Karth vs Mario vs Sonic » Reviews » Gone Home
View Store Page
View Community Hub
Find More Like This
1 person found this review helpful
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 2.9 hrs on record
Posted: Jan 31, 2014 @ 2:09pm

Let's get this out of the way: Gone Home is an interactive experience, much like The Novelist, The Stanely Parable, and other games of such caliber. Unlike a game like The Stanely Parable, though, Gone Home doesn't have much of a point to its narrative other than being gaming's version of oscar-bait; It's 90% story and 10% playing detective.

The exploration of the game is detailed nicely, with every room filled with scraps of the story for each family member. This is betrayed by the games audio logs from Sam (your sister) who just flat-out explains the reason for notes and such and kills any desire for discovery. Instead, it encourages clicking and examing every object until the next audio log plays. It's disappointing considering the amount of effort put into the detail.

What annoys me about the narrative is that if the same story had been told with a heterosexual couple instead of lesbians, it'd be knocked for cliche romance-novel writing and predictable endings.

Bottom Line: Is Gone Home a good game? Sure, it's worth exactly one playthrough. Is it worth $20? Absolutely not. Wait until a sale or humble bundle for this one. It's 3 hours at its very, very, very most.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
2 Comments
< >
Karth vs Mario vs Sonic Jan 31, 2014 @ 8:02pm 
It's just Romeo and Juliet with two Juliets. All the story does is replace the two battling families with homosexuality; It's a story that's been told many times now.

Perhaps you weren't paying very close attention, because all the exact same story could be told with a boy and girl that the parents didn't want to date. At no point in the story did Sam or Lonnie face persecution for being gay except by their parents (which, trust me, is pretty light for the 90's). If they had been persecuted by more than just the parents (who still had the decency to help her with college and even leave money for her to order food with), then you'd be right.
Vivian, Lady of Dawn and Dusk Jan 31, 2014 @ 4:23pm 
Obtuse comment of the day: "if the same story had been told with a heterosexual couple instead of lesbians, it'd be knocked for cliche romance-novel writing and predictable endings." The same story could NOT have been told about a heterosexual couple, period, and for the same reason, the ending isn't at all predictable. If you don't get that, you weren't paying very close attention. Or to be more charitable, maybe you don't realize how attitudes and policies have changed over the last couple of decades. Sam and Lonnie are facing a dilemma restricted to same-sex couples at that time, and one that would be all but impossible now. (Yay progress!) I will grant you that the developers might have made this clearer for those who don't remember the 1990s, but it's not hard to figure out.