Developer: DONTNOD
PS4 Review
When I see a sale on the PlayStation store I usually HAVE to buy something and Twin Mirror was on sale for £2.49 so I took a bite so I could stream it on my Twitch channel. The only thing I knew about this game was my choices choose my ending, like many other games similar to this it had some sort of exploration but it was limited pushing me in the direction I needed to go in without ruining what was to come. I don't know how I had never heard of it before or why when it came out on 2020, usually I would be hot on the heals for an episodic thriller like Twin Mirror.
The story is set around a man called Sam Higgs who players play solely as. it's another one of them games where you return to a place from your past but things start to go wrong from the minute you step foot there, you knew going back wouldn't be a great idea yet here you are saying goodbye to your friend Nick after his untimely death. He never actually turns up which is quite sad especially when they were such old friends. This isn't the first time Sams behaviour makes no sense, in fact things get even more stranger the more you progress, Sam starts a bar fight which only lands him in hotter water if I'm honest, if I returned back to a place from my past the last thing I would want is to draw attention to myself.
Players meet several kinds of towns people, it will help Sam unravel what really happened to his friend and who is really responsible for his death. Sam isn't alone in his own mind though, mentally he seems a bit unhinged talking to someone who isn't there, who is this person? He is called The Double and a representation of Sam himself, he is his inner voice that guides him in different directions, these could either be good or bad but ultimately the choice comes down to you as a player, after hearing what The Double has to say you make the next move.
Sam's dialogue goes hand in hand with how his relationship with certain characters turn out, I always try a kinder approach in games on my first play through and then go down the route of being a meany for the next gameplay. Sam seems a lot more interesting than they portray him as, I felt we was lacking in knowing more about him, given we see that he has pissed a lot of people off by writing a negative article on the mining conditions in Basswood and it later lead to the the mine closing down and townsfolk losing their jobs, this is why so many people in the town hate him but other than that they kept a lot of what he has been through/ going through vague.
We don't know much about The Double until further on in the game, it helps make sense of why this random man is there, DONTNOD certainly have a way with drip feeding stories, this may be one of their weaker games but it still in line with what they're known for, making choices and dealing with consequences is their speciality, I'm glad they stuck with this otherwise without including The Double the game would be Sam personality wouldn't be as interesting anymore. DONTNOD have made it possible for players to restart from a scene or play in collectible mode much like their other games, this was super handy because I forgot to take scene captures for this post!
The Double indicates that Sam is struggling more than he lets on. At the same time his mind is able to do incredible things, stepping through the twists and turns which the game called The Mind Place was weird, it's full of geometric shapes, filled with a much darker atmosphere to the real world, it must feel pretty exhausting having to choose what may be the best option to go with and battling with his own mind. At times I felt as if I was missing something, certain movements I would have to do wouldn't click with me but somehow I still managed to progress further, within the menu there is an option to see what certain prompts meant, it was especially a big help within The Mind Place. However, Twin Mirror was clever at showing how confusing it can be in the mind of someone who has experienced some sort of trauma or going through a lot in their life.
Twin Mirror is more than a murder mystery, it's meant to be a psychological mystery thriller, this is a man in turmoil, making promises to people he may not be able to keep whilst facing his own demons and we as players get to watch and see just how dark and confusing his mind gets. How does he know what's real and what isn't real? He is just about able to focus on what's going on around him. On top of that I couldn't decide whether The Double had good intentions or not, I was as conflicted as Sam the whole way through my game play and unfortunately did get bored at times as did my stream watchers but we pushed through, we didn't want to leave the story unfinished.
Twin Mirror has 4 endings from what I've read which are decided in the last few chapters of the game, exploration games with several endings are my go to games usually and most of the time I find them enjoyable, I felt like Twin Mirror was lacking slightly and at times it didn't really make sense until the very end, due to it being so short it didn't delve into the story as deep as I thought it would, I was happy with the ending I got though. There is a lot more I could go into detail about, this would ruin the game and give away too much otherwise I would. the game is quite short, I have no issue with this as there wasn't really much else to say once I got my ending, perhaps a DLC based solely around the Double could have worked. Is it worth playing? Yeah, I don't see why not, it's a nice little time filler.
Have a cosy day
↞༶↠
Comments
Any hate will not be published.