United StatesA Video Game About Private Conversations An investigative thriller game with non-linear storytelling, Telling Lies revolves around a cache of secretly recorded video conversations. Starring Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé, Angela Sarafyan and directed by Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. How does it work? Telling Lies sits you in front of an anonymous laptop loaded with a stolen NSA database full of footage. The footage covers two years in the intimate lives of four people whose stories are linked by a shocking incident. Explore the database by typing search terms, watch the clips where those words are spoken and piece together your story. Unlike anything you've played before, Telling Lies is an intimate and intense experience. A game where you decide the truth.
Very problematic and disappointing
It was definitely a mistake to make us listen to each side of video conversation separately. It means half of the time I get bored by looking at the actor just staring into the camera, and when they talk, I still get frustrated, because it means I'd have to watch equally lenghty awkward pause in another half. It should be a normal dialog. Also, scrolling mechanism is terrible. You search for a term, find a video where it's mentioned at the end, spend a minute scrolling back to the beginning, then spend another ten to fifteen seconds scrolling forward until the character finally starts talking. At least there should be a way to quickly jump to the beginning of the video. Combined with the most important character being extremely unsympathetic almost from the beginning, and only going downhill from there, there isn't much to really enjoy.
United StatesNot really playable
The game is good, and I had this game on my PC as well. On the mobile version, however, I can’t really rewind the videos very well. It’s possible, but slow and tedious. I’ll attempt it again and maybe come on here and change my review. There might be something I’m missing. If I’m not, then it’s really disappointing, because the game itself is really good. As far as I can see, it’s only a mobile version issue with game mechanics.
United StatesEngrossing
This game really sucked me in. It’s been a long time since I stayed up too late playing a game, but I really came to want to know about the characters and unravel the mystery.
United Statesjewish erasure in a game that focuses on neo-nazis. again.
i was having an okay type playing - i'm a big fan of games like her story and simulacra - i kind of noticed something in the game that has become extremely prevalent in the media today. nazis and anti-nazis are only portrayed as hating people darker than them. there is not a single jewish character. nothing about origins of the movement, the lack of mentioning who they targeted; the media is erasing jewish history and this game is just another one of those "the nazis are back guys" stories that once again avoids the targeted group nazis then and the ones today want to eradicate. have we forgotten "jews will not replace us"? that chant from a bunch of white supremacists holding tiki torches? stop trying to erase our names and the torture we still face by these people to capitalize on a movement that hasn't abandoned us, but only because we should just "stay in our lane" as if they don't know the impact and irony of those words. and this is everywhere i go. my brothers don't have white privilege when they don their yarmulkes, hold their tefillin, or wear tzitzit. it should be a known fact that we've already gone through multiple instances where we have been told to "just pretend you're not jewish". that sentiment killed has led to massacres and yet is still peddled today, only with the added "because you're not the main target so stay in your lane" line to sound more socially aware. jews aren't white to nazis. even good ol' modern day skinheads don't see jews as white. they think we're the puppeteers behind anti-racist groups, manipulating minorities into joining our alleged "cause". you could have worked with that. you could have called that out. but you didn't. you made a game that involves someone fighting nazis and forgot to mention who their main target still is. and it hurts.
United StatesFrustrating because you can tell what it could have been if not abandoned immediately
Like everyone else reviewing the game I really wanted to love this. And the pieces of a great game are here - the video and acting is excellent (though the main character way over uses his eyebrows and no director told him to tone it down). The previous game by Sam Barlow (Her Story) was great despite some frustrating aspects in how you play. For Telling Lies, they decided to double down on making the experience frustrating. Some of this could be attributed to an artistic choice but there are inexcusable UI choices that should never have shipped. The biggest is watching videos - which is what you spend almost all your time doing. Controls are absurdly slow (ff/rewind) and there is no way to jump to the beginning of a clip. Yes there are a couple times this leads to an interesting discovery while you’re rewinding which is cool. Not worth making the remaining 99% of the game a miserable slog for, though. Same with having to match up two halves of conversations - again it can make some interesting experiences but is so frustrating without reward most of the time. And many clips are obviously made to make it easy to find the other half (a very obvious unique word or phrase, or telling a joke where the premise is repeated, etc) which makes it feel even more of a gimmick. It hits even more when, later in the game you see other types of recorded video where you see the whole thing in one clip. It just makes it more obvious how much time the format wastes needlessly and without reward. Fixing this to be amazing wouldn’t be hard: fix video player controls and allow easier seeking/scrubbing. Another nice feature would be to let the player watch both sides of the conversation at once, if they have discovered both the clips. (I feel like there is missing connective tissue between the various threads of the story but I might just not have found the right clips.)
United StatesI’ll just try a little...
So I downloaded on my iPad (large file for videos I’m sure) at 11:00 at night “just to try it out.” Four hours later! Fun to try and match videos. I think I’ve got the overall story figured out, but still fun to see the “filler” videos. First challenge was trying to determine what was the first and the last video. Problem: no sound on my iPhone8, but experience is better on iPad.
United StatesMagnificent
As I mentioned in metacritic before there are so many advantages for this game Sam Barlow is a master of story tellings and I really wanna see this man working on the Silent Hill franchises again and the acting and the atmosphere of this game is cosy and has a relaxed ambiance with dark materials .
United States
Thank you for playing Telling Lies! This version includes key bug fixes, including enhanced input for Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
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