Her Story

 PC
User Score
6.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 486 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 234 out of 486
  2. Mixed: 121 out of 486
  3. Negative: 131 out of 486

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  1. TenchuuKhan
    Jun 28, 2015
    4
    Being into unconventional games, this one caught my attention, and it sounded promising enough.
    But it doesn't work out very well.
    Here's what you basically do in the game: You are in front of a computer (in-game) and you have to search a database for keywords for which you then receive the first 5 matches. The clips are all about the same murder case, showing the answers the suspect    Being into unconventional games, this one caught my attention, and it sounded promising enough.
    But it doesn't work out very well.

    Here's what you basically do in the game:
    You are in front of a computer (in-game) and you have to search a database for keywords for which you then receive the first 5 matches.
    The clips are all about the same murder case, showing the answers the suspect has given throughout the interrogations over a few days.

    Additionally you have a DB Checker tool that displays the position of the last played clip. This way you can put it easier in order and even assign it a positional number.

    Now, I guess the idea is that you hear about new keywords in the clips, and then you search on with them so you get the complete interrogation. But that's not how it works.
    After bruting for 5 hours I noticed a major flaw there with which you can just cheat through the game really (I'll mention that one at the bottom again).

    The Story itself
    Storytelling is good and it probably wouldn't work too well if you just watched it in chronological order. But even then it would still be a good story.
    The issue is, the storytelling doesn't work at all if you spoiler ahead by accident really because you find a clip which is set on the last day.

    So really, it doesn't work either way.

    Now, your best bet in my opinion is to not play the game at all. The gameplay is crap anyway, it's just a time waster at best. Just watch a longplay on Youtube instead.
    OR - there's a flaw in the game that let's you get the clips in chronological order easily. Just reset the whole thing, search for blank. That gives you the first 5 clips because that's the default keyword.
    Change that keywords to 1,2,3,4,5 - search for blank again. Keep on going with 6,7,8 - you get the idea.

    Bottom line. Nice story, **** game. They **** it up big time.
    The game could work, I'm convinced. But not this way.    … Expand
  2. Tubey
    Jun 29, 2015
    4
    This is what I call "Polygon Bait" - as in a game with an interesting idea of the type that particular review site loves to laud as 'artistic', but in reality it is, at best and being very generous, average in its' execution and, crucially, not very fun as an actual video game. Mostly because it's not a video game, but we'll come to that later.

    Her Story is exactly the above, I give it    This is what I call "Polygon Bait" - as in a game with an interesting idea of the type that particular review site loves to laud as 'artistic', but in reality it is, at best and being very generous, average in its' execution and, crucially, not very fun as an actual video game. Mostly because it's not a video game, but we'll come to that later.

    Her Story is exactly the above, I give it extra credit for the cheap price point I purchased it at, and to be fair this isn't the worst game in the world - but the problem is that its' concept wears thin extremely quickly and devolves into repetition. The story is the strongpoint of the title, and easily excels beyond other "Polygon Bait" titles such as the atrocious Gone Home, but everything this game has to offer can be enjoyed exactly the same way by watching a playthrough on YouTube.

    There's no incentive to play the game yourself. It is more of an interactive movie than even the likes of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. That's not a bad thing exactly, as some people like those types of things, but I'd really like to begin to see these titles labelled clearly for what they are and not reviewed on a par with actual video games. If that makes me sound elitist or whatever, then so be it, but there has to be a distinction between various media, the same way there's a distinction between television and books. They are two different things.

    So yeah, an interesting but half-cooked interactive movie concept. If you have money to burn, get it on the cheap, but you are not missing out on anything revolutionary here. I'm waiting for the first truly revolutionary title of this type; this isn't it.    … Expand
  3. jcasetnl
    Sep 5, 2015
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Indie Game Success Formula:

    1. Dig out 20 - 40-year old videogame mechanic (FMV, text-based game, 2D, etc) and execute it as bare-bones as possible.

    2. Be deliberately "un-game". You don't want people to figure out that you tried and failed to create an innovative gameplay mechanic, so don't even try. Deliberately leave anything game-like out. You are artistic and avant-garde. If people complain, simply shake your head in pity and say, "You just don't get it, and that's your problem." Imply they're close-minded and incapable of considering what games might be if they simply let go of the "traditional gaming stereotypes".

    3. Attach pseudo-mature story that will only impress gamers under 25, but come off laughably immature and naive to anyone older. Again, when others point out the obvious plot holes, terrible pacing, weak characters, ham-fisted moralizing and 4th-grade editing, shake your head piteously at their sad inability to grasp "art".

    4. For tons of extra metacritic points, include some kind of social cause: depression, inequality, race, etc. No reviewer will criticize your work because "how dare they! Racism!" or because "Media that challenges social blah blah deserves a voice regardless of quality."

    5. Profit.    … Expand
  4. PunkRock32112
    Jul 5, 2015
    0
    I guess if you like watching low def video and mediocre quality cspan video then this is the game for you, as far as any gamplay mechanics that you find in any games traditional to digital, it doesn't have any, I understand the move for game journalist and emo indie desperate artist to feel relevant, but this is a combination of just pure laziness on the developers part and just stupidityI guess if you like watching low def video and mediocre quality cspan video then this is the game for you, as far as any gamplay mechanics that you find in any games traditional to digital, it doesn't have any, I understand the move for game journalist and emo indie desperate artist to feel relevant, but this is a combination of just pure laziness on the developers part and just stupidity from the game reviewers who credibility should be questioned, if you thought gone home was a stupid and pointless game then this is its spiritual successor.… Expand
  5. frumps
    Jun 25, 2015
    0
    This is not a game. It is an interactive movie trying to sell itself as a game. It is a gimmick to sell to people who don't play video games or don't know what a video game is. Just like "Sunset", which had glowing reviews from game "journaists", this "game" won't resonate with most gamers. If you enjoy crime fiction and believe a single actress will be enough to entertain you in thisThis is not a game. It is an interactive movie trying to sell itself as a game. It is a gimmick to sell to people who don't play video games or don't know what a video game is. Just like "Sunset", which had glowing reviews from game "journaists", this "game" won't resonate with most gamers. If you enjoy crime fiction and believe a single actress will be enough to entertain you in this in this low-budget interactive movie, then you might enjoy Her Story.

    If you are wondering if this fits the definition of a game or not, just ask yourself what the replay value is of a murder mystery might be when you already know who done it. Also, is it fun? Sure, it might be, but don't expect it to last longer than your average film.    … Expand
  6. JohnLocke3000
    Jul 5, 2015
    0
    Wether you call this a interactive movie or a game it fails at both. There are good interactive Novels and Movies out there, this isn't one of them. If its a game its also horrible at that too, this is like Gone home with no point, poorly written, poorly developed, you know this is a horrible title when Main stream media like the Washington post and Time magazine say its a good game
  7. bigdannyb
    Jun 24, 2015
    10
    Don't care if this fits into peoples definitions of a game it is an entirely irrelevant point - play it if you want and the huge majority that do seem to enjoy it. I play games to be entertained and this engaged me and entertained me more than anything I've picked up in years. Real craft and artistry pushes boundaries and does things others haven't tried before and this does that so veryDon't care if this fits into peoples definitions of a game it is an entirely irrelevant point - play it if you want and the huge majority that do seem to enjoy it. I play games to be entertained and this engaged me and entertained me more than anything I've picked up in years. Real craft and artistry pushes boundaries and does things others haven't tried before and this does that so very wonderfully, it genuinely is something unique and that is so very rare in this world.… Expand
  8. Hobbes
    Jan 23, 2016
    5
    I had heard so many good things about this game and it had been nominated for so many awards so I thought it must have something going for it.

    I jumped in, open minded, but in the end the game just bored me to tears. It is an interesting concept, you search through videos and pick up clues within them to find more videos and within them more clues as the story slowly unravels. The    I had heard so many good things about this game and it had been nominated for so many awards so I thought it must have something going for it.

    I jumped in, open minded, but in the end the game just bored me to tears. It is an interesting concept, you search through videos and pick up clues within them to find more videos and within them more clues as the story slowly unravels. The problem here is, for me at least, the story in itself was not enough to keep me engaged. There were a few interesting tidbits here and there, but in the end nothing that hasn't been done before and nothing that really ever gets you to sit down properly think and remain engaged.

    I believe it would have done much better if it incorporated more mechanics within the and investigation. You found these clues? You have an idea of what this woman did or didn't do? Let me use that on something else other than an endless search for more videos. I'm not really one to usually jump on the "this is not a game" bandwagon, but Her Story is on thin ice.    … Expand
  9. Rem
    Dec 30, 2016
    7
    Her Story breaks the conventional barrier with how unconventional it is. It subverts your expectations of what constitutes a game and might infuriate you, but it is well crafted and commits to its purpose of letting you uncover its story.

    Going into it, I had initial expectations of playing detective and piecing together evidence, which is true to an extent. However this small title    Her Story breaks the conventional barrier with how unconventional it is. It subverts your expectations of what constitutes a game and might infuriate you, but it is well crafted and commits to its purpose of letting you uncover its story.

    Going into it, I had initial expectations of playing detective and piecing together evidence, which is true to an extent. However this small title achieves this by simple watching of short clips as short as a few seconds to a little over a minute. The only "actress" plays a woman being interviewed regarding her husband's death. It's easy to assume who the culprit is, but the meat and backbone of this story rests on the believability of the character and the details that surround the story. It's as simple as typing in keywords you observe and watching the clips that correspond, but it was very interesting and learning most of her motives by the end is a challenge. It's not chronological, but it's designed in a way that it tailors your interest until you pull the curtains and reach a poignant conclusion only described in text.

    Her Story isn't exactly astounding, the actress isn't always spot on in her delivery and because of the total reliance on her performance, it hurts some key story "clips". It's not exactly fun either and can be frustrating when you become stumped at conjuring words to obtain more clips. Some of the clips drag on, and others are insanely short and irrelevant (even to the smaller details that matter) it boggles me as to why they were included. It's definitely under fire by the community for not being a game and this backlash isn't totally unfounded, there isn't anything that resembles game mechanics aside from an othello clone you'll play for one achievement, but Her Story is an engaging experiment that succeeds in what it set out to do. We need more games like Her Story not for the sake of telling a story, but for how it conveys its story to its players, trusting them to piece it together.    … Expand
  10. SegataSanshiro
    Jul 14, 2015
    1
    I tried my best but I cannot enjoy this game whatsoever. The interaction is minimal and the grand revelation is disappointing. Those who said this game is new and innovative are either haven't played FMV games like Phantasmagoria and Night Trap or lying through their teeth.
  11. perydwyn
    Jul 4, 2015
    1
    Lets start by saying that despite what so called journalists are trying to make everyone believe, this is in no way original or new. Interactive 'full motion video' games have existed since the early 1990's and were briefly fashionable then. But then they faded from the public consciousness because they offered very llittle interaction (which is what videogames offer that films do not).Lets start by saying that despite what so called journalists are trying to make everyone believe, this is in no way original or new. Interactive 'full motion video' games have existed since the early 1990's and were briefly fashionable then. But then they faded from the public consciousness because they offered very llittle interaction (which is what videogames offer that films do not). What this 'game' amoounts to is a not very compelling or competent movie masquerading as a game (I think this is because the creators realised that if it were judged as a movie then it would be much harder to claim that it is in any way good). The acting is awful (but unintentionally funny in places), and the breadth of choice on offer is very limited. If you can get it free somehow then it is worth a look just to see why interactive films never really caught on in the first place.… Expand
  12. TitaniumDragon
    Jan 17, 2016
    0
    A FMV “video game”, ultimately Her Story is really nothing more than a movie with a very strange interface. This pretty much points to the primary flaw in Her Story, as the actual story being told by the videos is best viewed sequentially, but the interface of the game makes it so that viewing the videos sequentially is extremely unlikely.

    Hannah is the main character of Her Story, and    A FMV “video game”, ultimately Her Story is really nothing more than a movie with a very strange interface. This pretty much points to the primary flaw in Her Story, as the actual story being told by the videos is best viewed sequentially, but the interface of the game makes it so that viewing the videos sequentially is extremely unlikely.

    Hannah is the main character of Her Story, and indeed, the only one who shows up in the videos. The central conceit of the game is that Hannah was a murder suspect in 1994, and the protagonist is going through an old police database, wherein the videos are sorted by keywords in their transcripts. This sounds like a clever idea, but in practice, it doesn’t really work very well at all; beyond being very confusing, it suffers from the fact that it is entirely possible to search for the wrong keyword and end up stumbling across the game’s central twist five minutes in.

    Unsurprisingly, I did exactly this by simply searching for the most innocuous of the names I had come across first (for the record, it was the name of one of Hannah’s childhood friends). This resulted in me happening across a video which spoiled the game’s central plot twist, and consequently I spent the rest of the game trying to piece together everything else in the hopes of finding another twist, and then failing to find one.

    The net result of the search interface is that you are likely to watch lots of garbage scenes, with odd scenes which are really important thrown in between them. Some of the videos are nothing more than Hannah saying “no”, while others are minute-long monologues explaining crucial plot or character details.

    Worst of all, if you actually watch the videos in order, they follow the standard variances of a plot; the rise and fall of action as the police officers piece things together before Hannah finally explains exactly what is going on in the final interview. As a movie, it makes sense.

    But as a video game, it makes no sense at all.

    It has other flaws as well – as a murder mystery game, one would think that little details would be pretty important, but as it turns out, the people who made the videos didn’t actually pay much attention to time constraints. On many occaisions, something happens – such as a character changing clothing, or taking a ponygraph – which ignores the necessary setup time, with the videos happening too close together in time. At first, I had assumed that these little mistakes was related to the plot twist, but eventually I realized it was simple laziness on the part of the game creators.

    If the plot was actually viewed in order, it might be passable, though the awkward interface of the game still would make it annoying. And if parts had been locked off until you had figured some stuff out, it might have worked. But as-is, the thing is kind of a mess, and while the central idea wasn’t a bad one, the UI and erratic pacing as a result of it being made into a “game” (which it really isn’t any more than searching for stuff on YouTube is a “game”) makes it hard to really get into it properly. It is possible to spoil the entire plot of the game within five minutes, and a lot of the videos end up feeling a lot like filler, especially when viewed out of context.    … Expand
  13. mtRoom
    Aug 8, 2015
    4
    The acting is horrendous. Hard to take the story seriously, unfortunately. I like the approach to the game concept but given that the videos of the girl is the base of the entire story, I can't play it. It feels like I'm back in first-year drama class at high school
  14. EpicKris
    Sep 2, 2015
    1
    Oh God, why? This so called *game* isn't worth your attention. It relies purely on a gimmick and a nostalgia trip. People give it a good score just because they never experienced this *genere* before. There are much better alternatives to this.
  15. Avionn
    Dec 4, 2015
    3
    The actress makes everything absolutely a chore to go through. AND WHY DOES SHE KEEP PLAYING THE GUITAR IT SUCKS. The narrator is frustrating. the interface is frustrating. This game is frustrating.
  16. Much
    Dec 19, 2015
    0
    Just because it is unique, does not make it a good game. Actually, it is so horrible, I used the refund for the first time... I recommend Life Is Strange.
  17. pepelessar
    Jul 16, 2015
    8
    One of the most original games I've ever played. The plot is full of surprises, Easter eggs and symbolism. Nothing seems to be casual and it's all rounded. On the counterpart: it is supposed to be a deduction game but at the end of the day it is just a searching game. If you just go for those words that appear several times in the clips you will get to the end of the story straight away.One of the most original games I've ever played. The plot is full of surprises, Easter eggs and symbolism. Nothing seems to be casual and it's all rounded. On the counterpart: it is supposed to be a deduction game but at the end of the day it is just a searching game. If you just go for those words that appear several times in the clips you will get to the end of the story straight away. Still, you need to put together all the pieces in your mind so that it makes sense. If feels more like an interactive movie than a videogame.… Expand
  18. rkpetersen
    Jul 16, 2015
    6
    Interesting, but the game mechanic of having to using 'word find' to view tiny video clips for clues is very artificial, and not in a good way. Also, the 'ending', if you can call it that, leaves a lot to be desired and will satisfy few.
  19. everin
    Oct 1, 2015
    7
    Tier 2
    + Offers a very engaging and unique story with some fun twists and turns
    + Overall carried well by the main actress, who displays a fair amount of nuance
    ? Pretty weird gameplay that might offer a bit too much freedom in how the player discovers the story
    - Somewhat tedious at times, and many of the clips offer nothing particularly interesting to fill out the experience
  20. aleqhz
    Apr 4, 2021
    0
    This interactive movie is not a game by any means It's dull and boring. The acting is meh. I'd rather just watch a 1 hour long movie then spend time clicking on 30 seconds clips trying to figure out what's this about. The database search that shows only the 5 first entries defies its own purpose.
  21. OrionHamake
    Dec 12, 2015
    0
    This game is horrible, to say the truth, no game this is. It's just an interactive movie with random scenes. Life Is Strange or other games in the same style had gameplay, but this movie is a joke.
  22. 9kcrits
    Jul 1, 2015
    10
    I will admit, up front, that this is only partly a review of Her Story - it is also a description, and brief defense, of emergent gaming.

    But, to begin with, I will focus on Her Story. Her Story is a highly unconventional game, consisting mainly of over 100 clips of live-action video that rarely surpass two minutes in length, and a faux-desktop, (complete with associated computer    I will admit, up front, that this is only partly a review of Her Story - it is also a description, and brief defense, of emergent gaming.

    But, to begin with, I will focus on Her Story. Her Story is a highly unconventional game, consisting mainly of over 100 clips of live-action video that rarely surpass two minutes in length, and a faux-desktop, (complete with associated computer programs) that aid the player in parsing these short clips and making sense of them.

    The computer itself is police property, and your character is a "guest" user who is allowed temporary access to this dearth of recently-recovered clips, long lost in the shuffle and thrown into disarray after Y2K.
    As a result it falls to you, the player, to sift through these clips by keyword instead of chronologically. This is done with the use of a police search engine that will pull up clips in which the keywords you type are mentioned at least once - but the catch is that you can only view the first five clips to contain this keyword.

    It is immediately apparent that the clips all seem to focus on the deposition of one woman, broken up into several different interview sessions which are further broken up into clips in accordance with what line of inquiry she happens to be responding to. You never hear the questions; indeed, you never hear anyone speak in these clips but her. So you're left to piece together the events of a cold case from the 90's using only this woman's aged and disordered testimony.

    Most of what you'll be doing in Her Story is watching clips, getting ideas for new keywords and/or keyword combinations to search from her testimony, and using them to uncover new clips that offer more insight into the case. This is not "fun" in the conventional sense. At first it's not even interesting. But as you stick with it, finding more and more oddities and inconsistencies in the clips that you uncover using your own unique logical process, the story begins to develop - and the intrigue begins to build.

    This game requires a lot from the player to be enjoyed. It is NOT for everyone. First, and most importantly, it requires an interest in the game's slowly-unfolding narrative. If you've never played a game just for the story, you probably won't like this one. Secondly, an interest in vaguely pulpy detective stories is almost essential. Slow-burn suspense with shocking emotional payoffs is what this game's story does best, provided you can handle the thin drizzling of cheese that normally accompanies the twists and climaxes of pulp detective stories. Finally, you don't have to enjoy searching keywords, (maybe because it's impossible) but it's helpful to enjoy the feeling of getting better at it. Much like a puzzle, you have to appreciate the feeling of learning your pieces, figuring out how to put them together, and discovering how to properly discern the picture they form when they come together. An ideal player will have sticking points, breakthroughs, and unanswered questions throughout the game, the emotions that go along with their own pursuit of the truth being equally as important as the thrill of revealing the truth itself, and what that truth entails.

    This is the ultimate strength of Her Story; the player's own skill and unique thought patterns define how, and to what extent, the truth of the game's narrative is arrived at. Through making connections and following leads YOUR way, you get a unique perception of the story that is coloured by how it was revealed to you. How long does it take to "solve" the case? When were your preconceptions challenged, and how harshly? What innocuous little keyword suddenly brought you to a treasure trove of information that would have evaded you for hours otherwise? These answers will differ between everyone who plays the game. The gameplay experience is defined by how the player and the game's basic mechanics interact, rather than the mechanics being so prescribed as to dictate how gameplay proceeds throughout. In short, the gameplay is emergent. It relies on the player to define their own experience, and offers little guidance of its own.

    Those who say this is not a game ignore this simple fact. As you play, you determine the challenges you face, and the goals you pursue. You decide what parts of the story are interesting, and what you'll do to discover more about them. Your lack of creativity and cunning will create its own dead-ends. Your tenacity and ability to make connections will form leads that drive you to startling conclusions. The only way to truly make this game NOT a game is to watch it played instead of playing it yourself, for that relegates it to becoming the very linear, authored experience that this beautiful medium works every day to defy. My only advice for an interested party is to play it yourself.

    Because, ultimately, it isn't Her Story; it's yours. She's just the one telling it.    … Expand
  23. Shempler
    Jul 14, 2015
    9
    Beautiful detective narrative experience. Storytelling is fantastic and this is something I'll play more than once. There will always be people that will give this game 0 because it's more of a narrative experience then a game, just like Gone Home.

    I can recommend this, it's a nice experience.
  24. BSim500
    May 10, 2016
    6
    The actress (Viva Seifert) in the video sequences actually gave a fairly decent performance, but here's the problem : Being "unconventional" and "artsy" doesn't automatically make engaging gameplay. You basically sit in front of a "screen" and enter search terms as vague as "yes" and "us" to unravel a murder-mystery. A list of up to 5 matching videos is then brought up to watch in out ofThe actress (Viva Seifert) in the video sequences actually gave a fairly decent performance, but here's the problem : Being "unconventional" and "artsy" doesn't automatically make engaging gameplay. You basically sit in front of a "screen" and enter search terms as vague as "yes" and "us" to unravel a murder-mystery. A list of up to 5 matching videos is then brought up to watch in out of order sequence. This is interesting and different for the first 50 searches at which point you'll have already figured out the plot long in advance of watching all available videos. Then you have a choice to make : spend the other +400x searches in boredom filling in the gaps awaiting a "proper end" that never comes, or "end" early and treat it as a 30-45min game-less "narrative experience" whose "effect" on you is entirely relative...

    At time of writing, the user score is averaging 5.7, and honestly that's not unreasonable. The acting is well done, and plot fairly interesting so it doesn't deserve a zero, but likewise if you guess the right search terms early and figure out the plot fairly quickly, there really isn't much "game" there at any stage regardless of "narration".    … Expand
  25. Smoddo
    Aug 30, 2015
    6
    It's okay, I quickly searched some key words that revealed most of the story to me fairly early on, leaving quite alot of videos and info I didn't really need to follow up on, It'd be better if you were fully investigating her to, checking out stories etc
  26. tsakiym
    Nov 17, 2015
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. i like the way that game goes. sit with my girl..play..writing all the evidence that we have (14 papers)..
    but when the game ended i had so many questions.. nothing that we wrote has anything to do with this story.
    ok we all understated she was bipolar or she has a twin but.. this story doesn't make scene at any angle that Im looking it. still i believe it was a good game but hope for same games with better stories.    … Expand
  27. beardi
    Feb 4, 2016
    9
    Amazed by it. I totally felt like a detective trying to solve a case. It has been a great experience, it felt almost real. A puzzle that step by step shows the whole picture. You must try it!
  28. cardo123
    Mar 5, 2016
    6
    Her Story involves you in a deep investigation experience, but it's concept could have been deeper and it's story a lot better. It's a good idea to star reconsidering the genre, but it has a lot of mistakes to correct.
  29. HSPLazerz
    Jun 27, 2015
    10
    One of the most interesting, thoughtful, and well designed games in recent memory. It reminds me a whole lot of Gone Home, with how the entire story is first presented to you in a way that makes you think something completely different is happening from what actually is, and then you explore this very human story and find out what's going on in actuality. I won't spoil even the slightestOne of the most interesting, thoughtful, and well designed games in recent memory. It reminds me a whole lot of Gone Home, with how the entire story is first presented to you in a way that makes you think something completely different is happening from what actually is, and then you explore this very human story and find out what's going on in actuality. I won't spoil even the slightest of info about it because it's important that you do find out about it yourself.

    As you search through a police database to find out what's happened, you yourself start to piece this all together. And the game somehow, just somehow has designed this search function so perfectly, and has really connected it so well with how you might think about it all and piece it all together, but it has't made it linear and into a specific way where you will find out about what's going on. Actually, this is a whole lot free than Gone Home, as Gone Home behind the scenes puts you on a pathway to how you find out about it all, albeit it still does give the player their own thoughts about it, Her Story is a whole lot more just, open, and free. You might end this game without even having found out at all about what's going on and just being overwhelmed with the 271 clips the game puts on here. It doesn't show nor present, just, puts it there for you to explore yourself. The game is also realistic as hell, with both the fact that the game doesn't ever just "end" for you or "begin" persay, it just is what it is simply and goes on without ever doing some cheesy end cutscene that explains everything, it just doesn't give a **** just like life. Not only that, but the presentation is very authentic. It just feels right with that computer interface that then leads to the oh so well acted clips. Now, here, there is no overacting, not one bit. In fact, there might be so little of it that it might be considered bad acting. Except it isn't. This is probably exactly how a person would be in a situation like this, and people are different to, this woman, I mean you might begin with thinking she's the murderer or if the man is even gone at all, and at the end you question her mere sanity at this point and is it her fault really, etc.

    Now albeit the game doesn't have an ending nor a beginning exactly, it does though have the amazing design that it has and does motivate you to go on and to feel a real sense of progression as somehow, these audio and visual ques that really makes sense at the end but really creep you out at the beginning, which further emphasises the brutal truth of just, life, with how it doesn't give a **** n' all, but also makes you feel like you are progressing, and not only that, it almost always was perfectly adapted to when I came to a revelation if you will about it. And the little of an ending it gives you is just such a perfect cap to it all that it's just straight up genius. And even after I was done I was so into this story that I just needed to find the last 20 clips that I hadn't found and I actually ended up finding every single clip there is.

    Now the story (that I will not spoil for you) is less relatble despite how human it is, and is more interesting because of what it just simply is, and because of the fact that it is less relatble it is indeed not THAT emotional as say, The Walking Dead or Gone Home which are truly much more relatble and personal stories. But this one has an interesting aspect to it that's sky high and there is still some emotions, that's for sure.

    Now for all of you who think this isn't a game: This game is for mature and thoughtful people, so obviously you don't fit in to this category. It is still a game despite of that though, and just because it's not for you doesn't make it a bad game. In fact, even if you think it's a bad game it is still a game. Everything that has any form of interaction and is distibuted like a game, I consider as games and as such I will judge it as one. And this one I judge as one of the best games I've played in recent memory, and one of the most interesting of all time. If you're skeptical, get it at least on a sale and I assure you you will not regret it. Well, unless you're one of those people who don't get game design, who don't have any emotions or interest beyond your average stereotypical Call of Duty player, and who has the dumb idea that if it doesn't have WASD controls, if you can't aim a gun, or if the game has any emotional or interesting qualities, especially game design ways, then it isn't a game. So, so sad that people like that just can't stay within their own strict convention of what a game is and just keep sitting there with your Call of Duties (despite me enjoying those games honestly but they ONLY enjoy these :P) or BioShocks and pretend that you're smart because of its ending, etc. Just don't even bother with these geniuses of games because they are beyond your capability of emotions, interest, thoughts, etc.

    Basically: Get this game.    … Expand
  30. Storm1672
    Aug 17, 2015
    6
    This is an incredible idea for a game executed... ok. The story is good and you find out the pieces of the puzzle in a kind of random way (if you wish to play that way). If you try to really investigate, you still just try some words and see if anything comes up. Two hours in, you will figure out what's going on, which was quite great when you do, but despite what the dev says, there areThis is an incredible idea for a game executed... ok. The story is good and you find out the pieces of the puzzle in a kind of random way (if you wish to play that way). If you try to really investigate, you still just try some words and see if anything comes up. Two hours in, you will figure out what's going on, which was quite great when you do, but despite what the dev says, there are indeed 2-3 "golden" clips that explain everything.

    Beyond that, the option to see every clip in order unfortunately is missing, which is quite odd.

    There is some ending and credits rolling, despite what some people say, so you do get a kind of closure. You can also try to find all of the clips, but that's just tedious.

    All in all, kudos for the excellent concept, which overall works quite well.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

14
#14 Best PC Game of 2015
40
#40 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
55
#55 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 50 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 47 out of 50
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 50
  3. Negative: 1 out of 50
  1. RPG Fan
    Jul 13, 2020
    86
    If you are on the hunt for a traditional adventure game, you may want to look elsewhere. But if you want one of the best live-action performances in video game history, a fabulous presentation, and an intriguing mystery to unravel, Her Story deserves your time!
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  2. SpazioGames
    Oct 21, 2015
    85
    Brilliantly fragmented, avant-garde, and quite compelling, Her Story is an innovative adventure that we utterly recommend. A well written, well acted, and well thought game.
    Read full review
  3. CD-Action
    Sep 18, 2015
    55
    Her Story met with extremely different reactions among our staff (from “this trivial babble makes no sense at all” to “the story captivated me and is still in my head”). [09/2015, p.49]
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