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Genre - Modern fantasy, Time travel
These days a good story can come in all sorts of forms. Rather than watching summer replacements on TV I'd like to recommend following the unfolding of Life is Strange on YouTube. It is technically a story in form of a game. You can hunt it down and play it for yourself. But as an enjoyable story that's really not necessary. Below the cut are three different versions of the opening of the same story as played out by three different young women. But we'll get to them later.
I think any of you Buffy fans would find the story engrossing. It starts out as a fairly mild high school drama, but builds into a very thought provoking story with a lot of very serious twists and turns. Personally I have trouble with time travel stories when the authors fail to take the consequences both seriously and logically. That can make me very angry. Good time travel stories tend to be very deep and make time travel a central theme. Bad ones just use it as a vehicle for whatever silly alternate history story they want to tell, regardless of how much damage that might cause to the rest of the world. Life is Strange deals with serious issues, the consequences of our actions for better and worse, and does it in a way that makes perfect sense, even if the details of what is going on can be baffling, as should sometimes happen in a great story.
Below the cut is the opening as played by
1. Hannah Rutherford of Yogcast
2. Kim Richards also from Yogscast
3. Brooke Lawson, better known as Dodger on her PressHeartToContinue channel
I strongly suggest that instead of watching any of them through, watch five full minutes of each but not much more than ten and see whose style you like best before continuing. I've been watching all of them, but being retired I've got the time for that kind of luxury.
All three women play video games of all sorts professionally on YouTube and have excellent voices for narration. Hannah and Kim are friends who frequently cooperate in making joint videos. Brooke has met the other two. Hannah appeared on a episode of one Brooke's shows, and Kim had a regular show with Brooke's English boyfriend before he moved to the States. They all have a love of games of many types, and similar yet very distinct personalities and interests. Since choices and thoroughness in the game are very important to the way Life is Strange plays out, each of the play-throughs is distinctly different in tone and detail. Hannah is English and is kind of the Tom Boy of the group in her choice of games to play for her fans, preferring rough and tumble games with lots of action and fighting. Kim is half English and half Malaysian and loves horror games most for her channel. Dodger is American and for her channel likes playing girly-girly romance games in such an entertaining way that just about anybody can enjoy them. Hannah can be quite formal, and then slide into adorable silliness when it's appropriate. Some parts of the game are very serious and she takes those parts extremely seriously. Being of mixed race, Kim knows about the school bullying theme in the game from all too personal experience. Her accent, as she admits, is all over the place. It might best be described as vaguely British with her 'r's pronounced as if she were American. Her voice is higher pitched than the other two, but it is very smooth and silky and easy to listen to. Brooke had acting training and is the voice actor of the three. Brooke is from Oregon, the setting of the game, which makes it particularly special for her. So each of the women brings her own flavor to the story. On the minus side for each, Hannah can be a bit stodgy, Kim can get badly sidetracked with aspects of American culture she doesn't like/understand, and Brooke's play-through can seem a bit rushed (due to her editing style) compared to the others. I could recommend any of them. But don't expect 100% satisfaction in any of them compared to how you might play the game. Also Brooke had a cold when recording her first episode, but don't hold that against her.
( The videos )
These days a good story can come in all sorts of forms. Rather than watching summer replacements on TV I'd like to recommend following the unfolding of Life is Strange on YouTube. It is technically a story in form of a game. You can hunt it down and play it for yourself. But as an enjoyable story that's really not necessary. Below the cut are three different versions of the opening of the same story as played out by three different young women. But we'll get to them later.
I think any of you Buffy fans would find the story engrossing. It starts out as a fairly mild high school drama, but builds into a very thought provoking story with a lot of very serious twists and turns. Personally I have trouble with time travel stories when the authors fail to take the consequences both seriously and logically. That can make me very angry. Good time travel stories tend to be very deep and make time travel a central theme. Bad ones just use it as a vehicle for whatever silly alternate history story they want to tell, regardless of how much damage that might cause to the rest of the world. Life is Strange deals with serious issues, the consequences of our actions for better and worse, and does it in a way that makes perfect sense, even if the details of what is going on can be baffling, as should sometimes happen in a great story.
Below the cut is the opening as played by
1. Hannah Rutherford of Yogcast
2. Kim Richards also from Yogscast
3. Brooke Lawson, better known as Dodger on her PressHeartToContinue channel
I strongly suggest that instead of watching any of them through, watch five full minutes of each but not much more than ten and see whose style you like best before continuing. I've been watching all of them, but being retired I've got the time for that kind of luxury.
All three women play video games of all sorts professionally on YouTube and have excellent voices for narration. Hannah and Kim are friends who frequently cooperate in making joint videos. Brooke has met the other two. Hannah appeared on a episode of one Brooke's shows, and Kim had a regular show with Brooke's English boyfriend before he moved to the States. They all have a love of games of many types, and similar yet very distinct personalities and interests. Since choices and thoroughness in the game are very important to the way Life is Strange plays out, each of the play-throughs is distinctly different in tone and detail. Hannah is English and is kind of the Tom Boy of the group in her choice of games to play for her fans, preferring rough and tumble games with lots of action and fighting. Kim is half English and half Malaysian and loves horror games most for her channel. Dodger is American and for her channel likes playing girly-girly romance games in such an entertaining way that just about anybody can enjoy them. Hannah can be quite formal, and then slide into adorable silliness when it's appropriate. Some parts of the game are very serious and she takes those parts extremely seriously. Being of mixed race, Kim knows about the school bullying theme in the game from all too personal experience. Her accent, as she admits, is all over the place. It might best be described as vaguely British with her 'r's pronounced as if she were American. Her voice is higher pitched than the other two, but it is very smooth and silky and easy to listen to. Brooke had acting training and is the voice actor of the three. Brooke is from Oregon, the setting of the game, which makes it particularly special for her. So each of the women brings her own flavor to the story. On the minus side for each, Hannah can be a bit stodgy, Kim can get badly sidetracked with aspects of American culture she doesn't like/understand, and Brooke's play-through can seem a bit rushed (due to her editing style) compared to the others. I could recommend any of them. But don't expect 100% satisfaction in any of them compared to how you might play the game. Also Brooke had a cold when recording her first episode, but don't hold that against her.
( The videos )