9. Life is Strange

Life is Strange is a tale of teenage friends Max and Chloe, an episodic adventure game in the vein of Telltale’s The Walking Dead. Like in Telltale’s critically-acclaimed game, Life is Strange puts emphasis on player choice and the resulting consequences, which is made more interesting by the fact protagonist Max is able to rewind time and choose a different course of action in any given scene.

And Max’s time-rewinding ability also came in handy when solving the game’s puzzles, but those were clearly not the main course in a game that focused more on character’s emotions, story and player choice. Some of the dialog felt a bit out of place (like the use of the word “hella”, as if it were a teenage custom) and the “end of the world” side plot related to weird happenings in Max’s town of Arcadia Bay was a bit nonsensical. Nonetheless, Life is Strange was still a beautiful, thought-provoking and emotional adventure game, and one of the year’s best.

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