Immortality Review - techtodown

In 2015, Sam Barlow launched Her Story, an interactive movie that played like a modern-day take on the FMV games from the 80s and 90s. With 2019's Telling Lies and the recent release of Immortality, Barlow has built upon what he established with Her Story.

In this trailer, we see how a ragtag group of youngsters in the future breaks into an abandoned theater to discover Marissa Marcel's long-lost home movie collection.

The goal of the game Immortality is to investigate and find out what happened to Marissa Marcel by watching HER old video footage for any hints or clues.

Although it is more interactive than Barlow's earlier titles, Immortality is still an interactive movie rather than a video game. InImmortality, unlike in its predecessor Her Story, players progress by figuring out keywords and searching for them to discover new clips.

Rather than pausing the game, players use Image Mode to bring up a cursor. Clicking on various objects in the scene will transport players to another clip with a similar object. So, for example, if someone playing Immortality clicks on a blue ashtray, they'll see either the same ashtray or one that looks like it in the new clip.

The match-cut mechanic in Immortality is intriguing, and it's pleasantly surprising how few restrictions are placed on the player. Almost anything can be clicked on in a scene, and it will almost always result in the player finding a brand-new clip. players of Immortality will soon find themselves with dozens of clips to check out, classified into three separate eras. Barlow and his team worked hard to capture the feeling of each decade that is present in the film, and it was enjoyable to watch Marissa Marcel's three movies while also getting a glimpse into all of the drama that unfolded both on-screen and off. Only those who are willing to invest the time in watching all the clips will be able to understand the nonlinear story.

Talking about Immortality's narrative will undoubtedly ruin it for anybody who plans on playing it, but it's evident early on that there is more to the tale than what meets the eye regarding Marissa Marcel's disappearance.

Players will need to dedicate hours to sifting through footage, though many will likely move on without uncovering the biggest secrets.

In order to avoid spoiling the game, I won't go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that in Immortality, players can do more than just click on objects; they can also manipulate clips. It's through this manipulation process that players will start uncovering the bigger mystery surrounding the game. The game's opening is Immortality's finest, most memorable moment, and so everyone with an Xbox Game Pass membership should go out of their way to play the title to experience it for themselves. The game would be perfect if not for its one repetitive flaw that quickly takes away the fun once players catch on.

After you understand Immortality's game mechanic, you'll be obsessive about going back to the hundreds of clips and figuring out how to use it in each one. Without this information, it is impossible to understand what is happening in Immortality. Although it isn't the most exciting task, it is essential. The story in the game is brilliant, but players have to work hard to find it. In other words, the plot is so convoluted and the important clips are so well-hidden that many viewers will reach the end of the movie without having any idea what it was even about. All their time sniffing around and they have squat to show for it except feeling bewildered, aggravated, and possibly even a bit uneasy.

Immortality is far more unsettling than Sam Barlow's previous games, with some truly terrifying and frightening incidents. The films' period-accurate cinematography, as well as the game's gimmick, contribute to the feeling of desolation. The feeling of dread hangs over Immortality from the beginning, when Marissa Marcel is talking on a late night talk show, to the very end. Although the atmosphere Barlow and his team have managed to cultivate is great, other areas could be improved.

For example, Immortality's dialogue is clumsy, pompous and often strange. On the other hand, it complements the game's atmosphere nicely. On the other hand, too many ads can become distracting and take players out of the experience. The behind-the-scenes footage is meant to reveal the actual personalities of the characters, but the actors don't appear genuine in these moments because they're saying things no one would say and partly because of their acting. With the exception of the talk show sequences, which are convincing enough that if presented out of context to someone, they would believe they were from a true late night talk show, it's clear that they're all involved, even though they're meant to be themselves. This offends the immersion. The talk show scenes are an exception; despite their artificiality, they are convincing enough that if shown to someone out of context, he or she would believe them to be real late-night television programming.

Finally, one's enjoyment of Immortality is going to be determined entirely by two things: if they enjoy art house films and if they have the patience to wade through over 200 clips of mostly-boring film footage in order to obtain the whole story. Although the narrative is intriguing enough to pique players' interests, regardless of whether they're otherwise bored, gameplay-wise, it doesn't offer much more beyond its one brilliant trick. All of us should strive to achieve immortality through Xbox Game Pass, but we should do so knowing that the game may require a lot of time and effort and not always deliver much in return.