there is some replayability in hearing the various audio lines, and sometimes I feel like playing it for the serene ambiance alone, especially the cave chapter with my headphones on embracing it. The powerful writing and narration and gorgeous voice acting - it felt superb to me - did the rest. Even if I am not playing it I keep watching videos of it on YouTube, without commentaries, just listening to it's great audio. The game moves me a lot, it was very impressive in various ways, and for this I can't thank the developers enough.

Alright I just glanced at some you wrote. I guess it's a matter of taste and experience as well, but the voice acting felt great to me. There are some emotionally strong lines, maybe you didn't hear those, it's random, but even the "calmer" ones have emotions, it's just very subtle. If you got the gist what happened story-wise and with the characters it makes perfectly sense that the narrator sometimes sounds resigned and powerless. He tells a story, and I believed it all the way and can very well imagine this guy standing in front of me telling me about his troubles face to face.

[Naoya]

Enoah a écrit :

Alright I just glanced at some you wrote. I guess it's a matter of taste and experience as well, but the voice acting felt great to me. There are some emotionally strong lines, maybe you didn't hear those, it's random, but even the "calmer" ones have emotions, it's just very subtle. If you got the gist what happened story-wise and with the characters it makes perfectly sense that the narrator sometimes sounds resigned and powerless. He tells a story, and I believed it all the way and can very well imagine this guy standing in front of me telling me about his troubles face to face.

I've heard some of the more emotionally strong lines. I didn't say what he said was emotionless, but rather that it didn't evoke any emotions in me even if it was. The character and story just weren't interesting enough for me to feel anything about it.

But it'd be nice to read the whole review before commenting on it. You know, common courtesy.

[Ailes]

I've read through your initial post and have hard times agreeing. I do see some hollowness too, I think, but really not that much. Have you heard all lines? Did you see the ghosts? Or the guy with his lantern walking? The sounds at some specific spots? All the carefully scattered items around he brought to the island? Did you try to get all the words painted on the walls, what the electrial diagrams mean? There are hidden things. And there is still the strong emotions - open or subtle - in the voice acting as well as the great sounds (play the cave at night with headphones on and take it in) and music. And the visuals feel great too. I had pitied doing nothing but pass it by at times too, but it wasn't too strong, I kept looking deeper at times. Trying to feel into this man and what he had gone through immersed me a lot. Or what could have been behind the place you walk. Thinking about the sickly shepherds and their remote community, about that guy in his boat without a bottom seeking solitude in his cave, how the people of that island would carve white lines into the hills to call for help. I believe there is a lot in it, surely more than just a depressed guy with a dead wife, if you can just embrace it.

But maybe you just know more than I do. Maybe you've read about such stories more often. I don't usually read short-stories, so my expectations might not be as specific as yours.

No grass no body and the feeling of floating: There is sense in that if you play through the whole game, and leaves room for speculation about who or what you are actually controling at what time. Maybe you are controling that guy at the time he is exploring the island, maybe not, maybe you are just reliving memories, maybe you are a ghost, maybe a bird - or whatever. And the textures never felt bad to me. Honestly I was busy taking in the whole of it rather than examining textures. I didn't buy this game for textures. Even if it's not top-notch it served and felt overall visually well-made, the ambiance felt great so I have nothing to complain regarding that.

The guy has a name, I believe. He must be Esther's husband, and he referrs to her as Esther Donnely at one point. We could argue about how to identify best with game characters for days I guess, like the discussion about whether RPG characters (or other ones, like Gordon Freeman) should talk or be silent all the time, it's a matter of taste too I guess. As I said I could imagine this guy talk to me about his experiences and about his pain and grief if he was standing in front of me. I don't need his face to believe him. I think it serves the game even not to have it, it adds to the loneliness and strangeness of it all. At the very least it's proof of how great the voice acting really was in my opinion.

[Naoya]

Enoah a écrit :

I've read through your initial post and have hard times agreeing. I do see some hollowness too, I think, but really not that much. Have you heard all lines? Did you see the ghosts? Or the guy with his lantern walking? The sounds at some specific spots? All the carefully scattered items around he brought to the island? Did you try to get all the words painted on the walls, what the electrial diagrams mean? There are hidden things. And there is still the strong emotions - open or subtle - in the voice acting as well as the great sounds (play the cave at night with headphones on and take it in) and music. And the visuals feel great too. I had pitied doing nothing but pass it by at times too, but it wasn't too strong, I kept looking deeper at times. Trying to feel into this man and what he had gone through immersed me a lot. Or what could have been behind the place you walk. Thinking about the sickly shepherds and their remote community, about that guy in his boat without a bottom seeking solitude in his cave, how the people of that island would carve white lines into the hills to call for help. I believe there is a lot in it, surely more than just a depressed guy with a dead wife, if you can just embrace it.

But maybe you just know more than I do. Maybe you've read about such stories more often. I don't usually read short-stories, so my expectations might not be as specific as yours.

No grass no body and the feeling of floating: There is sense in that if you play through the whole game, and leaves room for speculation about who or what you are actually controling at what time. Maybe you are controling that guy at the time he is exploring the island, maybe not, maybe you are just reliving memories, maybe you are a ghost, maybe a bird - or whatever. And the textures never felt bad to me. Honestly I was busy taking in the whole of it rather than examining textures. I didn't buy this game for textures. Even if it's not top-notch it served and felt overall visually well-made, the ambiance felt great so I have nothing to complain regarding that.

The guy has a name, I believe. He must be Esther's husband, and he referrs to her as Esther Donnely at one point. We could argue about how to identify best with game characters for days I guess, like the discussion about whether RPG characters (or other ones, like Gordon Freeman) should talk or be silent all the time, it's a matter of taste too I guess. As I said I could imagine this guy talk to me about his experiences and about his pain and grief if he was standing in front of me. I don't need his face to believe him. I think it serves the game even not to have it, it adds to the loneliness and strangeness of it all. At the very least it's proof of how great the voice acting really was in my opinion.

I did stumble upon quite a few secrets, saw the biblical writing on the walls, heard the sounds and music and such. I saw the ghosts, but not the guy with the lantern. I only heard one run's worth of monologue, though, as I really didn't feel like going through that game more than once. But honestly, none of these things really added to the experience for me.

In fact, the rest of your post is suggestive. The game affected you as you played. We just work differently. It takes different things to get to us, you could say. To me, the game lacked things to really make me get into it. But you didn't need anything more than what the game presented, which is not a bad thing. It basically just means we have different tastes. You don't agree with my opinion, and that's perfectly fine.

I think the main difference is out point of view. When I played the game, I was seeing myself as the protagonist himself. But when you played, you just saw the protagonist as someone who was with you, so to speak. I guess that's an important difference.

[tunafishsharp]

I just finished playing this and I'm a lttle lost to what just happened and sort of agree with your post. I found the story was trying to be vauge and mysterious so the player had to work it out, but was doing this so much it lacked enough 'meat' of a story to make sense of it. Will this improve if i play again? I sort of enjoyed it, im not sure :(

[Naoya]

tunafishsharp a écrit :

I just finished playing this and I'm a lttle lost to what just happened and sort of agree with your post. I found the story was trying to be vauge and mysterious so the player had to work it out, but was doing this so much it lacked enough 'meat' of a story to make sense of it. Will this improve if i play again? I sort of enjoyed it, im not sure :(

Maybe it will. I myself didn't enjoy it at all, but if you're still not sure, you can always try it again and see. If you still don't enjoy yourself still, then you might be like me.

[Skoppter]

Am I the only one who saw the reacurring theme of life from god or life from random chemistry or other means. As you explore the game there are multiple instances where you find the bible and chemistry books along with the occasional greek god book and the chemistry is even partnered up with the genetic make up of carbon scribbled on some walls. In the first main cave you can also see a process in the drwaings on the walls. First is carbon. then a micro organisim such as a cell or simple life, then a bridge between a cell and a tree as roots are evident in the new structure in this cave painting, Last is a big old tree just drawn right there for you. On the bible side of things, there are references to different parts of the bible in the game scribbled on walls and in the characters speech. This conveyd a sense of scientific reasoning to me as if it was meant to ask the question of is god real or not to add on to the characters broken mind sinse he is struggling and as his story tells that he has hit some very shakey spots that may have even shaken his beleifs. On another note just want to say that as the story progresses, looking for props in the game that have something to do with the characters dialouge is rewarding. One instance of this is when your entity goes on about his kidney stones. If you enter the first shack on the hill that you are ascending at this point you would find many surgical items used for kidney surgery on the ground at the far end.


Now for my opinion.
I absolutley loved the game and found the graphics and music amazing. The story was confusing the first time through but, it comes together quite well after the second playthrough and while not being a crazy epic tale or something like that, it helps convey the feelings present in the game and also as I said before has some affiliated set pieces lying around the island.

[CrossroadsWanderer]

Car Bomb Orchestra a écrit :

Am I the only one who saw the reacurring theme of life from god or life from random chemistry or other means. As you explore the game there are multiple instances where you find the bible and chemistry books along with the occasional greek god book and the chemistry is even partnered up with the genetic make up of carbon scribbled on some walls. In the first main cave you can also see a process in the drwaings on the walls. First is carbon. then a micro organisim such as a cell or simple life, then a bridge between a cell and a tree as roots are evident in the new structure in this cave painting, Last is a big old tree just drawn right there for you.

Sorry if it's being a bit nit-picky, but I'm a chemist who's taken some neuroscience, and the carbon structure that you were referring to is actually the chemical structure of ethanol, which is the alcohol humans use for consumption. There is one other chemical structure that shows up a few times as well, which I was not immediately familiar with, but I believe I read from someone on the forum here that it is the structure of a particular painkiller.

The "organism" that you were talking about is a neuron. The "tree" is another type of neuron. Neurons have structures that look a bit like tree branches, called "dendrites", that connect them to other neurons. Some neurons only branch out in one direction, which is the basic "organism"-shaped one, while some branch in two or more directions. The one that I would guess you thought was a tree was a neuron that branches out in two directions.

Outside of my field of knowledge, there were also apparently electrical diagrams scattered about. I didn't recognize them or understand what they were until one of his narrative pieces toward the end mentioned electrical diagrams. I couldn't give you any interpretation for what those were electrical diagrams of.

[Skoppter]

Hey if I was wrong correct me by all means. If the structure there has to do with alchohal it ties into the story still do to the car accident and drunk driving thing that he mentions. What you say about the neurons also ties into the story somewhat so now it all makes a bit more sense.

[Willy A. Jeep]

Imperial Dinosaur Armada a écrit :

Hey if I was wrong correct me by all means. If the structure there has to do with alchohal it ties into the story still do to the car accident and drunk driving thing that he mentions. What you say about the neurons also ties into the story somewhat so now it all makes a bit more sense.

It's also interesting to note how ester(s), a group of fatty acids used in artificial odors and found in a number of plants, sounds like Esther. Now, think, wasn't there speak of antacid yogurt in the game? And Paul was one of the people working on this yogurt, and is credited as the drunk driver? Also, ester is often derived from alcohol. It's amazing how in-depth this game goes with it's story, especially into chemistry and engineering.